SNP: Can Alex Salmond’s former spin doctor Kevin Pringle turn things around for Humza Yousaf and the SNP?

The appointment of Kevin Pringle has been hailed as a shrewd move by a beleaguered administration

He is credited with helping the SNP to become the dominant force in modern Scottish politics. Now insiders hope Kevin Pringle can work his magic once again after a brutal few months for the party and the Scottish Government.

Mr Pringle, who was Alex Salmond’s chief spin doctor and served as the SNP’s director of communications ahead of the 2014 independence referendum, will return to the corridors of power this week after an absence of several years in his new role as Humza Yousaf’s official spokesman and political adviser.

He arrives during a period of unprecedented crisis. The ongoing police investigation into the SNP’s funding and finances has led to a barrage of damaging headlines for the new First Minister, who has struggled to get on the front foot.

Kevin Pringle. Picture: STV/BBC

Within days of Mr Yousaf taking office, police officers raided the home of his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP. Mr Murrell was arrested and released without charge. A couple of weeks later, Colin Beattie, the SNP treasurer, was also arrested and released without charge.

And then on Sunday, the unimaginable happened. At 2.29pm, Police Scotland announced they had arrested Ms Sturgeon, Scotland’s longest-serving first minister and a titan of the political stage. She was questioned for more than seven hours before also being released without charge. To say the news sent shockwaves through the SNP is an understatement.

There are plenty of policy headaches, too. The under-fire deposit return scheme has been delayed until at least October 2025 amid a cross-border row with UK ministers, with businesses now threatening legal action. Ferries remain a constant problem.

But even the SNP’s strongest critics see the appointment of Mr Pringle, who first started working for the party in 1989, as a shrewd move.

First Minister Humza Yousaf. Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

“Obviously Kevin Pringle is an adult and a professional, so to some extent he can only improve the Scottish Government’s communications output,” said a senior Scottish Labour source. “I don’t think anyone would dispute that. He is an adult in a room of small children who have been in great need of supervision for some time.”

A former senior SNP figure put it slightly differently. “Kevin is one of the best people in the business,” they said. “He’s got a very acutely tuned political antenna. He’s also brilliant in a crisis and it’s fair to say the last few months have been an ongoing crisis for the SNP.

"So if you want somebody to inject common sense and at least get things back on something of an even keel, then he’s absolutely the right person to do that.

"What it doesn’t do, I suppose, is completely reverse or remove the political headwinds the SNP is facing. There are things beyond the control of the SNP, such as the march of Labour at a UK level, and how people factor in to that who they want as their next UK Government, or who they want to beat the Tories at the next election. But Kevin will also have a good idea of how to capitalise on that.”

Mr Pringle left politics after the referendum and joined Charlotte Street Partners, the communications agency set up by former SNP MSP Andrew Wilson.

But journalists remember him as a “genius” at saying nothing – a key skill for a spokesman. Reporters would think he had answered a question only to discover, on returning to their desks and playing back the recording, that absolutely no newsworthy information had in fact been imparted.

One of his key tasks will be to change the political narrative around the Scottish Government, which has been accused of being tired, out of ideas and lacking in transparency. Relations with business leaders are in desperate need of repair.

Some question what Mr Yousaf actually stands for. “Ultimately, I don’t think Humza Yousaf has much of a political ideology himself,” said the former senior SNP figure. “What is Yousafism? I don’t know. If I had to sit down and interrogate the First Minister on what is the essence of his politics, I’m not sure there would be much to it.

"I don’t think his political philosophy is actually that well formed, so having somebody who understands how the political philosophy of the SNP has formed over the last few decades is no bad thing.”

Asked if Mr Pringle can turn things around for the SNP’s brand, given the upheaval of recent months, they said: “If anyone can, he probably can. I’m not sure it’s guaranteed though.”

Recent polls have shown support for the SNP taking a hit while Labour grows in confidence north of the Border. Sir Keir Starmer’s party senses an opportunity to gain seats in Scotland at next year’s general election.

Mark Diffley, director of the Diffley Partnership polling company and a friend of Mr Pringle’s, said the SNP’s support had undoubtedly dipped, but it now appears to be settling. “It does feel like they’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last six months or so, some of which frankly appear to have been avoidable,” he told The Scotsman. “That’s where Kevin comes in. The hope would be if the perception of the party returns to being more professional, more united, more coherent, then that will help them.”

Mr Diffley said the fundamental issue facing the SNP is what to do about independence. “What should it do, what can it do, what’s actually possible to do, and to what extent does it sing that from the rooftops?” he said. “Fundamentally, that’s what the party stands for.”

SNP members will gather for a special “convention” on independence later this month, but no big breakthroughs are expected. The new independence strategy won’t be set in stone until the party’s conference in October.

The senior Scottish Labour figure said the biggest failure under Ms Sturgeon “was that the SNP failed to be a government”, adding: “They just became a communications agency with a government logo attached to it. And what they were very good at doing was spinning while the f***ing building was on fire.

"Fundamentally, what’s happened now is that they’ve gotten bad at spinning. If the Scottish Government hires Kevin Pringle and it gets good at spinning again, it still doesn’t change the fact the building’s on fire.”

In other words, spin doctors can only do so much. The rest is up to politicians.

Mr Pringle declined to comment for this article.