The Scotsman politics team get together to analyse the events in Scottish politics over the past week. Plenty has happened since First Minister Humza Yousaf ditched the Greens in the Bute House agreement, which ended in him tendering his own resignation
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00:00 [Music]
00:05 Hello and welcome to a special edition of the STEAMie, the Scotsman's Politics Podcast.
00:10 I'm Alistair Grant, the Scotsman's Political Editor, and I'm joined by David Ball,
00:13 the Deputy Political Editor, and Rachel Aimery, the Scotsman's Political Correspondent.
00:17 And we're here in the Scottish Parliament recording this after a dramatic few days
00:22 in Holyrood, a very dramatic few days, I think it's safe to say. Humza Yousaf resigned on
00:27 Monday in a press conference in Bute House following the dramatic fallout of his decision
00:32 to end the Bute House agreement with the Scottish Greens. It turned out to be a catastrophic
00:38 miscalculation on his part. I don't think he, well he certainly did not expect the level of
00:44 anger in the Scottish Greens after he chose to end that power-sharing agreement between the Greens
00:49 and the SNP. He did not expect them to come out on the very same day and say that they were going
00:54 to back a Conservative motion of no confidence in him as First Minister. It was a very dramatic day
01:01 in Scottish politics in general, but we're moving on now to a potential SNP leadership election.
01:08 We've got, we're in Holyrood today recording this, also in video form that you can watch online.
01:14 And at the moment it seems like it could be a contest between John Swinney, the former Deputy
01:21 First Minister, and Kate Forbes, the former Finance Secretary who ran against Humza Yousaf
01:27 in the SNP leadership contest last year, narrowly missed out to him. It has a section of support in
01:33 the party that want to see change, that would see John Swinney as a continuity candidate,
01:37 but John Swinney emerging as the early frontrunner. He's got a number of senior figures in the party
01:43 that have come out and backed him, people like Stephen Flynn, the SNP's Westminster leader,
01:48 people like Aime Blackford, the former Westminster leader, Neil Gray, the Health Secretary, Jenny
01:53 Gilruth, the Education Secretary, although important to say that neither of them have
01:56 actually, neither John Swinney nor Kate Forbes have confirmed that they are definitely running
02:01 in this race. So it's all to play for at the moment. Rachel, what do you make of where we
02:05 stand now? And it's obviously a very fast moving situation. The danger of us recording this podcast
02:10 special and this video is that by the time it goes out, it's going to have changed completely.
02:14 But where we stand at the moment, I mean, this is around half three on Tuesday afternoon.
02:19 Yeah, it's definitely a fast moving situation, because even just this time yesterday,
02:24 there was about five or six names being bandied around as potential successors to Humza Yousaf,
02:30 and already that has been narrowed down to just two. So names like Jenny Gilruth, for example,
02:35 Neil Gray, I think even Stephen Flynn was being mentioned, all of those people have now kind of
02:40 been ruled out. They've not officially said, no, I'm not standing, but they've all said they're
02:44 going to back John Swinney here. So that's the two options we're presented with just now.
