The fourth and final debate of the SNP leadership contest aired from Edinburgh last night with a live studio audience ready to pounce on the contenders. So how did the candidates fare in the final debate of the contest, and who came out on top?
While Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan are now all accustomed to dealing with long Q&A sessions at hustings, the BBC’s mixed voter audience was more hostile than they are used to. Initial questions focused on the NHS and the economy, but the debate really livened up after one audience member lambasted the candidates for their ‘total lack of acceptance of accountability’. Continuing after his statement received resounding applause from the room, the audience member went on:
‘All three of you are members of the SNP government. The SNP have been in charge for decades, and for you to sit here and tell me ‘it’s going to get better’ – why haven’t you done it before?’
Amongst the wider public, there is a feeling of distrust for the candidates. All of them – even Humza Yousaf – have talked down current government policies and pledged to do better. And while the candidates can use their government experience to give them credibility, they equally have to accept that this opens them up to blame for decisions and policies that haven’t gone well.
Yousaf and Forbes exchanged blows when presenter Stephen Jardine asked the health secretary why he’d suggested that Forbes’s economic policy was moving ‘to the right’. Yousaf looked uncomfortable and appeared to backtrack slightly, responding: ‘No, I was simply saying I believe we should build on our progressive agenda.’ Yousaf criticised Kate for ‘letting big business off the hook’ while she shot back, ‘actually, I’m talking about small businesses’. She went on to label Yousaf’s comments as ‘desperate spin’. Ash Regan threw out some criticism too – at the SNP. ‘The government is not in touch with the priorities of the people,’ she argued.
Though Yousaf and Forbes have frequently clashed during these debates, their messaging has at points converged, with Forbes’s mission statements of ‘good governance’ and ‘eradicating poverty’ used by Yousaf too. In fact, Yousaf seems to have picked up several phrases used by both Forbes and Regan over the last few weeks, with Regan calling him out in a recent hustings for pinching her ‘gold standard’ mantra. Both frontrunners ended by saying that they would want their leadership to be defined by the extent to which they can eradicate poverty in the country, while Ash said her focus was on the NHS.
Yousaf’s delivery over the last fortnight has markedly improved, and the continuity candidate has, at hustings, been close to achieving those ‘hair-raising’ moments that politicians aspire to. When all three candidates were grilled by Beth Rigby at Sky News’s debate on Monday evening, Yousaf arguably stood his ground the best, pushing back against both Beth and his competitors with confidence while Kate Forbes seemed a little irritable. Last night, however, the tables turned. Yousaf stumbled over his words a little, and was not quite as slick as normal, while Kate Forbes prevailed – she was relaxed and confident with an audience of voters rather than SNP members.
Now, the candidates have just under ten days to convince undecided members. The campaign teams have said that they’re not slowing their momentum, even though the party hustings and TV debates have come to an end. The large proportion of ‘undecided’ voters are likely on all the candidates’ minds and therefore the next week and a half will be a significant period. Appealing to all members is key, as second preference votes may prove to be the deciding factor in this contest.
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