Scotland

Humza Yousaf’s debut at First Minister’s Questions was never going to be straightforward. The First Minister’s questionable track record in government offered, to use his own words, an ‘open goal’ to his opposition. Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar was quick to point to Yousaf’s ‘incompetence’, while Scottish Conservative’s Douglas Ross belittled the new cabinet. But what made Yousaf’s FMQs debut even more chaotic were seven serial interruptions by climate activists. When the protests eventually stopped – after the public gallery was, in an unprecedented move, cleared bar two groups of schoolchildren – the attacks against Yousaf continued while today’s guest, the ambassador to Iceland, looked on. Riding the wave of SNP

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has risked widening the split within the SNP by effectively ousting Kate Forbes from the cabinet. Having dispensed with his leadership rival, Yousaf has now appointed those who will make up his top team – and insists that his choices demonstrate a party united. But for all his warm words, Yousaf appears to have done little to reach across the SNP divide. Instead, he has opted to reward those who have stayed loyal to him throughout his campaign, such as Shona Robison and his campaign manager Neil Gray. Those who backed Forbes are nowhere to be seen. For all his warm words, Yousaf appears to

Dear oh dear. It seems the newly-elected gaffe-prone First Minister of Scotland has blundered once again. Shortly after announcing that former social justice secretary – and Sturgeon’s old chum – Shona Robison would be his deputy, Humza Yousaf spoke to Kate Forbes about her place in his new cabinet. Widely expected to give her a top job, if only for appearances, the former finance secretary was said to be less than happy when he proposed to, er, demote her to rural affairs. She was so displeased in fact that she reportedly told the FM ‘where to stick it’, and promptly quit the government thereafter. So much for party unity. Yousaf’s

It was announced to a particularly tense room at 2 p.m. that Humza Yousaf had won the SNP leadership race. The contest was expected to be close and many people assumed that if second preferences were accounted for, Kate Forbes would most likely prevail. Ash Regan’s voters didn’t quite manage to swing it in Forbes’s favour and Yousaf won by just over 2,000 votes. He is set to become both the youngest first minister of Scotland, and the first Muslim leader in the UK. For him, this election win means breaking records and perhaps Yousaf thought this pattern would continue when he made his first move as leader of the

Just who do the Scottish Greens think they are? They provide a mere seven seats to the SNP’s 64 and they won 1.3 per cent of the vote in the constituency section of the Holyrood elections in 2021 (they had 8.1 per cent in the regional section). In return for that meagre offering they think they have the right to end economic growth in Scotland. No wonder at all then that Kate Forbes and Ash Regan are unbothered by the prospect of the Greens leaving government – maybe even pushing them out should they win the SNP leadership – and only Humza Yousaf has signed up to their ‘non-negotiable’ demands