Kate Forbes joins SNP conference boycott

Dear oh dear. The SNP is not a happy place right now. Following yesterday’s spectacular defection from Lisa Cameron, Kate Forbes has today announced she will also be a no-show at SNP conference for the first time since becoming an MSP. Forbes, who narrowly lost hapless Humza earlier this year, plans to shun her party’s Aberdeen shindig and head instead stateside. Forbes says she has ‘longstanding engagements’ in the US, but her timing will raise eyebrows among the SNP establishment. Sunny climates or watching your party implode in the Granite City? Tough choice….

Forbes isn’t likely to be the only SNP politician snubbing Yousaf’s first party conference, senior nationalists tell Steerpike. ‘It is a stage-managed affair and I suspect that the turn out will be pretty much the remaining loyalists,’ one source said.