Yes, it was brutal. But Sturgeon is test-driving hopefuls for her own job

NICOLA Sturgeon’s dramatic Cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday was the most brutal since Jack McConnell’s vengeful redesign, in November 2001, of what was then limply known as the Scottish Executive.

Indeed, it was bloodier than that. Three Cabinet Secretaries were sacked. Three mere ministers were also drawn quietly aside and shot. Oddly, several veterans confidently fingered for dismissal – Roseanna Cunningham; Fergus Ewing; Fiona Hyslop – defied general prediction and survived.

Michael Russell’s yo-yo of a political career took still another twist; he is once more back in the Cabinet, the seemingly indestructible Deng Xiaoping of Scottish Nationalism.

Rather less stoical, one suspects, is Keith Brown, dumped as Economy Secretary and £48,000 the poorer as unusual reward for, earlier this month, winning the SNP deputy leadership.

And, breaking what was once a cardinal rule of good governance, several of those promoted are still only in their first term as MSPs. Given the expansion of the Cabinet itself from ten to 12 posts, and golden goodbye payments to those suddenly now doomed to spend more time with their constituents, in all it costs the taxpayer an additional £155,000 this year.

The immediate, darkly funny comparison would be with Harold Macmillan’s panicked Night of the Long Knives in 1962, when that beleaguered Premier fired a third of his Cabinet and Jeremy Thorpe cracked: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life.’

Melodrama

But there is no serious unrest on SNP backbenches, far less among the party’s base, against Miss Sturgeon and there is no obvious challenger for the top job.

You would have far firmer grounds for suspecting that Tuesday’s melodrama was thrown for a bid to seize the headlines – and distract attention from matters much more embarrassing for the SNP.

Like the decision of its Westminster group, on Monday night, to abstain in the vote on the new third runway at Heathrow – despite this development being official SNP policy and the huge benefits of that airport’s expansion for the Scottish economy.

Apparently Ian Blackford and his rabble were worried about the ‘optics’ of voting with the Tories. Still more mortifying for the Scottish Government, though, was John Swinney’s decision to abandon his bold – but controversial – Education Bill, which would have wrought noted reforms in our schools, including far greater powers for headteachers.

The Bill could have made the statute book, had the Deputy First Minister been prepared to solicit Scottish Tory support and face down assorted producer interests – notably, the EIS teachers’ union – which have been balefully wrong about every reform in schools for as long as anyone can remember.

But he blinked, and the SNP Government bottled it. The reforms will not be forced through.

And these proposals, remember, were the only significant policy meat in the Nationalists’ 2016 manifesto, as Sturgeon declared education would be the ‘top priority’ of the returned Scottish Government. In fact, it has spent far more time wittering on about independence and Brexit.

The Cabinet reshuffle has to some degree distracted attention from this huge strategic defeat. It was no doubt intended to do so. But there is, one suspects, a deeper agenda too. This recasting of her administration was not to ward off any immediate threat to Miss Sturgeon. Yet it is very much about the succession.

You might well wonder why a driven, gifted politician – only 47 – might already contemplate an SNP future without her. But, after a protracted honeymoon as SNP leader and despite two electoral triumphs, she is now personally unpopular, cruelly pilloried on social media and outpolled, indeed, by Ruth Davidson.

That has to hurt, and the wholly unexpected return of the Scottish Tories from decades of obloquy must seriously unsettle her.

But there are other factors. Sturgeon, an astute observer of the wider scene and with a taste for such political soaps as Borgen and The West Wing, is keenly aware that in today’s fast-moving world, amid the whirl of 24/7 rolling news and the rapid change of assorted elites, a politician these days has a distinct shelf life.

Though he pulled off a third general election victory, Tony Blair by 2005 was already fading and the increasing butt of satire. David Cameron, by 2016, had been Tory leader for just a decade, but his authority was rapidly fraying and, even had the US Constitution allowed it, Barack Obama would probably not have won a third term.

Nor should we overlook human factors. Nicola Sturgeon has been foremost in the SNP since 2004, when she became its effective leader in Holyrood as Alex Salmond, restored as commander de jure, boomed distantly in Westminster.

Humiliation

She has been in office since May 2007, much of it in the notorious bear trap that is Health Secretary. She toiled maniacally at the heart of the 2014 referendum campaign and, by November, she will have been First Minister for four years.

Nicola Sturgeon is not David Cameron, a man of first-class intellect and public-school poise who took a nonchalant, nine-to-five approach to office and whose final Brexit humiliation was born of what was justly mocked as an ‘essay crisis’ approach to power.

Of perhaps less obvious talent, she has attained the pinnacle of her chosen sphere by self-discipline, profound humility and a fearsome appetite for very hard work.

At times she has put in an 18-hour day. Typically, she leaves home for work at 5.30am every day. As it dawned on her, early in her days as an MSP, that brutal trouser suits, shiny skin, heavy brows and hair-don’ts straight out of Prisoner: Cell Block H were as concrete boots in modern politics, she worked hard – and with professional advice – to transform her image.

We, too, readily forget how much about Miss Sturgeon is wholly admirable: her loathing of gossip, for instance, or an abiding ability to poke fun at herself. But, as these years have seen noted triumphs, they have also seen the sorest heartache – the loss of a desperately wanted unborn child – and no one can live at this intensity, and under such a pitiless workload, indefinitely.

It is often said that her SNP benches are seriously devoid of talent. That is neither true nor fair; they compare favourably to the woeful calibre of the mass of Labour MSPs when there was, indeed, a mass of them.

But they are dangerously thin on character. It is notable how often, on the eruption of some crisis – be it a Budget flap, or Forth Road Bridge closure – Sturgeon has had to spring to the front of it, having so few sure-footed lieutenants who can think on their feet.

The First Minister has let it be known that it is this new, improved SNP administration which will front the party into the next Holyrood election.

But, somewhere within it, this humble and inscrutable woman is already test-driving candidates for heir apparent.