Humza Yousaf snaps at BBC when, as Health Secretary, he should be worrying about more than his own vanity – Brian Wilson

The Scottish Ambulance Service is in crisis, hospital waiting lists are at record levels, a Covid passport system is another accident waiting to happen… so what does the Cabinet Secretary for Health find to get exercised about?

Health secretary Humza Yousaf said he was ‘not sure there is need’ for the media to tweet a video of him falling over whilst suffering from an injury.

Clearly the issue of the hour was that BBC Scotland’s political editor, Glenn Campbell, had posted on Twitter a video clip of Mr Yousaf falling off his mobility scooter as he sped through the corridors of Holyrood, an aide running to keep up.

Mr Campbell commented, “The Health Secretary, Humaz Yousaf, does not appear to be having a good day at work” which might have had wider application.

Oh, what a sensitive soul he must be. Or an exceptionally vain one. It reinforces a point I made here last week about satire being effectively banned in Scotland. In the unlikely event of us having a programme that poked fun, the video of Mr Yousaf’s mishap would surely have featured. Think of the outrage that would have caused!

I was reminded of an edict from Alex Salmond’s office, when First Minister, that no photographs should be taken of the great man when disgorging himself from his minIsterial car, presumably lest his physique should be displayed in an unflattering light.

Anywhere else, every snapper in the land would have seen it as his or her bounded duty to defy the edict. Not here.

We need more pomposity pricking, not less – and anyone with as sensitive as Mr Yousaf should find a calling other than politics. But what else would he do – or has he ever done?

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