02:49 John Swinney is seen as a safe pair of hands, obviously extremely experienced,
02:55 and has been a lifelong SNP member as well. So I think that is why a lot of people in the party
03:02 want to see him taking up that mantle now, because he's seen as someone who can potentially
03:06 unite the party together. And that is something the party is really going to need to do, and need
03:11 to do quickly. If they can get somebody in place as SNP leader and as First Minister really quickly
03:17 without a contest happening, well, not only does that help them with their polling, it'll also
03:23 help with the general election campaign. If you look at polling, for example, under Nicola Sturgeon,
03:28 they did spectacularly well at polling, and that just seemed to fall off a cliff a little bit
03:32 when it came to the leadership race last year, because all of a sudden divisions in the party,
03:37 splits in the party, were suddenly being revealed. And that's where the problems then started to
03:42 be emerging for the party. So they want to try and avoid that if they can. The other thing they're
03:48 going to want to try and avoid is getting into an election campaign for the general election
03:52 when there's no SNP leader in place. The election will come at some point this year, it could be
03:56 announced any day, we don't know. But if they don't want to have a situation where, let's say
04:01 it's announced on Wednesday and there's no SNP leader in place permanently. So I think that's
04:06 one of the options of why John Swinney will be a good sort of option for them. As I said, the other
04:11 option is Kate Forbes, who has very much said, you know, I'm not ruling it out. She's very much
04:15 considering this option and seems quite serious about it. And some of those who are backing her
04:21 already, so Ivan McKee, Annabelle Ewing, Fergus Ewing. Fergus Ewing has even said that he's
04:26 expecting her to definitely run for this. So seemingly very confident there. Kate Forbes is
04:31 very, very popular with voters, SNP voters and SNP members. Her bigger problem is going to be
04:37 trying to unite the SNP group within Holyrood itself, I think. I was actually on the radio this
04:43 morning and it was a call-in show as to who they'd want to see, who members of the public want to see
04:48 as First Minister. And I was actually very surprised at how many were saying, we want Kate
04:52 Forbes. And as she said, she'd very well run the leadership race last year. So she is popular
04:57 amongst members. It'll be more trying to unite the group inside Holyrood that she'll create an
05:02 issue with. And David, what do you make of where we stand at the moment? Well, like you said,
05:08 there's a bit of a blind spot here because we've got this leadership race that we know is going to
05:12 happen, but neither of these two perceived candidates have come forward. So we're really
05:17 just kind of waiting for both of them or one of them to put their head over the parapet and just
05:22 say that they are standing. We've had a lot of people come out in support of either of them
05:26 for both candidates. The last thing the SNP probably needs or wants right now, as Rachel
05:32 was saying, is a leadership contest. It was so bitter and divisive last year. It gave Hamza
05:39 Yousaf a real problem when he started his premiership, that there was this toxic debate
05:43 where they were just basically fighting with each other and pointing out all their faults and all
05:48 the problems that would happen if their rivals became the first minister. So at the moment,
05:55 there is just a bit of a lull. Well, it's kind of the eye before the storm, but before we wait
05:59 for to see if either Kate Forbes or John Swinney do emerge as candidates. And today in Holyrood,
06:06 it's been a bit of a chaotic scene. We saw when sort of people were trying to see if Kate Forbes
06:11 was going to put herself forward. There's a lot of media interest and Kate Forbes didn't really
06:16 want to say very much, to be perfectly honest. And John Swinney as well has kind of said,
06:21 well, he's thinking about it, but he's clearly in no rush to kind of let people know that he is
06:26 definitely going to be on the ballot. And I thought it's interesting as well that, you know,
06:31 John Swinney is getting a lot of support from these kind of big, big figures in the party,
06:36 as I said. But we've had people like Joanna Cherry, the SNP MP, very high profile SNP
06:42 parliamentarian, who's coming out and kind of warning against a stitch up. I think she's talking
06:46 about the men in grey suits. So I think there's a section of the party that, although obviously
06:52 there are many in the SNP who do not want another leadership election, I think you can really see
06:57 that with the number of people that have come out and backed Swinney very quickly after Humza Yousaf
07:02 announced his intention to resign as well. And I think partly that was because they want to create
07:06 a situation where it is almost a coronation. They don't want a leadership election. It was so
07:11 divisive last time, you know, the party took, you know, suffered in the polls in the aftermath of
07:17 that. But on the other hand, you've got people like Joanna Cherry, who clearly do not want
07:21 a coronation. They don't want, you know, a quote unquote stitch up. They want a proper conversation
07:26 about the future of the party, proper conversation about where it goes next. Kate Forbes and John
07:30 Swinney would obviously be very different leaders of the SNP. So I think it's kind of fascinating
07:35 to see that scenario. But there are suggestions, and I kind of hesitate to say this because it
07:40 could just be completely out of date by the time this goes out, that John Swinney himself doesn't
07:46 want a contest really, and that his kind of appetite for that might be limited, Rachel.
