Scotland

Ash Regan came third place in the SNP’s leadership contest, but the party's ‘rebel’ candidate is still fighting hard for her policies – and yesterday she saw a glimmer of success. The SNP has announced that on 24 June it will hold an ‘independence convention’ to take the place of a de facto referendum conference planned by former first minister Nicola Sturgeon. Though she only received 11 per cent of the first preference membership vote, Regan has not sat still since her defeat in March.

Another day, another report about the SNP's behaviour in office. Now, the accused is Education Secretary and former transport minister Jenny Gilruth, who faces claims that she breached the ministerial code. Gilruth is alleged to have deliberately chosen to delay vital rail works – which will cost the taxpayer around £1 million– to allow her own constituents to travel over the Christmas period. Rules for thee but not for me... The ministerial code states that frontbenchers must not use their position to influence constituency matters, meaning that if an investigation finds Gilruth guilty then she could lose her cabinet post. And opposition leader Douglas Ross was keen to make capital out of the story at First Minister’s Questions.

Humza Yousaf's regime is not exactly a government of all the talents. There's Patrick Harvie, the Zero Carbons minister, whose list of achievements is shorter than his fuse. There's Shona Robison, resurrected five years after taking Scotland to the top of the European health league for, er, drug deaths. And then there's the First Minister himself, the reverse Macavity who finds himself at the centre of every scandal. But amid this galaxy of mediocrity, one star shines brighter than the rest: Lorna Slater, the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. Slater has managed to distinguish herself in her 21 months in office through her special blend of personal misjudgements and policy errors.

In an extraordinary admission this week, the Scottish government has vowed to continue funding the SNP's ferries fiasco — despite accepting it would be cheaper to scrap the second vessel and commission a new one from scratch.  Economy secretary Neil Gray said a review had found that finishing the second boat, known as Hull 802, does not represent value for money. What's the background? The Scottish government commissioned two new vessels to serve on Scotland's west coast in 2015. None have been delivered by the now nationalised Glasgow shipyard that won the contract, while funding for the yard has become something of a financial blackhole for taxpayers.

Nicola Sturgeon's sheer brass neck never fails to amaze. A politician whose party is under police investigation, and whose husband has recently been arrested, is hardly best placed to start talking about scrapping juries in criminal trials. It's a bit like Boris Johnson, at the height of partygate, speculating about the breaking up of the Metropolitan Police. Sturgeon's first venture into policy advice since her resignation came in a column in the Guardian supporting First Minister Humza Yousaf's proposed Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. This bill, which she sponsored before she resigned in February, calls for a trial of judge-only specialist courts for sexual offences.

It's not the SNP's year is it? Just when the nationalists thought they could catch a break after the chaos of recent months, fresh revelations have been published about the infamous police raid on Nicola Sturgeon’s house. It turns out that Police Scotland put in their requests for a search warrant of the Sturgeon-Murrell property midway through the leadership contest on 20 March. But officers were left waiting for another two weeks until they got the green light on 3 April — seven days after the contest had ended. Talk about convenient timing for establishment candidate Humza Yousaf.

The SNP has announced that if the next general election results in a hung parliament it will, as power brokers, ‘undo Brexit as far as possible’. Alyn Smyth, the SNP’s EU accession spokesperson, said his party would demand the UK has a close relationship with Brussels in any negotiations with a minority Labour government. There might be a few titters at this and jokes about signing cheques that can’t be cashed from a scandal-beset party whose relevance and even long-term viability is in serious doubt. But the SNP clearly think this is a winning strategy that can arrest their decline and boost their chances. Whether it truly is, and whether their avowed antipathy to Brexit is all that it is purported to be, is questionable.

The scandalous debacle of Scotland’s ferries fiasco has rumbled on for some time. It is almost a decade since Nicola Sturgeon announced the takeover of the Ferguson Marine shipyard by the Clyde Blowers billionaire, Jim McColl. He was the preferred bidder to build two new dual-fuel car ferries for the state owned CalMac island ferry service. They never materialised. The ferries saga has been the longest-running procurement scandal since the SNP entered government in 2007. Now, First Minister Humza Yousaf, who was transport secretary when things started to go wrong in 2018, thinks he has finally hit on a solution: privatising the beleaguered shipyard on the Clyde. But there’s a snag: one of Scotland's largest unions is furious.

What is it with Humza Yousaf? Scotland’s First Minister has plenty on his plate: police are investigating the SNP’s financial affairs, feminists are pushing back against his plans for gender recognition reform and now lawyers are boycotting the pilot scheme for jury-less rape trials that he has vocally championed. At some point, this stops being simple misfortune and instead suggests serious political miscalculation. Criticism of the Scottish government’s plans to try rape cases without a jury has been building. Now, with at least seven legal bodies having voted to reject the proposed changes to court proceedings, a near unanimous boycott looks likely to render the pilot scheme unworkable. Good. From Bud Light to Maybelline make-up, calls for boycotts are two-a-penny nowadays.

Humza Yousaf has already stoked a right royal row with his party’s hardliners by ditching a pro-independence rally to attend the coronation. And now he’s really gone and done it by leading the Scottish Parliament in a celebration of the event. The SNP leader tabled a motion showering praise on the King and Queen: That the Parliament congratulates Their Majesties The King and The Queen on the occasion of Their Coronation; expresses its gratitude for Their Majesties’ public service to Scotland, and affirms the deep respect that is held for Their Majesties in Scotland. Speaking to the motion this afternoon, Yousaf hailed ‘an important constitutional milestone’ and praised the multi-faith nature of the ceremony.

In Scotland, everything from eye tests to prescriptions to university tuition is paid for by the state, even if you can easily afford to pay for it yourself. Such is the intoxicating effect of universal benefits that the only question up for debate in the Scottish Parliament is what else can be given to everyone for free, rather than what is most effective or affordable.  That was until Humza Yousaf became First Minister. In need of a political lift following the police investigation into the SNP’s finances, Yousaf has engineered a significant break – not just with his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, but with the Scottish political consensus that had nurtured his career to date.

Just in the nick of time, the SNP have at long last – after cold calling almost every auditing firm in the country – found some new accountants. The small Manchester-based firm, AMS Accountants Group, must be hungry for a challenge: the Westminster group’s accounts need auditing in just over three weeks, while the Holyrood party’s accounts have a deadline of 7 July. Tick tock! Commenting on this minor triumph, First Minister Humza Yousaf said:  We take our statutory obligations extremely seriously, so it is welcome news that AMS Accountants Group will complete the accounts for both the party and the SNP Westminster group. I am very grateful for the work of our new party treasurer Stuart McDonald in securing the auditors' services.