Scotland

Another feminist getting no-platformed in Scotland is hardly news. Poets, writers, students, academics, comedians and, of course, film-makers have become inured to being cancelled north of the border if they stray from the dogma that trans women are women. Normally this kind of thing happens in the shadows, without publicity. People just find, like the poet Jenny Lindsay, that their livelihood disappears. Cancellation is the standard operating procedure for the handful of trans activists who seem to have a stranglehold on Scottish cultural life and education institutions. But this time they took on someone willing to fight back.

The Scottish National party's implosion brings good news for the Scottish Conservatives. At the Tories' party conference in Glasgow, delegates had a spring in their step about their party’s rising chances. Poll results show that the Unionist parties are seeing their support gradually increase, while the SNP’s grip on power looks to be weakening, Meanwhile, support for the Greens, though not especially high to begin with, has halved.  Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross was joined in Glasgow at the weekend by an all-star cast from Westminster, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, secretary of state for Scotland Alister Jack and levelling up secretary Michael Gove.

The leader of a governing party that seems to be spending most of its time helping police with their inquiries would, you might have thought, be a little wary of launching one of the most radical changes to the justice system in 800 years - but not Humza Yousaf. The politician who gave us the illiberal Hate Crime Act, which makes 'stirring up hatred' even in the privacy of one's home a criminal offence, is now threatening to abolish jury trials in Scotland. Since Magna Carta was issued in 1215, those accused of serious crimes in Scotland have had the right to be judged by a panel of their peers, but perhaps not for much longer. The SNP's Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill will pilot judge-only courts for sexual offences.

There's not a day that goes by in Scottish politics without the woes of the Sturgeon-Murrell empire being discussed in full. Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross didn’t hold back when asked about whether he felt sorry for Nicola Sturgeon during what feels like the SNP’s perpetual state of crisis. Mr S caught the slightest of smirks cross the politician’s face before he conceded: ‘No.’ Did he believe Sturgeon’s performance in Holyrood on Tuesday, on the afternoon of former treasurer Colin Beattie’s bombshell comments on Scotland’s most infamous motorhome, was sincere?

When 20-year-old Francis Auld walked free from Glasgow’s High Court in December 1992, there was widespread belief that a monster had got away with murder. The evidence he had killed 19-year-old Amanda Duffy had seemed compelling: the pair had been seen together in the Lanarkshire town of Hamilton shortly before her death. A deep bite-mark on the victim’s breast had, he admitted, been inflicted by Auld. The accused’s defence - that he had left her, shortly before the time of her death as established by a post-mortem examination, in the company of another man - was flimsy. Auld walked from the dock not because the jury found him 'not guilty' but because a majority agreed the case against him was 'not proven'.

Is the truth about the ignorance of key SNP figures being exposed? Or is the party's 'inner circle' even smaller than first thought? It certainly appears to have been the norm for senior figures to only become aware of party dealings after the fact. First Minister Humza Yousaf has said he didn’t know about the purchase of a £110,000 motorhome until after he became SNP leader. Former treasurer Colin Beattie initially said he didn’t know about the buy, despite his name appearing on the SNP’s 2021 balance sheet (though he has, this evening, clarified that he ‘became aware of the transaction via the 2021 annual accounts’ – still indicating that over a year went by before he found out).

Scottish politics has never been more febrile. If we go a day without an arrest, a resignation, a revelation about financial mismanagement in the Scottish National Party we wonder what we've missed. It's probably a little like this after a coup or in a failing Latin American state. Okay, there are no tanks rumbling along Sauchiehall St., but the political and media worlds have been holding their collective breath waiting to see if the former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, will be arrested by police. Newspapers have their profiles ready to run. So far she has avoided the long hand of the law. Why is everyone expecting this hitherto blameless politician, this icon of progressive feminism, to be taken into police custody?

This week was supposed to be Humza Yousaf’s big relaunch for the SNP. His speech on Tuesday was designed to show how he was combining his adopted role as the ‘son of Sturgeon’ with his ability to be his own man. Alas, it was not to be: the arrest of SNP treasurer Colin Beattie completely and utterly derailed the new First Minister’s best-laid plans. Yousaf had wanted to show he recognised that the relationship between the Scottish government and the business community had fallen into a ditch, to make clear it needed a ‘reset’. His willingness to compromise came in his announcement that the deposit return scheme would be delayed, and plans to ban alcohol advertising would return to the ‘drawing board’.

Does Humza Yousaf really want to be 'focusing relentlessly on the day job', as he claimed at First Minister's Questions today? It's not a fun day job to focus on. The First Minister naturally had to face questions on the crisis in his own party when he faced MSPs today, with both Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar majoring on it. The Scottish Tory leader tried to suggest the investigation into the SNP's finances was distracting Yousaf from his day job, and moved onto one of the 'matters of substance' he felt needed more attention, which was sentencing policy. Yousaf, of course, previously served as justice secretary, and had to answer questions on prison sentences for under-25s after the shocking case of a convicted rapist who avoided jail because of his age.

All political careers end in failure but Humza Yousaf has managed to begin his there. Three weeks ago, he clinched the leadership of the SNP in a 52-48 per cent photo finish. Since then, he has deepened divisions within his party by shunning MSPs who failed to support his leadership bid, launched a legal challenge to Westminster to restart his government’s unpopular gender reforms, and watched as police raided Nicola Sturgeon’s home and arrested Peter Murrell, her husband and the SNP’s former chief executive, amid a probe of party finances.   Tuesday was supposed to mark a ‘reset’, because Yousaf’s leadership is in such dire straits that, less than a month in, it already needs resetting.