07:51 That's really interesting to think about it, because obviously there was this leadership
07:55 contest last year, and he very quickly ruled himself out of that contest last year. He did
08:00 not want to stand to be SNP leader. And we've now got this sort of a year on where lots of people
08:05 have been getting in touch with him and sort of urging him to sort of step up at this point. So
08:09 it's interesting to know how much of it is his own personal views here, how much of this is pressure
08:14 from the party. That's something we're not too sure about either. Interesting what you're saying
08:18 about those not wanting to see a stitch up. If there is a contest, I mean, the one good thing
08:23 that would come out of there being a contest is whoever wins has perhaps got more legitimacy,
08:27 I suppose, because the parliamentary arithmetic means that whoever is SNP leader almost certainly
08:33 will become First Minister when they are voted in by the MSPs. So if the SNP say,
08:39 "Right, we're having John Swinney, that's who we're having. That's the only candidate you're
08:42 given a choice of." He's automatically given that job. He'll then automatically then be ushered in
08:46 as well as First Minister. Whereas at least if there is an election, whoever wins that election,
08:51 perhaps we'll be able to say, "Well, look, it was put out to the members and we won." So perhaps
08:56 that is a better option if you look at it that way. And David, it's worth probably talking a
09:01 little bit about the problems that Kate Forbes faced last time in terms of her leadership election.
09:05 I mean, she obviously stood against Humza Yousaf. She was one of three candidates. Very early on in
09:11 her leadership bid, she had a number of interviews where she made clear her socially conservative
09:16 religious views. She said she wouldn't have voted for gay marriage at the time. And it became a real
09:22 problem for her. She lost a lot of support among SNP parliamentarians. But also worth saying when
09:27 it actually came to the vote of the membership at the end of the day, she had almost 50% of the
09:33 vote. I think it was 45% of the SNP members who backed her. So it's kind of, it'd be interesting
09:38 to see what level of support she has this time around and whether those issues that some people
09:44 have with her religious views or socially conservative views would come back into it
09:49 and would be a problem again. Yeah, I mean, those socially conservative views did harm her. I mean,
09:54 they probably cost her the leadership. If you look how close it was with Humza, you could argue that
09:59 if that wasn't an issue and that didn't put people off, then she could easily have actually won it.
10:04 It is interesting whether Kate Forbes will want this to go to members because she did so well
10:09 with them last year. And as Rachel mentioned, there does seem to be more support for John
10:15 Swinney, even though that's just being quite manufactured very obviously early on to show that
10:21 he is the obvious replacement. But she does have a potential issue there that her views obviously
10:28 put a lot of people off, members and MSPs and MPs, and whether the SNP is comfortable with someone
10:36 with quite socially conservative views being their first minister in 2024, when we see all these
10:41 sort of culture wars that the SNP are very quick to criticise the Conservatives for and other
10:48 parties for sort of whipping up some of that. And maybe that is the last sort of thing they want to
10:52 be part of that debate and part of that. And another problem for Kate Forbes is if she does
10:57 do this, and members will look at this before she's elected, how does she form a government and
11:01 how does she get things done? Because the Greens have been quite frank and upfront that they would
11:06 not support her. So she, and John Swinney, if he does come in or whoever comes in, is probably
11:11 going to have to look to the Greens to try and form some sort of very loose working relationship
11:17 anyway to get things passed. And for Kate Forbes, that is just straight off the bat, that is more
11:22 difficult. And you know, on that issue, I mean, how would Kate Forbes go about getting the support?
11:28 Because I guess she's on that parliamentary arithmetic. I think it is worth talking about,
11:32 like you say, John Swinney would be coming in, probably would be relying on the support of the
11:36 Greens. I think, you know, it's a problem that Humza Yousaf faced. We can maybe talk about this
11:40 later on, about the kind of tight parliamentary arithmetic in Holyrood that meant when the Greens
11:44 decided to back that no confidence motion, he could have been saved if the Alaba party's sole
11:50 MSP, Ash Reagan, had backed him. They wouldn't have had the majority required to pass legislation
11:55 to actually get things done. So he'd have been having to go to MSPs from other political parties
12:00 and try and get support there. And that seemed kind of unlikely. So Kate Forbes, on the face of
12:05 it, would suffer the same problem because she's not going to get the support of the Greens.
