Scotland

Humza Yousaf is not a leader with troubles to seek. In the three weeks since his election as First Minister, the SNP has been rocked by a series of arrests and accusations of mismanagement. Meanwhile, the Scottish Nationalists’ poll ratings have continued to slide as Yousaf’s attempts to regain the initiative have inevitably been overshadowed by more negative headlines about his party, government, or both. Rather than a honeymoon, Yousaf has so far endured a holiday from hell.  Arguably his most damaging misstep is his lurch to the left on policy. Under the influence of his political partners, the Scottish Green party, Yousaf is determined to squeeze an ever-shrinking tax

All political careers end in failure but Humza Yousaf has managed to begin his there. Three weeks ago, he clinched the leadership of the SNP in a 52-48 per cent photo finish. Since then, he has deepened divisions within his party by shunning MSPs who failed to support his leadership bid, launched a legal challenge to Westminster to restart his government’s unpopular gender reforms, and watched as police raided Nicola Sturgeon’s home and arrested Peter Murrell, her husband and the SNP’s former chief executive, amid a probe of party finances.   Tuesday was supposed to mark a ‘reset’, because Yousaf’s leadership is in such dire straits that, less than a month

A new week has come around, and it brings yet more turmoil for the SNP. Calls for Nicola Sturgeon to resign as MSP for Glasgow Southside have grown louder after a leaked video showed the former SNP leader angrily warning colleagues about speaking negatively of the party’s finances. Despite her colleagues returning to the Scottish parliament post-recess, Sturgeon’s spokesman confirmed that the former First Minister will not in fact be back in Holyrood this week – ‘to ensure the focus is on the new First Minister’. Nevertheless, Humza Yousaf’s time is still being consumed by desperate attempts to convince the public that nothing is amiss. ‘I don’t think there is

Three cheers for the Sunday Mail, which has today got its hands on footage of Nicola Sturgeon which is, er, sub-optimal, to say the least. The newspaper has been sent a video of the then First Minister furiously insisting that the SNP’s finances had ‘never been stronger’ in a meeting of the party’s ruling body in March 2021. Sturgeon is shown warning SNP apparatchiks on the National Executive Committee (NEC) to be ‘very careful’ about suggesting there was ‘any problems’ with the accounts’ in an angry statement that came after three members resigned from the party’s finance and audit committee. One of them, Allison Graham, had just read out a

Just don’t call him ‘Useless’. Humza Yousaf’s sister, Faiza, told STV last week of her shock and anger at hearing a hospital porter use the First Minister of Scotland’s ubiquitous soubriquet. Well, she’d better get used to it. Once an image is established in the public mind it’s hard to get rid of it. And it has to be said that his recent performance has been less than entirely useful.  It’s not entirely his fault, I accept that. Yousaf is burdened by the legacy of the nationalist duopoly, Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell, which seems to have run the SNP with all the due diligence of a car boot sale.

Every leader of Scottish Labour has, since 2007, felt they were turning the corner to recovery – only to discover they were actually on a roundabout. Every new dawn has proven itself to be sometimes agonisingly, and always painfully, false. But now, as the SNP is mired by scandal after scandal, Labour’s odds in Scotland are looking better, even if Labour cannot quite relax yet. Keir Starmer must not only persuade soft-SNP voters to return to the party but simultaneously those who left Labour for the Conservatives in 2019.  There are signs that at the next general election things could actually change – for real this time. Nicola Sturgeon has

There’s more trouble in Scotland’s nationalist paradise. A storm is brewing amongst members of the SNP’s innermost ruling group as it is revealed that party secrets have been kept from its very own National Executive Committee. The resignation of the party’s auditors, details on finances and the exodus of party members all came as much as a surprise to the party’s ruling group as they had to the rest of the nation.  But it doesn’t stop there. Fresh allegations have sprung from a source deep within the party: an NEC whistleblower described how a group of senior figures including ‘power couple’ Sturgeon and Murrell demanded that the NEC be ‘disbanded’

Humza Yousaf’s decision to challenge the British government in court over Scottish gender laws is a tactical play. And yet it confirms just how little the new First Minister knows about tactics. Yousaf is having a terrible old time of it. Almost half of SNP members voted against him becoming leader. He has stuffed his government with loyalists: just one of his 27 ministers endorsed his leadership rival. The SNP’s finances are under police investigation, former chief executive Peter Murrell was arrested, the home he shares with Nicola Sturgeon raided by officers, and Yousaf only just learned that his party’s auditors quit months ago. (Neither Murrell nor anyone else has been charged with any offence.)

The SNP’s internecine warfare has dominated political chatter for the past two months and the Scottish Conservatives, it seems, have been feeling left out. So, at the weekend, the Tories piped up. Douglas Ross, the Scottish leader, suggested that unionists should use their vote at the next general election for the candidate most likely to defeat the SNP incumbent.  The party in London was indignant with Ross’s apparent approval of Tory voters crossing the box for Labour and arming Sir Keir Starmer with more MPs. This is hardly the first time that the Scottish party and its London HQ have had a difference of opinion. This particular disagreement has the