There is no shortage of noise in contemporary politics, nor of people keen to confuse it with authority. Jeane Freeman, the former Scottish health minister who passed away this weekend, never did. She moved through political life with the calm confidence of someone who was always three steps ahead of any room she was in and entirely comfortable letting others catch up. This is not, however, to be confused with arrogance, of which she displayed not a hint.
I came to know Jeane a little over the last few years, meeting every so often for coffee or lunch. I can’t claim we were close friends, but I always enjoyed those catch-ups. They were fun, full of gossip and the sort of dark humour that comes naturally to people who have spent too long watching their own party eat itself. But they were also bracing. I always left having learned something or, at the very least, having had a few assumptions quietly dismantled.
Away from the spotlight, Jeane was warm, dryly funny and generous with her time
One moment from those conversations has stuck with me. We were having coffee in my then constituency in early 2024. The party was in a mess on several fronts, and I knew I was struggling locally. I was talking it through at some length and circling the issues in a way that politicians often do. After listening to me patiently for a while, Jeane interrupted and nodded towards two women sitting at a table across the café and asked: ‘Stewart, why should they vote SNP?’
I couldn’t think of an immediate answer. Sure, I could have reached for the party lines – and she knew them as well as I did – but that wasn’t what she was interested in. Jeane had little time for dancing around problems or self-comforting indulgence. She went straight to the question that mattered and was entirely relaxed about being awkward, including with her own party.
This being said, Jeane didn’t lecture or grandstand. She simply asked the right questions or pushed gently at the weakest part of your argument until you realised it needed more thought. There was no condescension in it and no point-scoring. Debate, to her, was something to be taken seriously, not a blood sport or a slagging match.
That approach defined her public life. The tributes that followed the news of her tragic death were striking not just for their warmth, but for how consistent they were across party lines. Jeane was respected because she behaved in a way that has become unfashionable in politics today. She listened. She paid attention. She saw things through and got stuff done. And she had very little patience for woolly thinking or politics conducted as performance. If she disagreed with you, you knew why. More often than not, you went away thinking she had a point.
‘Formidable’ is a word that gets thrown around too easily in politics, often as a polite euphemism for loud or self-important. That was never Jeane. Her authority came from knowing her brief and refusing to cut corners. She did her homework and it showed. She could get to the heart of an issue without ever having to raise her voice or put on a show, and she certainly never wasted time on ill-thought-through ideas, even if they were fashionable.
As Cabinet Secretary for Health between 2018 and 2021, she held one of the toughest jobs in Scottish politics, and she held it during a period that would have overwhelmed most of us. The Covid pandemic brought pressures that were relentless and unforgiving. Decisions had to be made at speed, often with incomplete information and under extraordinary scrutiny. Jeane never pretended it was easy, and she was candid about mistakes made and lessons learned. But she did not flinch from the responsibility either, understanding that leadership often means absorbing pressure rather than endlessly trying to deflect it.
Away from the spotlight, Jeane was warm, dryly funny and generous with her time. She took people seriously regardless of status or party, and had little interest in the vanities and hierarchies that so often dominate modern political life. After the 2024 general election, she was generous to me, offering practical advice about life after frontline politics. She didn’t need to do this, but I’ll be forever grateful that she did.
Jeane Freeman made a profound impact on Scottish public life without ever feeling the need to chase headlines or cultivate a brand. She was a proper values-driven politician of the old school, far from the sort of wannabe social media influencers and brand artists that we’re increasingly having to indulge in politics today. She showed that you can be sharp without being cruel, authoritative without being arrogant and tough without losing your humanity. Few will replicate Jeane’s career, but many would do well to learn from how she went about it.
I will greatly miss my occasional catch-ups with her – I only wish we’d done it more – but I know that her loving partner Susan will miss her most of all. In a message posted today, Susan wrote simply: ‘be kind to each other – that’s all that matters.’ It is hard to think of a more fitting closing thought. My sympathies are with her and the rest of Jeane’s family.
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