It should have been Humza Yousaf’s big day. Last Tuesday, he was preparing to give his first major speech as SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister. In it, he would spell out his priorities for the nation in what he termed a “fresh start” for the party and, implicitly, for the country too.
Any hope Yousaf might earn some rare positive headlines disappeared at breakfast time. At 8am, two plain clothes police officers arrived in an unmarked car at a large house in leafy, affluent, Eskbank, outside Edinburgh. Fifteen minutes later they escorted a 71-year-old man from the premises and at 8.53am, Police Scotland’s Twitter account announced they had arrested Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh and the SNP’s long-serving treasurer.
The latest arrest in Operation Branchform, the 18 month-long investigation into allegations of SNP financial chicanery, was another hammer blow to a first minister already struggling to impose himself and demonstrate he has what it takes to lead Scotland’s devolved government. Yousaf’s tenure in office has been an almost entirely unmitigated disaster, prompting suggestions that he is, in effect, first minister in name only, at the mercy of events rather than in command of them.
“He is utterly bereft of ideas he can call his own” said an SNP insider. “He is in the eye of a storm which is out of control and he has failed to unite us.”
Yousaf is charged with leading a divided party – just 52 percent of members backed his leadership bid – and a shellshocked nationalist movement still coming to terms with Nicola Sturgeon’s abrupt resignation and bewildered by the maelstrom of calamity that threatens to shipwreck Yousaf’s ministry before it has even properly begun. No wonder the opposition scents blood. “He is like a rabbit caught in the headlights,” said Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader.
Confronted by reporters later on Tuesday morning, Yousaf was forced to deny the SNP is a criminal enterprise before telling them “of course, I’m surprised when one of my colleagues is arrested”. With each development, however, this becomes an increasingly untenable line.
Beattie’s arrest followed that of Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive. Both men were released without charge, pending further investigations. Attention now turns to the third, and most significant, former SNP officer: Sturgeon. Speculation is rampant at Holyrood that the police will wish to interrogate – and quite possibly arrest – the former first minister. If that happens, the fall-out threatens to be spectacular. “People are shiteing it about what happens then,” said a senior SNP MP.
Yousaf has thus far attempted to shield his predecessor from internal and external criticism. “We are far past the time of judging what a woman does based on what happens to her husband,” he said last week, glossing over the awkward reality that in this case husband-and-wife were also chief executive and leader of Scotland’s largest political party.
Even without proof of criminality, questions abound over the management of the party’s finances. It is unclear who knew the details of the purchase of a £100,000 motorhome in January 2021, subsequently parked at Murrell’s mother’s house. There are also questions about £107,000 Murrell loaned to the party later that year, ostensibly to ease a cashflow difficulty.
Yousaf confirmed that, more than 18 months later, not all that money has been repaid. His deputy, Shona Robison, conceded that an unfortunate “culture was allowed to develop” at the top of the party, though she stopped short of blaming Sturgeon, the dominant figure in the party, and her husband for creating this culture of secrecy.
Some nationalists are increasingly angry at what they consider an “over the top” and “heavy handed” police investigation. “It has left a bitter taste in the mouth” said one senior MP, noting that the timing of Beattie’s arrest could hardly have been better scheduled to damage the first minister and his prospects of relaunching his administration after just three weeks in office.
A YouGov poll for The Times reported that support for the SNP has fallen by five points in a month – and by a startling 12 points since last December. The 26 point lead the SNP enjoyed over the Conservatives at the last Holyrood election is now an eight point advantage over an increasingly confident, resurgent, Labour party. Some of Yousaf’s allies console themselves with the thought that, given recent developments, the party’s poll numbers could be even worse. If this is rock bottom, they suggest, recovery is possible.
Others note that support for independence has not declined in tandem with the SNP’s falling level of support. Since independence cannot be delivered without the SNP or in the absence of an SNP-led government, voters who prize the break-up of Britain have nowhere else to go and may be persuaded to return to the fold.
