John Swinney is on course to become Scotland's seventh First Minister after his rival Kate Forbes confirmed she would not run for the SNP leadership. Alistair Grant, Rachel Amery and David Bol discuss an extraordinary week in Scottish politics - and what might happen next.
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00:00Market rate, £3,000 a day, were you signing Lionel Messi?
00:09This is First Minister's questions, just once, just once it would be nice to get a First
00:14Minister's answer.
00:16For Douglas Ross to stand there and talk about losing grip of a party when he's been leader,
00:23Conservatives have had the longest attempted coup in Scottish political history.
00:30The Steamy, a politics podcast from the Scotsman.
00:42Hello and welcome to The Steamy, the Scotsman's politics podcast. John Swinney is on course
00:47to become Scotland's next First Minister within days after Kate Forbes, his only rival, announced
00:52she would not run for the SNP leadership. Mr Swinney announced his campaign in Edinburgh
00:57on Thursday morning and insisted he wanted Kate Forbes to play a significant part in
01:01his top team, sparking speculation she will become his deputy or finance secretary.
01:07It caps off an extraordinary week in Scottish politics after Humza Yousaf announced his
01:11resignation on Monday in the wake of the fallout from his decision to end the power-sharing
01:16deal between the SNP and the Greens.
01:18It feels like an entire year of Scottish politics has passed within the space of about seven
01:23or eight days. I certainly feel about 60 years older, but one thing is for sure, the
01:28next dramatic development is probably just around the corner. I'm Alistair Grant, the
01:33Scotsman's political editor, and I'm joined today, as usual, by Rachel Aimery, the Scotsman's
01:37political correspondent, and by David Ball, the deputy political editor, to discuss what
01:43on earth just happened and crucially, what happens next. And all being well, you'll be
01:47able to watch this podcast in video form as well on the Scotsman's website if that floats
01:52your boat. But Rachel, we're more than likely looking at a coronation for John Swinney.
01:58What did you make of his pitch in Edinburgh on Thursday morning? And do you think the
02:02SNP's opponents will be worried? I mean, I think it was interesting that John Swinney
02:05said, you know, made clear that he's not a caretaker leader. He will lead the party,
02:10he's saying, into the 2026 Holyrood election and beyond. I thought that was interesting.
02:17But what did you make of what he said in general?
02:19Yes, so this speech yesterday, well, a speech on Thursday morning in the grass market in
02:23Edinburgh, it seems to have gone down well with SNP supporters. They seem to have really
02:29liked his pitch there, sort of going back to bread and butter politics, if you will,
02:33but also with a very, very strong emphasis on independence, too. Of course, the opposition
02:39parties have taken no time at all to sort of criticise him, saying that he's going to
02:44be focused on nothing but independence. But it certainly has seemed to please SNP voters.
02:49And this sort of trying to reach out to Kate Forbes has also sort of pleased people who
02:53are Kate Forbes supporters. It's pleased those on the back benches. I know that Joanna Cherry,
02:59for example, she does not, I don't think she explicitly said that she would back Kate Forbes,
03:03but she certainly posted a lot in the past week in defence of Kate Forbes. She yesterday
03:08was having great things to say about John Swinney because he has reached out to her.
03:13So this idea that the new first minister, the new SNP leader needs to bring the party together,
03:18I think we're already seeing that. So if all goes according to plan, if all goes down the path,
03:23it looks like it is going. Hopefully he can then reunite the party because the SNP will need to
03:30do that if they're going to fight a general election on a good standing. So I think it did
03:34go down well. And it does look like he is going to be unopposed here and he will be the first
03:41minister probably by this time next week. It could, it could go that quickly, couldn't it?
03:47Yeah, it could. I mean, if he, obviously the nominations for the SNP leadership close at
03:52midday on Monday, I think you'd expect things to then move quite fast. I don't imagine Humza
03:56Yousaf is going to want to hang around as first minister. And obviously people might remember
04:00last time when Humza Yousaf was being sworn in, we had the process of voting in the Scottish
04:04parliament. You'd expect John Swinney to get the support of, for example, the Greens.
04:09You would then have that getting sworn in at the court session, all those kind of formal things
04:13that need to happen. But David, I mean, John Swinney is obviously a hugely experienced figure.