12:09 Yes, that's a very, very good point there. It's not impossible for the SNP to run a minority
12:15 government. It's been done very successfully in the past under Alex Salmond and under Nicola Sturge,
12:20 but there is always going to be this issue of there just one, is it one seat? I think it is
12:24 just one seat short of that majority, which is going to cause hiccups along the way. And Kate
12:29 Forbes may well find that more difficult because the Greens have said, you know, we can't rely on
12:34 our vote here. We're not going to support Kate Forbes. It depends on what the issues are,
12:38 because some issues, I mean, I've been speaking to some Conservative MSPs today who suggest that,
12:42 you know, there's some issues that Kate Forbes comes forward with that they might actually be
12:46 able to support. So you might actually then see some issues where the Conservatives would back her
12:51 in certain issues. So it does depend on what she does and individual issues, I think. But she will
12:58 certainly find it more difficult than John Swinney will, because I think, although the architect of
13:03 the Bute House Agreement, the power sharing deal with the Greens was Nicola Sturge, and he was the
13:08 Deputy First Minister at that point. So he is very much seen as somebody who is a friend of the
13:12 Greens, and the Greens will want to sort of play on that if they can. I think it must be, it must
13:17 be two seats. They're short of a majority. But anyway, it doesn't matter because they're extremely,
13:21 extremely tight. It was suggested to me earlier on today, just to kind of finalise this bit of
13:26 the conversation, that if there was a contest between John Swinney and Kate Forbes, some of
13:32 those bruising scenes that we saw in the televised debates last time round, in which Kate Forbes kind
13:36 of attacked Humza Yousaf's competence, attacked his record as a government minister, she wouldn't
13:41 really be able to do that this time round, because John Swinney is so well liked among activists,
13:45 is so well liked in the party, that the party just wouldn't really stand for that in the same way.
13:50 So she would have to have a slightly different tactic, or there maybe had to be a broader
13:54 conversation about where they want the party to go. Obviously, that did happen last time round,
13:59 but there was also those kind of bitter scenes of kind of attacking each other that maybe the
14:05 dynamic would be very different this time round. Yeah, I think so. I think if Kate Forbes does
14:10 go through this, she can very much bill herself as the change candidate. If you look at John Swinney,
14:15 he's very much established in the SNP over the last 20 years or so, and yeah, maybe not attacking
14:23 his record is going to work this time. It's just going to give whoever goes in to Butte House
14:30 problems to deal with from the off. All this criticism that's just going to get thrown out,
14:33 it doesn't really help anyone. I think last year's leadership contest made that very clear. No one
14:38 benefited from all the infighting and the toxic debate, especially with a general election,
14:43 hanging over the SNP. And I mean, the prospects of that aren't looking particularly rosy anyway.
14:47 This is the last thing they need right now. Yeah, whoever goes forward and whoever puts
14:53 himself forward for this job is going to have to think about the tone that they go about this
14:58 campaign, because they're not only speaking to members, and obviously that is how they're going
15:01 to get their foot in the door, but the public are going to be looking to them as the first minister,
15:06 especially with that election coming, and they need to speak to the whole country, essentially,
15:11 from the get-go. Yeah, well, it's safe to say there's been a kind of feverish atmosphere in
15:16 Hollyrood today. I think earlier on when Kate Forbes first appeared and the media tried to,
15:21 you know, get an answer from her as to whether or not she was going to stand to be SNP leader,
15:25 she was getting chased with cameras, she was trying to go up the stairs, people were following her.
15:30 It was quite chaotic. But, you know, I suppose that's where we are. It's a very, you know,
15:34 these are key questions about who is ultimately probably going to be the next first minister,
15:39 and I think I'm right in saying they have until Monday to declare either way. We should probably
15:43 expect them to move before then, but I think it's worth just reflecting on Monday and that
15:48 extraordinary day in Bute House, Humza Yousaf's resignation, obviously a huge miscalculation that
15:54 he made. How did we get here? It seems, even just this time last week, it seems like impossible to
16:02 picture just the scenes that we're seeing today. It all comes down to Thursday morning, this
16:08 emergency cabinet meeting at 8.30 in the morning, which does not happen on a Thursday because
16:13 Thursday mornings are normally set aside for the first minister to concentrate on first minister's
16:17 questions preparation. So immediately, as soon as we knew this was happening, I think everyone at
16:22 that point knew something big is going to happen, and we all kind of guessed it's going to be the
16:26 Bute House agreement. And I think, yeah, a complete misjudgment there because I don't think he or any
16:32 of his close aides could have foreseen this chain of events being set off. Otherwise, surely they
16:38 would never have taken this decision if they knew there was even a chance that this could happen.
