There were more emergency stops from the SNP this week than a series of Top Gear and judging by our new First Minister Humza Yousaf’s performance on Tuesday he’s going to find the coming months very long indeed.
I never cease to marvel at the ways the SNP finds to fritter away public money, like ferries that will never sail, airports with no passengers, investment banks that don’t lend and free paracetamol for wealthy people.
It’s fair to say the attention of the Scottish political world has been elsewhere over the last couple of days, but the SNP’s internal turmoil cannot be a distraction from serious problems of governance in public services.
Thanks to the new First Minister’s less than spectacular performance as health secretary and the equally lacklustre tenure of the new Deputy First Minster in the same job before him, the latest incumbent, Michael Matheson will find his in-tray piled high with the result of years of mismanagement.
Two things might surprise readers this week. First, normal business has continued in the Scottish Parliament while the SNP leadership contenders trash Nicola Sturgeon’s record to persuade the members they are what Nationalism has been missing.
It was always going to be too much for the SNP to welcome a Conservative budget, so by their standards, the description of Wednesday’s UK budget as a “missed opportunity” is glowing praise.
The Scottish Government’s reaction to an £8.6 million funding boost for the Edinburgh Festivals from UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is “typically miserable and grudging”, according to a Lothian Scottish Conservative MSP.
Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP Sue Webber for the Lothian Region has shown her support for Scottish Apprenticeship Week by visiting Livingston Mechanical Services in West Lothian to meet with their apprentices.
What a weekend it was for Scottish women’s athletics, with Laura Muir winning a record fifth European Indoor Championship title and Eilish McColgan setting a new British 10,000m record.
