Kate will take us back to the ’50s? Makes a change to the 1310s, Patrick
Is Graeme McCormick still available? The veteran sNP activist stood aside and let John swinney become leader without a contest, but on the strength of the First Minister’s first parliamentary outing, Mr McCormick was robbed.
swinney choked. It was his debut First Minister’s Questions and he was at turns hesitant, rambling, underbriefed and trying too hard. Was it an unmitigated disaster? No, in the sense that he didn’t set himself on fire or accidentally declare war on Norway, but it was bad.
sitting to his right – no jokes, please – was Kate Forbes, reminiscent of the ‘here’s what you could have won’ segment in old game shows.
Douglas Ross raked over the embers of swinney’s time as education secretary, reminding him of his promise to raise teacher numbers by 3,500 by the end of this parliament. Would he be sticking to his word?
Back came a halting reply about Westminster funding, but no answer. ‘The excuses are the same as we’ve had before,’ Ross spat, before repeating the question.
‘I’ve just come back into office,’ the First Minister protested. ‘I’ve not been on this front bench in 12 months.’
His mewling was pitiful. The bloke was effectively co-leader of scotland for 16 of the past 17 years. He didn’t just walk in off the street, despite the impression his performance gave.
Ross levelled his query a third time. Bloodlessly, swinney stated: ‘I’ve nothing really to add to what I’ve said to Douglas Ross about the financial position we face.’
After years spent cultivating the image of a provincial bank manager, he sounded like he was turning the Tory leader down for a fixed-term mortgage.
The evasiveness drew barracking from the Conservative benches, led by Craig Hoy, an MsP who speaks more often than he has something to say.
Ross entered Jeremy Paxman territory by asking his teacher-numbers question a fourth time in a row, as swinney grimaced silently. ‘I am going to be straight with the public of scotland,’ he announced. No doubt he’ll start any day now.
Things did not improve when Anas sarwar stepped up, scolding the sNP for fixating on themselves and not the hundreds of teachers about to be made redundant by their colleagues at Glasgow City Council. Events of the past two weeks had been ‘frankly traumatic for my party’, swinney said. Being part of a mass lay-off is frankly pretty traumatic, too.
The First Minister refused to intervene, but acknowledged ‘challenges’, prompting sarwar to remind the former finance and education secretary who created the ‘challenges’.
The Labour chief urged for ‘fresh leadership’. ‘I have good news for Anas sarwar,’ swinney piped up. ‘Fresh leadership has just arrived and I am here to deliver it.’
AGALE of laughter tore across the chamber, interspersed with applause on the Nationalist benches. Labour MsPs pointed out that some of those chuckling were sNP members.
‘They are laughing because they are delighted that I am here to do it,’ swinney protested. ‘That is why they are laughing. They are over the moon that I am here.’
Lord knows Humza Yousaf was hopeless but the sNP appears to have replaced Mr Bean with Alan Partridge.
Patrick Harvie, the angriest little cabbage in all the land, seethed over the appointment of Kate Forbes and accused swinney of ‘taking us back to the repressive values of the 1950s’. It makes a change from trying to take us back to the 1310s.
swinney objected that his government would be ‘led from the moderate left-ofcentre’ and rhymed off the lefty policies Forbes had helped deliver. Harvie was unplacated.
The strongest turn of the day came from Labour firebrand Pauline McNeill, who demanded the Crown Office be held ‘fully accountable’ for wrongful Horizon convictions in scotland ‘because it did not provide the checks and balances that it should have’. she wants to haul the Lord Advocate before the parliament. It’s a call Dorothy Bain, KC, can no longer refuse.