16:42 The Greens, of course, acted, so the Greens responded, you know, they were upset, weren't
16:48 they? They were really upset, and there's some sort of very tearful scenes from some of the MSPs
16:52 in the Green Party in the back of it. I think, again, as Humza Yousaf said in his resignation
16:57 speech, he did not expect that level of anger and that level of upset to come from the Greens on the
17:02 back of this being ended. And I think when it comes to the opposition parties, they just saw an
17:07 opening and took it, I think. There suddenly was now this opening to have this no-confidence motion,
17:12 and Douglas Ross thought, there's my chance, let's go for it, and it's paid off for Douglas Ross.
17:16 It's worked. He's got what he wanted. He's got rid of the first minister. So, yeah, it's quite
17:21 extraordinary to think about just how quickly it's got to this point. This time last week, I think,
17:26 I can't even remember what we were talking about this time last week. What were we talking about?
17:30 It can't have been anything of much note, but I don't think we would have ever have considered
17:34 that this time a week later, it would be a question of who's going to be the next first
17:38 minister. Is it John Swinney or Kate Forbes? I don't think any of us could have predicted that
17:41 one to come. And do they not have it on their bingo cards for this year? Absolutely not. I mean,
17:46 well, you can't - Scottish politics has been all over the place, hasn't it, the last year or so?
17:50 You can't expect anything, but it has fallen apart so quickly. I mean, fair play to Humza
17:56 Yousaf for just admitting that he made a mistake, put his hand up and just said,
18:00 "Okay, I underestimated how upset they were going to be." In hindsight, it looks very predictable
18:06 that they would be upset, but obviously at the time he was doing it as a sort of a power move
18:11 to try and assert his authority. And it's completely backfired and it's just moved,
18:17 as you said, so quickly. And here we are. Yeah. And I think it's, yeah, I mean, it boiled down
18:23 to an extraordinary miscalculation. They obviously expected as a minority government that they might
18:29 face a vote of no confidence. They expected it to be a period of uncertainty. They expected
18:34 it - the Greens to be angry. I don't think there's any doubt about that. They did not expect the
18:38 level of fury from the Greens. They did not expect the Greens to back a Tory motion of no confidence.
18:43 And perhaps they should have done, but they just didn't. I also think they were taken aback by how
18:48 quickly events moved. I mean, that cabinet meeting you were talking about happened on Thursday
18:53 morning. We then had a first minister's questions. We had the post FMQs briefing that we normally get
19:00 from the first minister's spokesman. And he was talking about how, you know, well received that
19:05 decision to end the Bute House agreement was in cabinet. Ministers were apparently slapping the
19:09 table in approval. And all of that in retrospect just rubbed salt in the wound for the Greens.
19:15 And it just made the situation potentially worse. But finally, I think it's because we've spoken so
19:21 much about Kate Forbes, it's worth talking about John Swinney. We talked about some of his strengths.
19:26 You know, he's a kind of - if you talk to someone in the SNP, it won't be long before the phrase
19:31 'a safe pair of hands' is mentioned. He's someone of huge experience. He's been an MSP since the
19:36 dawn of devolution, held various senior positions, obviously finance secretary,
19:41 Nicola Sturgeon's deputy, a very influential figure in the party. But the flip side of that
19:48 is that he is - the perception is that he's yesterday's man, that his time has come and gone.
19:54 He was SNP leader between 2000 and 2004. It wasn't a particularly happy time for him. They didn't
20:00 have great election results. I think that's something that John Curtis, the kind of polling
20:04 guru, was pointing out, that it didn't go so well for John Swinney the last time he was SNP leader.
20:08 What do you think of him as a leader? Do you think, you know, will he be that figure of stability,
20:15 that calm head at a time of political crisis, or do you think he could be a bit stale?
20:21 I think one thing about John Swinney is everybody knows his name. Even those who are not interested
20:28 in politics, are not following it day in, day out. They all know who he is because he's been there
20:32 for so long. He's also been in the SNP, I think, since he was 15 years old. So this is way before
20:38 you know it was popular and fashionable to be talking about independence and talking about the
20:43 SNP. So he has really been there through all of it. I think he was very involved as a student and
20:48 in the youth sort of wings of the SNP before he then became involved in sort of the senior levels
20:53 of things as a politician. Obviously he's incredibly well liked in his constituency.
