STEPHEN DAISLEY'S HOLYROOD SKETCH: Up in the cheap seats, Kate Forbes smiled like a cat served a saucer of double cream
MSPs gathered at Holyrood yesterday to debate whether they should withdraw confidence in the Scottish Government.
Which poses an obvious question: who thought it was a good idea to invest confidence in this mob in the first place?
Who looked at Humza Yousaf and thought: ‘Aye, the laddie who couldn’t operate a scooter; he’s the one for me’?
Never mind, for Anas Sarwar was on hand to tell the Scottish parliament that we needed an election, by which he meant Labour needed an election.
Sarwar delivers his speeches from such a high horse, it’s a wonder he doesn’t get vertigo.
Kate Forbes couldn’t hide her delight at Douglas Ross’s ringing ‘endorsement’
Moving his motion of no confidence, he paid tribute to Yousaf and insisted none of this was personal.
Within seconds, he was laying into Kate Forbes for her unpopularity within the Scottish Cabinet and John Swinney’s failings as finance and education secretary.
‘Even by Anas Sarwar standards,’ Yousaf quipped, ‘that is the fastest Labour U-turn I have ever seen.’
The First Minister, for his part, called for ‘a vote of no confidence in this failing, miserable Union’.
Those ten words are the most Yousaf has done to push the independence cause in 13 months.
All hands were on deck. Even occasional MSP Nicola Sturgeon had shown up to shore up her old government.
This prompted the opposition to recall her demands for an early election when Rishi Sunak replaced Liz Truss.
Offered an opportunity to intervene and update her stance on these matters, a wistful looking Sturgeon declined.
Douglas Ross had a grand old time with his contribution.
He taunted the SNP front bench about the fact none of them was putting themselves forward to succeed Yousaf. ‘Never mind the opposition having no confidence in this government,’ he teased. ‘This government has no confidence in itself.’
Then he went studs up against the two characters currently dangling their hats over the ring.
Kate Forbes, he said, wanted an independence referendum within three months of a general election.
‘She’s an even more radical nationalist than Humza Yousaf or Nicola Sturgeon!’ he exclaimed.
Up in the cheap seats, Forbes, perched behind John Swinney, beamed like a Siamese suddenly served a saucer of double cream.
What an endorsement from the Tory leader. That one was going straight on her election literature.
Ross turned to the man they call ‘honest John’, except you’re not allowed to call him that in the chamber because of the rule against nicknames.
Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone pulled him up, citing the prohibition. ‘I thought it was on accuracy,’ Ross quipped. His MSPs enjoyed that.
The Presiding Officer did not. A chastened Ross was required to apologise.
The Conservative chief was followed by his unlikely new partner in crime, Patrick Harvie.
Despite being at each other’s throat all the time, they managed to put their differences aside to bring down a First Minister. There’s a sitcom in that, I tell you.
Harvie harrumphed that, with Yousaf on his way out the door, Labour’s motion was about ‘chaos for the sake of chaos’. No wonder he was ticked off. That’s the Greens’ job.
There was, it must be said, not a crackle of energy in the air. Yousaf’s Monday announcement rendered any confidence motion superfluous.
Sarwar and various opposition MSPs brought up Sturgeon’s call for an election when Truss was replaced by Sunak.
I enjoy a spot of hypocrisy-trolling as much as the next person, but it’s the SNP. If they were consistent, they’d be dangerous.
And the constitutionally proper answer to Sarwar et al is that we have a parliamentary and not a presidential system. It’s the King’s Government, not the First Minister’s.
The most impressive tuppence- worth came from Willie Rennie. I like Rennie. He’s a halfway normal chap who somehow managed to smuggle himself into, first, the Lib Dems and, after that, the Scottish parliament.
He has better political analysis than most politicians. The SNP’s dilemma, he said, was that ‘either it heals the rift with the Green Party or it heals the rift with the public – but it can’t do both’.
Preach, brother. The Government survived yesterday – 70 votes to 58 – but while it has the confidence of the parliament, the confidence of the public is a long way off.
