EXCLUSIVE: Speaking on the first anniversary of Humza Yousaf becoming SNP leader, Alex Neil described the SNP's general election strategy as 'mince'.
Humza Yousaf must be "bold" if he is to be viewed by the public as a leader and not just a commentator on politics, an SNP veteran has said.
But it has been a rocky 12 months in the top job for the Glasgow MSP as he faced a growing list of problems in both his party and in government. "He needs to be bold, he needs to be audacious. He gives the impression he's a commentator on Scottish politics and not a leader," Neil said.Yousaf won the first open SNP leadership contest in two decades on March 27 last year but his party has been rocked by an on-going police investigation into how donations were spent.
The FM has also insisted his party would have a mandate to begin independence negotiations if it won a majority seats in Scotland at the UK-wide poll."The idea you could start independence negotiations after winning 29 seats - that's for the birds. Nobody believes that."What I would be doing, if I were him, would be taking the measures necessary to regain the SNP's reputation for competence - which we've lost in recent years, even before Humza came to power.
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