There are a number of very good reasons that Kate Forbes is not standing for SNP leader. Chief amongst them is that she’d lose again. John Swinney is not Humza Yousaf. He has been an MP or MSP continuously since 1997, led the party through four difficult years in the early 2000s, and spent seven years as Alex Salmond’s right-hand man then eight at the side of Nicola Sturgeon. He is liked across the factions and respected for his decades of service to the party. There is probably no one who could beat him.
Another calculation that Forbes will have considered is that her party is careening towards a general election in which it is expected to lose a sizeable number of seats. Although neither she nor Swinney could be blamed for the scale of potential losses, it is still a less than auspicious start to a leadership. Better to let that particular clobbering go on Swinney’s Wikipedia page rather than hers.
SNP progressives, like progressives elsewhere, are not respecters of conscience
Then there is the chance of a return to the frontbench, something hinted at in Swinney’s leadership launch speech in Edinburgh this morning.
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