Only John Swinney can save the SNP

Anyone thinking change can wait for a new leader is fooling themselves

John Swinney at the launch of his leadership campaign earlier this year. Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty

Recently I’ve had a few SNP folk asking me why I am giving John Swinney the benefit of the doubt.

In my writing on Substack and in my columns in The Times I have repeatedly suggested the first minister is capable of being an agent of radical change within the SNP.

This puzzles some of my SNP friends. Where is the evidence Swinney is such a person, they ask? What leads me to think he has the inclination, never mind the intention, to speak hard truths to the nationalist movement? Isn’t he, in fact, one of the authors of the orthodoxy so badly in need of renewal?

And I get it. I am under no illusions about Swinney, having watched him up close as a politician for more than three decades, from the days when he was still working as a financial strategist for Scottish Amicable.