04:19You know, he's someone who's been in the kind of frontline of Scottish politics for decades.
04:24He was Nicola Sturgeon's trusted deputy. He was finance secretary under Alex Salmond and Nicola
04:31Sturgeon. And he was also SNP leader, people might remember, about 20 years ago, between
04:372000 and 2004. It has to be said, not a very successful period for the party, but he's saying
04:43that he's, you know, a changed man, he's a changed character, he's a different person.
04:47And I described him as something akin to a comfort blanket for the SNP in a piece I wrote
04:53in today's paper. And by that, I mean, he's seen as a kind of reassuring, safe, stable figure
04:59at a difficult time for the party, isn't he? Yeah, I think he's been described repeatedly
05:05as a safe pair of hands. And like you said, there's no one as experienced as him, there's no
05:08one. Probably in the party who can unite the party, he talks about wanting to sort of
05:15unite the party, which is pretty divided at the moment. People who've sort of entered the party
05:20recently or back in the day, they all recognise him and they all sort of respect him. So I don't
05:26think there's anyone else in there who could have done that, to be perfectly honest. As well as
05:32having all that experience, though, he's got a bit of a potted history where obviously, if you're
05:35in government for so long, you're going to have things that you've done wrong or have gone badly
05:40for the SNP, like you mentioned his sort of previous leadership stint, which didn't go
05:44particularly well. The SNP is a completely different sort of beast now. It's kind of a force
05:49to be reckoned with, whereas maybe it wasn't back then. But I think, yeah, he just seems to be the
05:55one person that they've turned to maybe in a bit of panic at the sort of state of the last week,
06:00who can kind of bring them together and just instil a bit of calm and settle them down before
06:05the general election. I thought it was interesting, there's a huge kind of unity message from John
06:12Swinney and Kate Forbes, wasn't there, Rachel? I mean, he said during his leadership launch that
06:17the SNP is not as cohesive as it needs to be. Yeah, and I managed to grab a chat with him in
06:24the Guardian lobby. He came back to Parliament after his speech to sit in on the chamber
06:29business yesterday. And yeah, pretty much that's exactly what he said to me. He said that, you know,
06:34it hasn't been cohesive and we need to come back together. That's something that others in the SNP
06:39that I've spoken to before he announced his leadership bid said that whoever it is, they
06:44need to bring the party back together. It's too split, it's too divisive. And so that's clearly
06:50a big concern for the SNP, particularly because they are now in a minority government. Obviously,
06:56last week, we saw the ending of the Bute House Agreement, which scrapped the power sharing deal
07:01of the Greens, which means that they no longer have a majority in Parliament. Not an impossibility to
07:06work around. We know that minority SNP governments have worked before under Alex Salmond and Nicola
07:12Sturgeon, but it is going to be more difficult now. So I think he realises that, he realises that he
07:16needs to not annoy his backbenchers, try and reach out to the Greens, try and reach out to the other
07:22political parties in Holyrood as well on some issues. So I think he's, he understands that,
07:27he understands the game that needs to be played here. So yeah, I think we're going to have to see
07:32how he's going to sort of try and spread that unity out beyond Parliament into the whole of
07:36Scotland now as well. And do you think he is the man to unify the party, Rachel? I mean,
07:41obviously there was a lot of, you know, when Kate Forbes was the frontrunner before she kind of,
07:47or like one of the frontrunners before she decided not to go for the leadership,
07:51there were some people who said that she wasn't the person to bring the party together because she
07:54was, you know, potentially a controversial figure in terms of her socially conservative religious
07:58views, in terms of maybe being more to the right than Humza Yousaf, for example. Do you think John
08:04Swinney is the man to unify the party? As David was saying there, he probably is the only person
08:10in the party that could have done that successfully because Kate Forbes, the people who like Kate
08:15Forbes, they love her. She's got a massive support within the party. At the last Scottish election,
08:22she won a huge majority in her seat of Skyloft Aberin Badenoch. I think there were five figures
08:27her majority was as well. So she is hugely popular. The problem is, is those who don't like her
08:33kind of really dislike her because of those socially conservative views. I don't think
08:37anybody just sort of thinks, oh yeah, fine, Kate Forbes, yeah, she's fine. I think they either love
08:41her or hate her. I think that's the problem with her. Whereas I think John Swinney is more of that
08:46middle ground. Very few people are really, really dislike him. And I suppose in the same
08:53vein, perhaps there's not so many who really, really like him compared to what Kate Forbes has
08:57behind her. But in saying that, he is very popular amongst his constituents in Perthshire North as well.
