A year on, has John Swinney turned things around for the SNP?

It’s difficult to imagine a more cautious revolutionary than John Swinney. When the First Minister was unexpectedly swept into Charlotte Square just one year ago – answering the call of a party in need of healing and direction in equal measure – few expected him to author a radical’s reset. The party of the late Alex Salmond’s braggadocio, Nicola Sturgeon’s sure-footedness and Humza Yousaf’s faltering optimism had turned, perhaps inevitably, to the reassuringly experienced veteran whose political style has been compared to that of a Blairgowrie bank manager.

When he returned to the frontline, some thought Swinney was to play the part of a political caretaker – a soothing interregnum before the next generation of SNP politicians step up. But that was to misread this longtime party loyalist, who intended to make both party and government seem plausible in the eyes of voters once again.