THE installation of John Swinney as SNP leader has given way to some impressive political hyperbole ...
It is, after all, what he has dedicated much of his life towards. He is the steady and experienced hand that many in the SNP appear to be looking for. Even if, as Professor John Curtice has said, he wasn’t very good at it last time round. He wasn’t.Having failed to reproduce a new layer of leadership capable of uniting the party and providing direction for a fractured and rudderless independence movement, the company of an old hand has appeal.
After so long in office, with so very little to show for it, you need far more than to rely on the mantra of “competency.” That is the bare minimum anyone should expect from any government. It is not, by any measure, a vision or a strategy for political growth. And it is far from anything approaching an insurgent campaign for independence.
Another salve for the corporate sector, which also allows the party to shed any remaining influence of what is regarded as the malcontent grassroots of a declining movement that can’t offer the political protection and opportunities for votes, money and activism it once could. Crowdfunding has obvious challenges in the context of the police investigation too. When it comes to membership, tens of thousands have left and are not about to return. Thus, the SNP are desperate for big business backers. Indeed, this may be the party leadership’s primary objective when it comes to securing its own financial future.
We have seen the results of that as a consequence of the deferential turn made after the independence referendum defeat.Swinney is being granted a honeymoon better than Yousaf ever enjoyed. There are important structural reasons for this, not least an impending election.They are busying themselves with talk of a new dawn, new opportunities and a new resurgence of optimism on the doorstep. But near-term self-interest cannot, indeed will not, solve the broader and deeper dilemmas.
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