09:02I think he also won the last election with a majority of over 10,000. And he has also been
09:09elected by his constituents since devolution. So don't underestimate his popularity either.
09:14Yeah, and obviously a hugely popular figure within the party. I mean, I think that's something that
09:18Kate Forbes was aware of. Yeah, she was going up against him with activists, with the people who
09:22work with him actually as well in the Scottish government. He's hugely popular. I thought
09:26it was interesting, David, that Kate Forbes referred to John Swinney being determined to
09:31return the SNP to, to use her words, governing from the mainstream. And in his own speech,
09:37Swinney talked about his goals coming straight from the moderate centre-left tradition. He talked
09:41about the pursuit of net zero, having to take people and businesses with it. Do you think we
09:46should expect a bit of a policy reset? I mean, obviously the SNP has been embroiled in a number
09:52of policy controversies over the last year in particular. Yeah, I think he was kind of
09:58sort of appealing to the members who have had quite a few concerns about the influence the
10:03Greens have had during that Boothouse agreement. Some of those policies have been sort of pinned
10:08on the Greens or have been sort of brought forward by, by the Green ministers who are
10:12obviously no longer in government. So it was probably just a bit of a kind of a sly way of
10:17saying that we're going to go back to what we had before the Boothouse agreement, probably more
10:22sort of under Nicola Sturgeon, where the policies were maybe seen as a bit more
10:27appealing to the public. But don't forget that John Swinney is kind of the architect of the
10:31Boothouse agreement, and he's going to have to work with the Greens to get things done.
10:36So I don't think it's going to be as straightforward as that. He's going to
10:38need the support of other parties, like Rachel mentioned, to pass legislation and budgets,
10:43something he's done before as a minority government. He's got all the experience to do
10:48that, but it's going to require him sort of reaching out to the Greens again, which a lot of members will
10:53not be keen to do. But that's why he was trying to reassure some of those members who
10:59may have those concerns about some of those policies. There's not a lot of wiggle room for
11:04the Scottish government to bring forward lots of ambitious policies, and I don't think that's
11:08what he would want to do. I think it's going to be very stable and steady, and to be perfectly
11:13honest, a little bit boring. The SNP doesn't need any more drama right now, clearly, and
11:19under John Swinney, they're probably not going to get that. Yeah, and obviously, Rachel, I mean,
11:26the way the tight parliamentary arithmetic works in Holyrood, I mean, this was a problem. We
11:31probably don't want to go back into this again, but it was a problem that Humza Yousaf faced. It was
11:35the reason he resigned when he ended that Bute House agreement. Without the support of the Greens,
11:39it was very difficult for him to find a way forward. We should expect the Greens to back
11:44John Swinney. I mean, as David says, one of the architects of the Bute House agreement,
11:49he's seen as quite close to some of the Green MSPs. He's got a good relationship with Ross Greer,
11:53for example, the Green MSP who was quite influential in that Bute House agreement.
11:59So we should expect the Greens to back him, probably. I would think so. Gillian Mackay,
12:04I think she's the central region MSP for the Green Party. She was actually on the radio
12:09on Friday morning and said that she wouldn't be drawn on whether she would back him to be
12:14First Minister because the Green MSP group haven't actually met to discuss that yet,
12:19which is fair enough. But the way she was talking, it sounds like she is quite pleased that that's
12:24who the SNP have gone for and says that, you know, we will be looking on an issue by issue basis to
12:29what we can support. She was asked about Kate Forbes and she did admit that herself and Kate
12:35Forbes do have some issues that they don't agree on and said that if she was given the Deputy First
12:40Minister position, they would have to see what kind of responsibilities that would entail.
12:47So, I mean, I'm just guessing here. I'm wondering if they think that she would be
12:50best off sort of dealing with the economy and finance and things that she has done before
12:55and less on sort of more sort of social issues that the Greens want to campaign on.
