It’s probably as good an illustration of the madness currently engulfing Scottish politics as anything that the most unusual suspect, Anas Sarwar, may have just – temporarily at least – saved Humza Yousaf’s job.
And although our head hurts already, we’ll try to explain why.
News reaches Wings this evening that Humza Yousaf has called an emergency meeting of the Scottish Cabinet at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, just a couple of hours before FMQs. (This information has been confirmed directly to us by a source very close to a member of said Cabinet.)
An emergency Cabinet meeting is an extraordinarily rare event. As far as we’re able to establish there have only been two during the SNP’s time in power – when the budget failed to pass in 2009 and Alex Salmond’s administration had to decide whether or not to trigger a general election, and one the day after the Brexit vote to supposedly plan a second indyref (LOL). But in any case they’re extremely unusual.
The subject of the meeting has not been disclosed to us. It could, for example, concern imminent developments in Operation Branchform, or it could relate to the Bute House Agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens. The men in grey kilts may have come for the FM. Or Scotland could be about to declare war on Morocco or something. But we are told that the fact of the meeting taking place is a 100% certainty.
So no sleeping in tomorrow, readers. It’s probably going to be big.
Everyone’s having a lot of fun with the farcical Hate Crime Act that will finally come into operation in Scotland in just a couple of weeks’ time, fittingly on April Fools’ Day.
Even by the Scottish Government’s abysmally rank standards of legislation over the last decade it’s an embarrassing binfire, with citizens being urged to rock up at fishmongers, mushroom farms and demolished tower blocks to report “hate crimes”.
And you’d have to laugh, except that might be a crime soon too.
Nicola Sturgeon is due to give her evidence to the COVID inquiry tomorrow – if, of course, she remembers anything. We’re awaiting, open-mouthed in genuine shock, her explanation for this.
Because try as hard as we might, we cannot for the lives of us bring to mind a single possible legitimate justification for a First Minister to do such a thing.
Alert readers may however note that 19 March 2020 was just four days before Alex Salmond was cleared of all charges, and might find themselves pondering the reasons why she might want to be in possession of a cheap disposable text-capable phone at that particular point in time.
Apparently I’ve removed myself as the head of me for misbehaviour.
These are zany times in the independence movement, readers. Hold on.
This is officially the most embarrassed to be Scottish we’ve ever been.
And we’re including both the 2014 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony AND the time Craig Levein played 4-6-0 against the Czech Republic in that.
We have a government of clowns. Please, somebody, make it stop.
As alert readers will have noticed, Wings has been perusing the SNP’s Governance And Transparency Review over the last couple of days, a document which tentatively attempts to discern just how big a mess the party’s previous leadership has left it in.
(SPOILER: a really big one.)
The paper has now also reached the mainstream media.
Wings already touched on that particular aspect of the party’s mismanagement back in August, but in the light of the report now formally acknowledging the problem it’s worth taking a moment to establish just how astonishingly bad it is.
Well, we must admit we didn’t see that one coming.
Although maybe it’s just because over the last few years the concept of an SNP MP having any sort of principles has become so wildly implausible.
Huh.
But hey, maybe it’s just one of those things where you only get a drop-down menu and there’s no option for “Scottish”, yeah?
Oh. Well, there you go then.
So this popped up this afternoon.
I checked, and it’s legitimately from Apple.
Humza Yousaf today:
So… his job is to get a legally binding referendum (something which doesn’t actually exist), but he knows that if we’re likely to win it we’re less likely to get it, so… we need to look like we’re going to lose one if it happens?
So presumably with support for the SNP already plummeting through the floor, the next phase of his grand strategy will be to drive support for independence down too? We suppose that’s a more rational explanation of the party’s actions in recent years than anything else we can think of, right enough.
Or of course, it might be that the guy’s just a complete gibbering idiot. You tell us.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
