Hand the baton to next First Minister? More like a stick of dynamite – with the fuse lit

WiTh a glance at his wife and a break in his voice, humza Yousaf asked: ‘Who could ask for a better country to lead than scotland?’

Then, flipping closed the folder containing his speech, the First Minister turned and left without taking questions. he scootered out of our lives as quickly as he had scootered in.

he had announced his resignation from the office he had yearned to reach ever since stepping foot inside the scottish parliament. he is living proof of Billy Connolly’s dictum that wanting to be a politician should bar you for life from becoming one.

The noon press conference, held in Bute house’s Room of Doom, site of sombre resignations and coalition deals made and unmade, was clipped and without embellishment.

it was a plain, pared back statement. Little rhetoric, nothing rousing. it was over and he wanted it done. ‘And so say all of us,’ a nation sighed.

Yousaf defended his decision to jettison the Greens from his government, saying it was the right thing to do for his party and the country. Not, though, his leadership. it was the Greens’ furious response that brought him down. in the end, it was Patrick harvie who finally rid scotland of its worst First Minister. it’s as though someone redrew the Batman comics to make The Penguin the hero.

in a rare glimmer of self-reproach, Yousaf conceded: ‘i clearly underestimated the level of hurt and upset that caused Green colleagues.’

it was possible, he said, to have survived this week’s vote of no confidence. But, he added, he was not prepared to cut the deals that would have required. A reference to his old boss Alex salmond. he had offered to save Yousaf — at a price. Yousaf was not prepared to pay.

Might the old dog have finally had his day? since september 22 1990, the sNP has been led by either salmond, someone who was salmond’s deputy, or someone who was salmond’s assistant. it might be time to move on.

Yousaf’s countenance softened as he recalled growing up at a time when ‘people who looked like me were not in positions of political influence’, and reflected how that had changed, name-checking the Prime Minister, a British hindu, and Vaughan Gething, the biracial, Zambianborn First Minister of Wales.

he did not spend long sketching out a legacy for himself, though he referred to his efforts towards ‘a fair tax system’.

he warned others to ‘resist the temptations of populism’, which is brave coming from a leader of the sNP, and vowed to continue speaking out against hatred and injustice. That speaking out will take place from the backbenches once a replacement First Minister is chosen.

ThERE was a vain attempt to talk up his party’s future. ‘independence feels frustratingly close,’ he averred, and that while ‘we have run the race as a team’, he would now pass the baton to his successor.

Given his track record, he is more likely to crash to the ground, drop the baton and send his successor tumbling. he might think he is handing the next First Minister a baton. They might think it more closely resembles a stick of dynamite — fuse lit.

For the opposition parties, he had a wagging finger and an admonishment to work more cooperatively, as the devolved electoral system intended. From a political shin-kicker who not so long ago revelled in the idea of making scotland ‘Tory free’, this was quite the conversion.

Yousaf concluded his remarks with a patriotic panegyric, the gist of which was that scotland was pure dead brilliant and going abroad representing scotland only confirmed that.

he predicted that the whole country would vote for independence ‘if only every person in scotland could be afforded the opportunity of being First Minister for just one day’.

At the rate they keep resigning, every person in scotland might just get that opportunity.

here is where the voice went, as he thanked his wife, children and parents for their support. Reporters shouted questions about his miscalculation with the Greens but he left without answering. he announced the end of his premiership the way he conducted it: with little time for scrutiny and accountability.

Then, after 397 days, the Age of Yousaf was over. Truly, it was the end of an error.