13:00Yeah, it's worth touching on that, David, because John Swinney obviously saying he wants to give
13:05Kate Forbes a kind of senior influential role in the government. He wants to bring her into
13:10Team SNP. That's obviously part of this unity message he was trying to put across on Thursday
13:15morning. And there's a lot of speculation that that role will be Deputy First Minister and or
13:21finance secretary because a notable absence from John Swinney's leadership campaign launch. There's
13:28a lot of senior ministers there, people like Angus Robertson, Mary McCallum introduced him,
13:32Mary Gougeon was there, Shirley-Anne Somerville was there. Who wasn't there was Shona Robison,
13:37the current Deputy First Minister and finance secretary, which people are kind of drawing
13:42the conclusion that that means that that role is soon going to be vacant. I mean, what do you think
13:47about, should we expect Kate Forbes to be John Swinney's deputy probably? It's quite likely,
13:54isn't it? I mean, that is, it's a big role that he's willing to give her. That sort of dual role
14:00that Shona Robison does, which is deputy, which obviously a big bit would be a big deal for Kate
14:04Forbes and a big message to that sort of side of the party that he means business by sort of
14:08bringing her into government. And also she's obviously done the finance brief previously,
14:13then they kind of go hand in hand a little bit. So I don't know what that means for Shona Robison.
14:19Maybe we're going to get a bit of a shuffle, but the cabinet's pretty hefty as it is. There's a lot
14:23of cabinet secretaries and a lot of ministers who obviously had a bit of change. I think they
14:28bumped sort of Fiona Hyslop up to cabinet secretary because there was a lot of criticism that transport
14:34wasn't given that sort of importance. So there's a lot of people in there,
14:39a lot of big names. And I mean, the obvious one would be the fact that Shona wasn't there.
14:46So people are going to assume that maybe that is something, maybe it isn't, maybe she was just busy,
14:51but the optics of it are very obvious that, oh, that could be the role for Kate Forbes.
14:57And from the sort of the people who have a bit of issue with her social conservative views,
15:03that role would very much have her sort of dealing with all the numbers and the figures
15:08and sort of still leading the SNP, but not really having a lot of influence or a lot of say over
15:13some of those sort of social policies that are giving some members a bit of the jitters about
15:19Kate Forbes being in a role of influence. I do think that it will be both roles that
15:24she will be given. I think given how close it could have gone to a contest,
15:30she has to be demanding big, big jobs here at this point. So I imagine it'll be both.
15:35I think also because I think John Swinney knows that the two do go hand in hand, as David was
15:40saying, when Humza Yousaf appointed Shona Robison as the dual deputy first minister and finance
15:46secretary, John Swinney did tell me that he thought that was a good idea because both those jobs
15:52require you to be over so much of the entire government. So it makes sense to do both at
15:57the same time. And of course, he did both at the same time as well. So I don't see him splitting
16:02those two jobs into two different people. I think he's going to keep them as one person,
16:07and that person will be Kate Forbes, I think. Yeah. And Rachel, how relieved do you think the
16:12SNP are to have very likely avoided another damaging leadership contest? I mean, last time
16:18around, we saw Kate Forbes laying into Humza Yousaf's record as a minister. We saw huge
16:24controversy over Kate Forbes's socially conservative religious views, and whether they were
16:29a legitimate target of criticism. It was a messy, bruising experience for the party, and I think
16:35ultimately damaged them in the polls as well. So I think there'll be a lot of people in the SNP
16:40hierarchy breathing a sigh of relief. Yes. I mean, under Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP was just
16:47an election powerhouse, really. It just seemed nothing could dent them in the polls. They just
16:51did incredibly, incredibly well. And that really has kind of gone in the past year. And a lot of
16:58people have pointed to the fact that the leadership contest did highlight some sort of slightly ugly
17:04divisions within the party. And that division, particularly between those who supported Kate
17:08Forbes and those who supported Humza Yousaf, hasn't quite healed yet. You still have this
17:13group of backbenchers sitting with Kate Forbes on the backbenches in Hollywood. And that's been
17:17the case for the past year. So yes, I think there will be quite a big sigh of relief. Just going
17:22through social media yesterday after this announcement was made, you could see a lot
17:28of senior figures in the SNP praising the decision for there just to be one candidate for them to
