SNP, drunk on power for 16 years, are about to experience an epic hangover – John McLellan

Sturgeon speech. “The good news is the country will now get to see more clearly, perhaps, that the SNP is full of talented individuals…” she said. Perhaps indeed. Instead, the country has seen very clearly the opposite is the case.

It’s the Hogmanay Hangover holiday, Scotland’s traditional extra day off needed to recover from New Year excesses, but the Scot with the most thumping headache of all is teetotal First Minister Humza Yousaf.

As May 2 now looks the most likely day for the general election, the SNP’s fortunes since Nicola Sturgeon’s departure in February have been a lurch from one disaster to another, and her successor now has just four months to turn a shambles only just held together by a constitutional dream into a campaigning machine with a cohesive message able to repulse a reinvigorated Labour.

It already seems like a lifetime ago, but it’s worth looking back at that resignation speech to see just how much, or perhaps little, has changed in less than 11 months. Ms Sturgeon’s claim that “there is now majority support for independence in Scotland” wasn’t true then and isn’t now, but her assertion that “we are firmly on course to win the next election while our opponents remain adrift” had more credibility, when three polls that week found an average of 41 per cent support for the SNP in Westminster voting intentions and Labour a distant second on 30.

Humza Yousaf does not appear to have inherited Nicola Sturgeon's political luck (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

But far from being adrift, the parties were already converging and the last poll a month ago had Labour two points ahead on 36. If the general election result is close to the outcome of the Rutherglen by-election, when Labour’s vote share was 58.6 per cent to the SNP’s 27.6 (a national opinion poll the same day put the SNP 37 to 33 ahead), then the only thing Mr Yusaf is on course for is a doing.

Ferries to nowhere

It’s perhaps Ms Sturgeon’s most perceptive political act to see what was coming, but even if she had no inkling the rozzers were about to feel her collar and those of her husband and the party treasurer over allegations of fraud and embezzlement ─ for which all three were arrested and released without charge ─ some of the biggest problems her successor has faced track back to her record in office. Gender recognition reform is a festering sore which will not heal while the SNP and Greens are determined to defy public sentiment. The doomed deposit return scheme was launched in 2019, two years before the SNP-Greens alliance put their co-leader Lorna Slater in charge. Canned in the summer, the total cost to government and business could be over £400 million.

But for hubris look no further than the ongoing embarrassment of the two Ferguson Marine ferries to nowhere. The black-painted fake windows of the Glen Sannox at its launch by Ms Sturgeon in 2017 have entered political legend, but again her speech on the day is worth re-visiting. “These state-of-the-art ferries are more sustainable, therefore contributing to Scotland’s world-leading climate change goals...” She might have added by not using any fuel at all. “This shipyard has such a special place at the heart of this community, and it wants to compete much farther afield,” she said, which now sounds like the sickest of jokes, but she was on the money in pointing out that “a lot of investment has gone into this shipyard”. Then, the estimated cost was £97m. It’s now nearly £600m, the yard has been nationalised and Glen Sannox still isn’t finished.

There's no denying Ms Sturgeon’s impressive record of eight election victories or that she had the communication skills to take advantage of circumstances, but like many a great general she had luck on her side virtually from start to finish. She took over when the SNP benefitted from the rebound of the independence referendum defeat, and a feeling amongst Yes voters that a strong SNP standing up for Scotland was the next best thing.

Clowns for opponents

When that wave peaked, the EU referendum result changed everything, and she became the focus and beneficiary of the Scottish anti-Brexit movement. With stern her favoured public demeanour, the pandemic played to her strongest hand. She was also fabulously fortunate to lead the SNP when Labour was led by a Marxist clown with the Holyrood group’s enthusiastic support, and again when a different kind of clown became Prime Minister.

By contrast, Mr Yousaf has had to deal with the camper van, the electric Jag and the scene-of-crime tent on his predecessor’s front lawn, the Health Secretary who tried to palm off an £11,000 iPad roaming bill on the taxpayer, an independence drive costing £3.5m and going nowhere, plus the ongoing repercussions of the failed prosecution of Alex Salmond. In the near future, a fight with the Scotch whisky industry will reignite when his administration tries to revive the ban on alcohol marketing demanded by health lobbyists, another of Ms Sturgeon’s parting gifts.

And then there’s the Budget. Mr Yousaf can’t get off the hook (apart from the default ‘blame Westminster’ routine) because his knee-jerk spending commitments added to increasingly unaffordable government handouts and, in November, Auditor General Stephen Boyle demanded reform because “the delivery of public services in their current form is not affordable”. The response was the protection of NHS resource budgets and the welfare programme, swingeing cuts everywhere else, but little sign of reform. Months of public argument about deteriorating services are inevitable, particularly in February when councils will be forced into all sorts of unpalatable decisions, and then there will be only a matter of weeks to go before the general election.

But back to that Sturgeon speech. “The good news is the country will now get to see more clearly, perhaps, that the SNP is full of talented individuals…” she said. Perhaps indeed. Instead, the country has seen very clearly the opposite is the case. That Rishi Sunak is heading for defeat seems beyond doubt, but Labour’s rebirth means the SNP’s hangover, after being drunk with power for so long, will take more than paracetamol to shift.