So, goodbye then, Humza Yousaf. It was an interesting 13 months.
The sudden departure of Nicola Sturgeon did not leave you much to be going on with, being shackled to a party that proved itself to be so extremist and uncaring about people’s livelihoods that its crazy policies would have vaporised, had they been implemented. Your hat was always on a shoogly peg.
Then, last week, you decided the way forward for the SNP was to go it alone and get a quickie divorce. Push back the emissions target dates. Boom. That rattled them.
Then end the Bute House accord. Boom-boom. Watch them take the huff and head out into the rain. Boom-boom-boom. Job an’ finish, as they used to say in these parts.
Alas, hell hath no fury like a Scottish Green scorned, and they swooped back for the jugular – a vengeful vote of confidence, or something in that vein.
Smelling blood, Scottish Labour, too, couldn’t resist questioning the confidence parliament had in your entire party. Boom. Referee Ross took a side. Boom-boom. That was enough.
You were “considering” your next move, but you were undoubtedly already planning a holiday in 28 days’ time. The Hebrides are nice at the end of May. Come up and see us sometime. You were up a couple of weeks ago, but that was business.
Come with me to the Criterion Bar and meet George Gawk. He says he’s still Labour, but he will happily discuss what is wrong with any party. It’s what he does. He will also talk about sheep. He’s always done that, too.
Forbes, Flynn or old faithful?
Listen, Humza – can I call you ‘Za? Well, I’ve been doing that for a while anyway. I’m not a party political type, but, because I scribble, many people ask who I think will follow you. My first thought was wee Katag Forbes. Yet, I am not sure Scotland is ready for uncompromising Free Church-type truths.
Then, I thought it was time for Stephen Flynn, away from the action in yon distant southern smoke. He doesn’t seem too keen at the moment. Stephen’s only just lost his hair. He’s far too young.
On Monday, ye olde veteran baldy John Swinney, who was once a caretaker FM for five minutes, let slip he was “considering” allowing his name to go forward. That word “considering” again.
At leadership crises, rivals do a lot of considering. It usually means they’re champing at the bit. Swinney has clout and experience in spades. He was deputy leader for nearly a decade, until last year.
Welcome to Pot Hole City
I’m considering, too. I’m considering nominating Daventry Banksie for an honour. I don’t know her real name, but she’s the wonderful dame who began a campaign to fix potholes in Northamptonshire.
She began a cheeky poster campaign, urging the council to get it done, then called up Jeremy Vine, which everyone with any worthwhile cause must do nowadays, and had acres of news written about her. She really had a go, welcoming drivers to “Pot Hole City – twinned with the Grand Canyon”. She even named a roundabout “Pot Holy Island”. Council chiefs raged, and cringed.
Supporters, and there were many, even made pastries, with a wee biscuit like a tyre sunken in the middle. A pothole to have with a cuppa. It worked. Red-faced elected representatives caved in and ordered action to shut her up.
Even as you are reading this, West Northamptonshire squads are busy fixing the highways and byways down there. So much for the council apparatchik who opined she was some old agitator who would move onto some other campaign the following week. Nah, she stuck to it. And she stuck it to him.
Birds in unlikely places
I’m stuck with the thoughts of birds in unlikely places. I was about to do my business in a toilet in a house in Dalmore, on the west of Lewis, recently, when I realised a flock of birds was incoming. I could hear them, but couldn’t see anything.
Baffled, I was. And a bit scared. I almost dismantled the cistern to see if a flock of screeching seagulls was in there.
It turned out to be a motion-sensitive toilet-roll holder, which had catapulted me into a scene from the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds. You have no idea how quickly my zip was pulled up when I thought I was sharing the loo with pecking gulls.
So, ‘Za, to go back to your successor; I think that, barring some catastrophe, John Swinney will be first minister. And he must lead from the south to the very north, like the Hebrides and Shetland, where, of course, they all speak funny.
Two Shetland ducks were flying south. The first duck says: “Quack.” The second duck snaps: “Shut up. I’m flying as quack as I can.”
Iain Maciver is a former broadcaster and news reporter from the Outer Hebrides
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