17:34work together. So I think those sort of making the moves behind the scenes are probably very
17:39pleased with the outcome. As I said, we are still a couple of days away from the deadline for
17:44applications, but I just cannot see anyone at this point disrupting that potential unity that's
17:50now being shown in the party. No, and I think you need something like 100 supporters from 20
17:56different branches in the SNP to put yourself forward as a leadership candidate. So it seems
18:00unlikely that some kind of outsider figure would be able to get that amount of support
18:05and put themselves onto the ballot to create a leadership contest. But who knows? I mean,
18:10politics is nothing if not unpredictable. And I think journalists will probably be
18:15in two minds about this as well, because on the one hand, leadership contests are a story
18:20goldmine. But on the other hand, I don't know about you guys, we're pretty exhausted. It's been a,
18:26you know, relentless time in Scottish politics. But David, going forward, what do you think will
18:31be in John Swinney's entry as First Minister? I mean, what are the issues he needs to get a grip
18:36on? He obviously mentioned unifying the party. I think he'll probably need to work on improving
18:41the public perception of governance in Scotland at the moment. But what do you think will be the
18:47things he needs to tackle head on? Oh, he's got so many things, I think,
18:51facing him as soon as he's in the door, to be honest. Uniting the party is the first thing he'll
18:55need to do. And he's kind of already done that by offering that job to Kate Ford. That seems to be
19:01what that side of the party want. They want a sort of a show that he is willing to work with
19:07everyone in the SNP who are assets. He talked very highly of her yesterday. And also, he put
19:14independence quite high up the sort of agenda of his priorities, which is obviously speaking very
19:19much to the membership who maybe feel they're a complete stalemate with the independence campaign.
19:25But obviously, the Scottish government, just because it's been in government for so long,
19:29it's not a specific criticism of the government. A lot of sort of criticism has been thrown at them
19:35over policy areas that have maybe sort of started or there's a lot of stuff in the NHS. So after
19:41COVID still kind of stuck in a rut, it's not really improving. So and these are things that
19:45go into the general election, people are going to care about, and things you want to at least show
19:49he's attempting and taking seriously that maybe need to improve. But yes, it's that appeal to
19:57the public, which is going to be the tricky one, because the SNP have obviously plummeted in the
20:01polls a little bit. For things outside of Humza Yousaf's hands, obviously, we have the police
20:07investigation sort of hanging over the whole time he was in charge, still hasn't really gone away.
20:12And obviously, Labour having a bit of resurgence. And we'll see down south that that is kind of
20:17cutting through to voters. So there just needs to be something he can appeal to
20:23to voters about. Maybe he's a sensible pair of hands that he can kind of govern
20:28well, and maybe a bit more like Nicola Sturgeon did. And people have that perception that she was
20:34quite a strong leader and someone they could kind of trust, even if they weren't big on independence
20:40or the SNP. What do you think, Rachel? Yes, and there's going to be a few challenges for him, I
20:46think. Of course, straight off the bat, getting the SNP back on an election footing. There is
20:52going to be a general election this year. We don't know when it could be. It could be very,
20:56very soon. It could be the end of the year in the winter, dark winter months. But he's going to very
21:01quickly have to get back the popularity that the party had under Nicola Sturgeon very, very quickly,
21:09because Labour are doing exceptionally well in the polls. And we've seen in the by-elections
21:13and the local elections in England and Wales that that is cutting through to the public very,
21:18very sharply. I think he needs to try and get the government away from the SNP financial
21:24difficulties and the police investigation that is ongoing. That may be quite difficult for him
21:30because he obviously was seen as so close to Nicola Sturgeon during her government. So while
21:36he's not being involved in any of the ongoing investigations, it's going to be hard for the
21:43public perception to move away there. And I think, yeah, the economy is the other one that he needs
21:49to get on the front footing. And you would hope that as the former finance secretary, and with
21:54Kate Forbes, the former finance secretary as well, in a significant job, that the two of them can
21:59hopefully get on the front foot with that as well, because obviously that's going to affect the whole
22:04country. So hopefully that's something that they can work together on and make it a bit more steady.