Against that, Yousaf’s personal approval ratings – which were low before he became first minister – continue to decline. The most recent poll found that just nine percent of voters believe Yousaf will be an upgrade on Sturgeon.
Only one in four voters believe the new first minister is “competent” and fewer than one in five consider him a “strong” leader. His approval rating is now minus 25 and even SNP supporters are split on his performance: 32 percent believe he is doing a good job while 28 percent think he is performing badly. “Everyone is talking about how long he will last” said a senior Scottish Labour figure, “and nobody is talking about it in terms of years”.
At first minister’s questions last week Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, mocked Yousaf as “Comical Ali,” – referring to Saddam Hussein’s spokesman who denied American tanks were in Baghdad even as they could be seen on screen behind him – “saying everything is fine while the house burns down behind us”.
Speaking alongside Alex Salmond at a pro-independence dinner in Arbroath on Thursday night, Jim Sillars, a former deputy leader of the SNP, conceded that “For Unionists, it has been Christmas Day every day this past month”. For nationalists, on the other hand, it has been “a daily horror show”.
Salmond himself continues to cast what some senior SNP figures consider a baleful influence over the broader independence movement. To have one former first minister in disgrace is unfortunate; to have two seems worse than problematic. Salmond’s Alba party remains more of an irritant than a threat to the SNP but its mere existence creates space for nationalists disaffected with the SNP to vent their frustrations. What’s more, Salmond can claim a measure of vindication: when Sturgeon succeeded him in 2014, Salmond told Murrell that he should “plan an exit, because it won’t work”. Sturgeon ignored this advice, claiming she was “comfortable there are no issues that arise” from the party being run by a wife-and-husband team. Senior SNP figures view Salmond’s call for an “independence convention” – a kind of rallying of the pro-independence clans – as profoundly – and deliberately – unhelpful intervention.
Even SNP figures sympathetic to the predicament in which Yousaf finds himself – a prisoner of events over which he has little to no control – couch their advice in the broadest, blandest, most generic terms. “Delivery. It’s as simple as that” said Ian Blackford, the party’s former Westminster leader. “And he gets it”.
To that end, Yousaf has quietly ditched or delayed a number of Sturgeon’s more controversial policies – postponing a much-criticised bottle deposit scheme and starting again with a consultation on alcohol advertising – while promising a “reset” with a business community which considered itself ignored by Sturgeon. “He’s already put out some of the trash” said a former adviser, warning that Yousaf needs to “focus and improve the government”.
Time is of the essence as first impressions, once formed, are hard to change. “He needs to act more quickly and, crucially, change the perception that he is week” said another former special adviser who wishes Yousaf to succeed. “There is still time, but not much of it. He needs to be brutal and less sentimental.” This means taking ownership of his own ministry and making “hard decisions” to “decisively ditch the past and old allegiances”.
A consensus is building that unless Yousaf cuts Sturgeon and Murrell clear, he risks being dragged down by his association with the SNP’s ancien regime. That Yousaf was Sturgeon’s chosen successor – the “continuity candidate” – adds a layer of dramatic irony to what would be an extraordinary act of political matricide.
Tomorrow [Monday], Yousaf travels to London where he will meet Rishi Sunak for the first time. It is a grim reflection on his first weeks in office that the British capital now counts as a safer refuge for Scotland’s pro-independence first minister than any city north of the border.
Imagine being the leader of a scandal hit political party, down in the polls, losing credibility and not even having been leader when the party won the last election that gave them an overwhelming mandate to govern?
The last time I posted something like this my post was deleted for being off-topic, but it’s a very real point – which political leader of which political party was the leader when they last won an election?
Answers on a postage stamp please.
Newscorp smells blood in the water, so headlines like this aren’t surprising. If they applied a third of the criticism they did to the SNP to the Tories the Westminster government wouldn’t still be standing.
