I also had friends and family here for decades before coming to live here (which I have done for 20 years). Sitting here daily surrounded by friends, acquaintances and strangers, the Scottish press and TV, and lacking the inevitable constraint of getting my news filtered by family, I can say with confidence that your earlier comments simply don’t align with reality. If you don’t actually live here then you’re getting your news from a limited viewpoint coloured by your own assumptions.
Humza Yousaf is the SNP establishment placeman. Nothing much will change under his watch, which is a bullet not dodged but very much to the brain for the SNP given the problems it faces. In particular, the SNP’s desire to merge health and social care, a policy he has been intimately involved with as health secretary, is in serious trouble and facing opposition from local authorities and trade unions. If he lacks the political skill to deliver one flagship policy he’s unlikely to thrive as FM in charge of the whole lot.
The chickens will have very come home to roost by the time the next Holyrood election comes round in 2026, by which time the SNP will have been in power for 19 years. Yousaf has done nothing to show he has the political skill required to defy gravity and win another election, and much to suggest he lacks that ability.
Kate Forbes was the one the SNP heirarchy very much did not want in charge yet she ended the contest with 48% of the support - this from paid up, politically engaged members of what is supposedly an extremely politically progressive party. The reality is, the SNP has for the last 20 years been what the clique running it has decided it is, and not at all reflective of its wider membership except on the narrow issue of independence. This is unsurprising given that the SNP is really just a single issue pressure group forced to act as a full-on political party in order to secure its core aim.
Forbes’ social conservatism was popular with - or at least tolerable to - almost half the SNP’s membership, and she was notably more popular with the public at large than either Yousaf or Regan (net approval ratings -8, -20 and -24 respectively).
https://news.stv.tv/politics/humza-y...lic-poll-finds
To sum it all up … the only way you can conclude that the SNP has dodged a bullet by choosing Yousaf is if you personally approve of what he represents in terms of a socially progressive Scotland. Because based on actual facts - prior competence in office, likely ability to win a difficult election, alignment with actual Scottish social values - he’s a distant second to Forbes.
Which is why every opposition leader in Scotland with the exception of the Greens was celebrating last night.