20:59 His constituency is Perthshire North. I, until the 2021 election, thought he was my MSP.
21:04 Turns out I am about a street or two away from the border actually. But inside his constituency,
21:10 he's incredibly well liked. He's very, you know, he's seen, he's often at events in the town as
21:16 well and people do go up to talk to him a lot just about how things are going. So if you see him,
21:22 I don't know, let's say Perth show for example, a big farming show that happens every summer,
21:27 he's always there. He's always got people talking to him. He's always going down,
21:30 he always goes down well with his constituents. So he is well liked there. It's more now,
21:35 can he make sure that that goes out towards the whole of Scotland? Because it won't just be
21:39 Perthshire people that he'll be representing, it'll be the entirety of the country he'll
21:43 represent. So that's a question there for him too. But yes, he has been there under Alex Salmond.
21:49 He has been there under Nicola Sturgeon. And related to the back benches, and I think he's
21:53 had a great time in the back benches this past year under Humza Yousaf. But yes, it is obviously
21:58 a criticism that is he the continuity candidate's continuity candidate? Which obviously Kate Forbes
22:03 can play into that and say that's not what she is. But as you said, Kate Forbes can't go in attacking
22:08 him on his competence because as you said, I think even beyond the SNP, there is definitely
22:13 a recognition that he knows what he's doing. And he's got the experience and he's got competence
22:18 at certain roles. You've seen that he's had issues before as SNP leader, but he's, you know,
22:22 he went down well as finance secretary, COVID recovery secretary, for example, and as deputy
22:28 first minister. So. >> What do you think, David? I mean,
22:32 he's 60 years old now. I think I'm right in saying if he, you know, came in as the new SNP leader and
22:38 said he was going to stand again at the Holyrood election in 2026, which he might, you know, be
22:43 under pressure to say so, otherwise he's a bit of a, you know, a caretaker, first minister. It seems
22:47 like he's kind of treading water a little bit. If he did that, he'd be 67 by the time of the next
22:52 election. That's kind of American style politics, really. >> Yeah. Really given Joe Biden a run for
23:00 his money. I mean, it's difficult because yeah, if he announced he's standing, the first question
23:05 is going to be what happens in 2026? Are you going to run again? And if he says no, then yeah,
23:11 his authority just goes away straight away. It's hard because he is very much yesterday's man,
23:18 even if that's a bit of an unfair criticism. Like, there is that perception that he's had his time.
23:23 Scottish politics has moved on a lot since, even since he left government about a year and a bit
23:29 ago. It's moved forward hugely. And he has been sat on the back bench, obviously trying to keep a
23:35 bit of a low profile. But then he was asked when Nicola Sturgeon resigned if he was going to stand
23:41 again. And he said he wanted sort of fresh blood and new people to come through. So, and now he's
23:46 kind of thinking, well, maybe I'm the man for it. And today he was saying that that is because
23:52 he thinks the party is in a more difficult position now than it was last year. And maybe he
23:57 is needed to kind of, like he said, give a bit of calm and stability to the party as it heads into
24:03 this quite chaotic general election, potentially. But he does have a lot of baggage. He's, if you've
24:10 been in government so long, you're going to have things that have gone wrong and people don't like.
24:14 You talked about him as the COVID recovery sort of secretary, and he was obviously very much
24:19 involved in that bit of a fiasco over the exam results. And there's various things. And that's
24:24 not a criticism, particularly of Mr Swinney. It's just what happens when you're in government. You
24:29 just have to deal with like lots of difficult and quite horrible things. So there'll be so much
24:35 baggage that can be sort of brought up and saying, well, you did this wrong, you did that wrong.
24:41 And Kate Forbes, I think, would really pretty much just sort of play into that and say, well,
24:45 if you want something different and something new, then give me a chance to do something different.
24:50 Yeah, well, it'll be fascinating to see what happens next. And I apologize for the kind of
24:56 makeshift nature of this. It's obviously been an extraordinary couple of days in Scottish politics.
25:00 We've been running about between Bute House, the Scottish Parliament, the Scotsman's office in
25:05 Princess Street. And I expect the coming days will be just as mental in lots of ways. But thank you
25:12 very much for watching and listening. And for all the latest news analysis videos, please check out
25:19 the Scotsman's website and buy a copy of the paper as well. Thank you very much.