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[Link without paywall](https://archive.is/kWjbh#selection-827.0-838.0)
It should have been Humza Yousaf’s big day. Last Tuesday, he was preparing to give his first major speech as SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister. In it, he would spell out his priorities for the nation in what he termed a “fresh start” for the party and, implicitly, for the country too.
Any hope Yousaf might earn some rare positive headlines disappeared at breakfast time. At 8am, two plain clothes police officers arrived in an unmarked car at a large house in leafy, affluent, Eskbank, outside Edinburgh. Fifteen minutes later they escorted a 71-year-old man from the premises and at 8.53am, Police Scotland’s Twitter account announced they had arrested Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh and the SNP’s long-serving treasurer.
The latest arrest in Operation Branchform, the 18 month-long investigation into allegations of SNP financial chicanery, was another hammer blow to a first minister already struggling to impose himself and demonstrate he has what it takes to lead Scotland’s devolved government. Yousaf’s tenure in office has been an almost entirely unmitigated disaster, prompting suggestions that he is, in effect, first minister in name only, at the mercy of events rather than in command of them.
“He is utterly bereft of ideas he can call his own” said an SNP insider. “He is in the eye of a storm which is out of control and he has failed to unite us.”
Yousaf is charged with leading a divided party – just 52 percent of members backed his leadership bid – and a shellshocked nationalist movement still coming to terms with Nicola Sturgeon’s abrupt resignation and bewildered by the maelstrom of calamity that threatens to shipwreck Yousaf’s ministry before it has even properly begun. No wonder the opposition scents blood. “He is like a rabbit caught in the headlights,” said Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader.
Confronted by reporters later on Tuesday morning, Yousaf was forced to deny the SNP is a criminal enterprise before telling them “of course, I’m surprised when one of my colleagues is arrested”. With each development, however, this becomes an increasingly untenable line.
Beattie’s arrest followed that of Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive. Both men were released without charge, pending further investigations. Attention now turns to the third, and most significant, former SNP officer: Sturgeon. Speculation is rampant at Holyrood that the police will wish to interrogate – and quite possibly arrest – the former first minister. If that happens, the fall-out threatens to be spectacular. “People are shiteing it about what happens then,” said a senior SNP MP.
Yousaf has thus far attempted to shield his predecessor from internal and external criticism. “We are far past the time of judging what a woman does based on what happens to her husband,” he said last week, glossing over the awkward reality that in this case husband-and-wife were also chief executive and leader of Scotland’s largest political party.
Even without proof of criminality, questions abound over the management of the party’s finances. It is unclear who knew the details of the purchase of a £100,000 motorhome in January 2021, subsequently parked at Murrell’s mother’s house. There are also questions about £107,000 Murrell loaned to the party later that year, ostensibly to ease a cashflow difficulty.
Yousaf confirmed that, more than 18 months later, not all that money has been repaid. His deputy, Shona Robison, conceded that an unfortunate “culture was allowed to develop” at the top of the party, though she stopped short of blaming Sturgeon, the dominant figure in the party, and her husband for creating this culture of secrecy.
Some nationalists are increasingly angry at what they consider an “over the top” and “heavy handed” police investigation. “It has left a bitter taste in the mouth” said one senior MP, noting that the timing of Beattie’s arrest could hardly have been better scheduled to damage the first minister and his prospects of relaunching his administration after just three weeks in office.
A YouGov poll for The Times reported that support for the SNP has fallen by five points in a month – and by a startling 12 points since last December. The 26 point lead the SNP enjoyed over the Conservatives at the last Holyrood election is now an eight point advantage over an increasingly confident, resurgent, Labour party. Some of Yousaf’s allies console themselves with the thought that, given recent developments, the party’s poll numbers could be even worse. If this is rock bottom, they suggest, recovery is possible.
Others note that support for independence has not declined in tandem with the SNP’s falling level of support. Since independence cannot be delivered without the SNP or in the absence of an SNP-led government, voters who prize the break-up of Britain have nowhere else to go and may be persuaded to return to the fold.
