Humza Yousaf’s track record remains the focus of FMQs

Does Humza Yousaf really want to be ‘focusing relentlessly on the day job’, as he claimed at First Minister’s Questions today? It’s not a fun day job to focus on. The First Minister naturally had to face questions on the crisis in his own party when he faced MSPs today, with both Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar majoring on it. The Scottish Tory leader tried to suggest the investigation into the SNP’s finances was distracting Yousaf from his day job, and moved onto one of the ‘matters of substance’ he felt needed more attention, which was sentencing policy. Yousaf, of course, previously served as justice secretary, and had to answer questions on prison sentences for under-25s after the shocking case of a convicted rapist who avoided jail because of his age. 

Anas Sarwar was punchier. Claiming that the financial crisis in the party mirrored the way the SNP has governed the country, he variously accused Yousaf of being a ‘failed first minister’ and acting like ‘Comical Ali: everything is fine, while the house burns down around us’. Yousaf didn’t like that second comparison, describing it as a ‘silly personal attack’. But once again these questions were about a portfolio that Yousaf himself held: Sarwar started by asking about the ferry crisis, asking: ‘Who was that incompetent transport minister, and where are they now?’ Of course it was Yousaf himself, who responded: ‘I of course recognise the challenges that those who rely on our ferry services in our island communities have suffered in recent weeks’. 

Both opposition party leaders are going straight for the jugular with Yousaf, hoping to mix his own record in government in with the general scandal around the SNP to irreparably paint him as a failure from the start. At one stage, Yousaf started listing the organisations that had praised the plans he had set out on Tuesday – which showed how much he already feels to be on the defensive, rather than really managing any kind of fresh start. He is stuck between focusing on a day job that, while always difficult, seems to have been made much harder by his own decisions in previous government roles, and the unwelcome distraction of a party scandal that is battering the SNP in the polls. Neither looks that appealing.