22:11And I wonder what you both thought. I mean, obviously John Swinney's campaign slogan on
22:15Thursday morning seemed to be, you know, uniting for independence. That's what he had on the podium
22:19when he was speaking or on his banners. Do we think it's time to be honest with, for the SNP's
22:28leadership, to be honest with its members and to be honest with voters and admit that independence is
22:33not frustratingly close, as Humza Yousaf put it in his resignation speech? I mean, what do you think, David?
22:41Yeah, I think that there is a perception that the SNP is kind of kidding itself over independence,
22:46that, like you said, Humza Yousaf said it's frustratingly close. But in reality, anyone
22:51looking in at the SNP knows that that's not the case. This isn't a route to independence.
22:55They can make the best case for it as they want, and they will continue to do that. But
23:00without that route, I think the public do kind of know that it's not a big issue at the
23:05moment. It's on the back burner, especially at the election. But it doesn't look like John
23:10Swinney's going to change tact on that. Like you said, that sort of slogan was very much speaking
23:14to the members, I think, who are very frustrated that, well, where they are on independence, which
23:20is kind of in the middle of the road, not looking at it. Yeah, I think there is a case to be had that
23:26the Scottish government and the SNP is a bit more open and honest with the public about the fact
23:33that, OK, this isn't happening for us right now. How do we change that? And maybe focusing on good
23:38governance and building the reputation of the SNP is the best way to go with that.
23:44I remember, it must have been after Nicola Sturgeon was on, Ben Macpherson kind of saying,
23:48oh, let's take a step back, and let's be realistic, and let's just play the long game,
23:52essentially. And he got a lot of criticism from the party, and no one really took that sort of
23:56view seriously. But maybe it is the time, as we head into this election, where independence,
24:02as much as the SNP would like it to be, isn't going to be the main talking point, and just
24:07focus on what is going to get voters on side, really. Yeah, because, Rachel, I thought it was
24:12interesting that, although that was John Swinney's slogan, during his speech, he said something along
24:18the lines of the need to kind of grow support, and the way to do that, you know, get back to this
24:22kind of competent government. But that kind of acceptance that basically the only route forward
24:28now in independence is to kind of grow public support, and to focus on that, rather than going
24:33down the route of some of the constitutional wheezes we've seen in recent years, which haven't really
24:38gone anywhere. Yes, I think that's probably a good point, because if you look at the polling as to
24:44what are the main issues that people are going to vote on this time round, it's not independence,
24:49it's the cost of living crisis and the NHS, and to a lesser extent, the economy as well. So those
24:55are the issues that voters are going to be choosing their votes on when it comes to the general
24:59election, not independence. In saying that, we know that support for independence is still around
25:04the 50% mark, so it's not that people are not taking a view on independence, it's more that
25:11there's other things that are now more important to them. But of course the SNP, their whole race
25:16on Dexra is independence, and that's obviously going to have to be a big part of what their
25:21campaign is going to be, just to sort of appeal to that core voter base. Mary McAllen, the
25:26economy secretary, was on the radio this morning, and she was asked about Andrew Neill's comments,
25:31where he said that independence is dead for a generation, and her response was,
25:34I don't think I know who he is, and then obviously, which made me giggle when I was listening to it,
25:39and then also then said that, you know, we do need to sort of grow this sort of support
25:43within the SNP, and I think showing sort of steady government, showing that Scotland can
25:51work without dramas, without pitfalls, without having blocks by the UK government, I think
25:57will help them in the long run, and that's probably what this new SNP government needs to focus on.
26:04Yeah, I did laugh as well when I heard that comment about Andrew Neill on the radio,
26:07but as I say, it's been an extraordinary week or so in Scottish politics. When we recorded the
26:12podcast last week, Humza Yousaf was still the First Minister of Scotland, now John Swinney
26:17is on the cusp of being sworn in as his successor, 20 years after he stood down as SNP leader,
26:23following a series of disappointing election results. It's a great comeback for a formidable
26:30figure who many believed had had his day, and it just goes to show that Scottish politics is as
26:35fascinating and unpredictable as any primetime TV show. But please stay tuned to the Scotsman's
26:41website for all the latest news, analysis, video, opinion, and pick up a copy of the paper too.
26:48Until next week, thank you very much for listening and watching.