Against that, Yousaf’s personal approval ratings – which were low before he became first minister – continue to decline. The most recent poll found that just nine percent of voters believe Yousaf will be an upgrade on Sturgeon.
Only one in four voters believe the new first minister is “competent” and fewer than one in five consider him a “strong” leader. His approval rating is now minus 25 and even SNP supporters are split on his performance: 32 percent believe he is doing a good job while 28 percent think he is performing badly. “Everyone is talking about how long he will last” said a senior Scottish Labour figure, “and nobody is talking about it in terms of years”.
At first minister’s questions last week Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, mocked Yousaf as “Comical Ali,” – referring to Saddam Hussein’s spokesman who denied American tanks were in Baghdad even as they could be seen on screen behind him – “saying everything is fine while the house burns down behind us”.
Speaking alongside Alex Salmond at a pro-independence dinner in Arbroath on Thursday night, Jim Sillars, a former deputy leader of the SNP, conceded that “For Unionists, it has been Christmas Day every day this past month”. For nationalists, on the other hand, it has been “a daily horror show”.
Salmond himself continues to cast what some senior SNP figures consider a baleful influence over the broader independence movement. To have one former first minister in disgrace is unfortunate; to have two seems worse than problematic. Salmond’s Alba party remains more of an irritant than a threat to the SNP but its mere existence creates space for nationalists disaffected with the SNP to vent their frustrations. What’s more, Salmond can claim a measure of vindication: when Sturgeon succeeded him in 2014, Salmond told Murrell that he should “plan an exit, because it won’t work”. Sturgeon ignored this advice, claiming she was “comfortable there are no issues that arise” from the party being run by a wife-and-husband team. Senior SNP figures view Salmond’s call for an “independence convention” – a kind of rallying of the pro-independence clans – as profoundly – and deliberately – unhelpful intervention.
Even SNP figures sympathetic to the predicament in which Yousaf finds himself – a prisoner of events over which he has little to no control – couch their advice in the broadest, blandest, most generic terms. “Delivery. It’s as simple as that” said Ian Blackford, the party’s former Westminster leader. “And he gets it”.
To that end, Yousaf has quietly ditched or delayed a number of Sturgeon’s more controversial policies – postponing a much-criticised bottle deposit scheme and starting again with a consultation on alcohol advertising – while promising a “reset” with a business community which considered itself ignored by Sturgeon. “He’s already put out some of the trash” said a former adviser, warning that Yousaf needs to “focus and improve the government”.
Time is of the essence as first impressions, once formed, are hard to change. “He needs to act more quickly and, crucially, change the perception that he is week” said another former special adviser who wishes Yousaf to succeed. “There is still time, but not much of it. He needs to be brutal and less sentimental.” This means taking ownership of his own ministry and making “hard decisions” to “decisively ditch the past and old allegiances”.
A consensus is building that unless Yousaf cuts Sturgeon and Murrell clear, he risks being dragged down by his association with the SNP’s ancien regime. That Yousaf was Sturgeon’s chosen successor – the “continuity candidate” – adds a layer of dramatic irony to what would be an extraordinary act of political matricide.
Tomorrow [Monday], Yousaf travels to London where he will meet Rishi Sunak for the first time. It is a grim reflection on his first weeks in office that the British capital now counts as a safer refuge for Scotland’s pro-independence first minister than any city north of the border.
Imagine being the leader of a scandal hit political party, down in the polls, losing credibility and not even having been leader when the party won the last election that gave them an overwhelming mandate to govern?
The last time I posted something like this my post was deleted for being off-topic, but it’s a very real point – which political leader of which political party was the leader when they last won an election?
Answers on a postage stamp please.
Newscorp smells blood in the water, so headlines like this aren’t surprising. If they applied a third of the criticism they did to the SNP to the Tories the Westminster government wouldn’t still be standing.