Ruling party troubles are not going away
‘‘Mr Sunak may breathe a sigh of relief that his leadership looks like surviving for now
It’s the opposition parties who are looking forward to the general election. The governing parties at Holyrood and Westminster are both in a mess.
The Tories’ disastrous election results last week confirmed what the polls have long warned – voters are fed up with the party which has been in power in the UK for the past 14 years and Rishi Sunak has done nothing to change that.
Conservative politicians took comfort from the re-election of Teesside mayor Ben Houchen, but it was soon clear they were clutching at straws. The party failed to dent London mayor Sadiq Khan’s position, despite all the fuss about the Ultra Low Emission Zone. Tory Andy Street was ousted as mayor in the West Midlands. In local council elections across England the Tories lost nearly half of the seats they previously held. And the Blackpool South by-election saw a 26 per cent swing to Labour, the third highest since the Second World War. Mr Sunak may breathe a sigh of relief that his leadership looks like surviving for now, but it will only be to lead his party to what looks like certain defeat at the general election.
Meanwhile the SNP at least did not have local elections to contend with, but its leadership change is underway after Humza Yousaf ’s miscalculation in calling time on the party’s governing deal with the Greens, sacking their ministers and throwing away the stability their numbers brought.
His decision to quit rather than be defeated in a vote of confidence threatened to plunge the party into another bruising leadership contest like the one last year between Yousaf, former finance secretary Kate Forbes and Edinburgh Eastern MSP Ash Regan.
Mr Swinney was the only candidate when nominations closed on Monday, so he is now the new SNP leader and will soon be formally installed as First Minister too. But that’s not the end of the SNP problems. The events of the past week or so have once again highlighted the party’s divisions and a new poll published at the weekend showed the SNP set to hold just 15 of its current 43 Westminster seats in the general election. Both sides of the Border, it is the opposition parties looking forward to the election that can’t be put off much longer.