LAST CHANCE SALOON... FOR HIM AND HIS GOVERNMENT

YESTERDAY’S vote of no confidence in John swinney burnt an indelible mark on this sNP Government’s awful record in education. the result was a given, the scottish Greens once again reminding us where their allegiances lie.

the solemn, sunken image of Mr swinney as the vote was announced is one that sums up the events which led to the debate in the first place.

the image of Nicola sturgeon, ranting about england and Wales and humiliatingly forced to defend her beleaguered deputy, is an image we should never forget.

It sums up the sNP Government in one quick swoop of parliamentary theatre. It sums up the collapse in public confidence of their stewardship over our children’s future.

as junior partners in independence, Patrick Harvie and the Greens proved once again that they are less concerned with the future of scotland’s young people than they are about separatism. the same goes for the environment, quite bafflingly.

the whole sQa debacle was the final straw for Mr swinney’s incompetent helmsmanship of education, ignoring warning after warning that an iceberg was coming.

He has presided over an extraordinary number of failures. this is why he cannot continue in his post.

the exams fiasco arrived only weeks after Mr swinney announced a U-turn to abandon blended learning, following opposition from parents, teachers, pupils and, once again, the scottish Conservatives.

Pupils were failed by a homeschooling system which left many devoid of education for months.

the sNP has also kicked a longawaited review by the Organisation for economic Co-operation and development into the Curriculum for excellence into the long grass – and until after next year’s election.

Predictably, the pandemic is blamed for every failure. But the root problems go back much further. the sNP was already failing scotland’s children with an education system that is short of teachers and falling down international rankings.

Under the sNP, scottish schools have slipped to their lowest global scores in science and maths, and there are 3,600 fewer teachers since the Nationalists came to power.

a flagship policy to reduce the attainment gap is reduced to tatters, to the detriment of those in our poorest communities.

add to that the ditched education Bill, the P1 testing debacle, reduced subject choices in most schools, the hated Named Person scheme, and widespread multi-level teaching.

CALLS for Mr swinney to go were about far more than the exam fiasco – he has to pay the price for letting down a generation of young scots. yesterday’s vote of no confidence was not a personal attack. It was a rare moment in which the sNP was forced to stand in front of a mirror – and the Nationalists didn’t like it.

Perhaps the reason Miss sturgeon neither demanded his removal nor accepted his resignation (if such an offer was made) is that John swinney is as good as it gets for her. Her backbench is bereft of new ministerial talent. that must be as dispiriting for her as it is for the rest of us.

Mr swinney may have survived but this is last chance saloon for him and for his Government.

Parents and young people will not forget this debacle. they can rest assured that the Conservatives will watch this Government like a hawk.

■ Jamie Greene is the Scottish Conservatives’ education spokesman.