Swinney: ‘I would have turned down first minister’s job if it came a month earlier’
July 2, 2024
Swinney: ‘I would have turned down first minister’s job if it came a month earlier’
by 1-randomonium
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(Article)
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John Swinney would not be leading his party into the general election if Humza Yousaf, his predecessor, had resigned just one month earlier.
Mentally and physically exhausted after 16 years in ministerial office, he had Covid when Yousaf stood down and was also caring at home for his wife, Elizabeth, who has multiple sclerosis.
His lungs had not fully recovered after his illness and he felt, he admitted candidly on the campaign bus taking him and his team to the Borders “very defensive”.
It is unusual to hear a party leader admitting his own frailty, but Swinney, who is fighting fit again, is the first to concede that there is a human cost to the unforgiving life of politics. “I have to be, as time goes on, more conscious of the issues that I wrestle with — making sure that everyone is OK at home,” he said. “If Humza had stood down a month before he did so [in May], I would have had to say no because things were quite fragile … Elizabeth was not well at all. Thankfully, for all that’s happened, she has got stronger.” When, a year earlier, he stood down as deputy leader following Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, there were suggestions that he should succeed her, but he knew he was in no fit state to do so. “I couldn’t do it,” he says. “If I had stood for the leadership in the spring of 2023, I would have started out very tired, mentally and physically — and very defensive — after 16 years of continuous ministerial life. I didn’t think it was right for me to stand. I thought the party needed to move on, to have new faces at the head.” By February, he had begun to recover. “It took me that long,” he says. “One of the things that made it difficult for me to recover was the engagement I knew I was going to have with the Covid inquiry. I knew I would have to revisit material that was really tough. It was a tough period in my life, and that undoubtedly impeded my recovery.”
By March, at the age of 60, he was running several miles day — not quite the 10km he once did, but not bad: “I was in a much better place physically and mentally, and very rested.”
Party activists knew about his circumstances and, following Yousaf’s shock resignation, were hesitant to approach him to stand as leader. At the same time, however, they believed there was only one person in the SNP who could unite the party.
“The first call I got to tell me it was going to happen came with a message that said: ‘You’d better think about what you’re doing, because there’s a lot of us want you to do it.’”
He admits he was stunned to get the call. “It was the start of what one might call la déluge,” he grins. “People from every walk of life in the SNP, basically, contacting me to say ‘we need you to do it’. One of my colleagues phoned me up and said, ‘I hate to do this, but I’ve got to do it. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t do it. I know it’s tough for you, but we desperately need you to do this, we need you to stand.’”
The caller was so relieved when Swinney replied “I’m not closed to it” that he burst into tears. “It was tears of relief that I was even prepared to contemplate it,” Swinney recalls. “Such was the concern that people had about where we were. From all shades of opinion, people said this is what we need, which was a tremendous personal encouragement and endorsement.”
It is difficult to reconcile the “fragile” and “defensive” Swinney, with the confident figure on the campaign trail. For the past three weeks he has been traversing the country in his yellow bus, with its slogan “A Future Made in Scotland” plastered along the side, next to a large picture of himself, so detailed you can see how recently he has shaved. “Quite low profile, don’t you think?” he jokes.
He is unapologetic about placing independence “front and centre” of his campaign at a time when most voters say they are fed up with the constitutional issue and want to focus on the “here and now” — the cost of living, energy prices or even potholes. We tell him about Linda, a carer in his home town of Blairgowrie, who wishes he would forget about independence and concentrate on day-to-day issues.
He disagrees. “I suspect, listening to how you’ve recounted Linda’s views about the cost of living, about making ends meet, about access to public services and about economic opportunities in relation to care workers; the availability of enough people to deliver social care packages in our community … All of them are significantly affected by Brexit and the loss of freedom of movement of people.
“So, my answer to all these issues is to take a different set of decisions to the ones that have been taken by United Kingdom governments in London.”
He believes that a future Labour government — “and I think there will be a Labour government next Friday” — will not differ greatly in policy with the Conservatives when it comes to investment in public services.
“So, that’s why independence is relevant and matters and why it’s central to this election campaign,” he says. “Our challenge would be a great deal easier if we had a bolder agenda coming from an incoming Labour government, but we’re not getting a bolder agenda.”
Swinney’s critics, while conceding that he is “a nice man”, accuse him of a certain blandness of manner: “More like a bank manager than a political leader”, said one.
Does he accept the charge? “Well, it was [his colleague], Fiona Hyslop, who said: ‘Yes, he is very nice, he’s very kind, but he’s also ruthless when he has to be.’”
Is that true? “It’s not a word I use to describe myself,” he admits, “but one of my close associates does. I sometimes have to do tough stuff. I might have a smile on my face while I do it.”
What Swinney has undoubtedly achieved is to unite his party after the post-Yousaf shambles, the fraud investigation into the SNP’s finances and the divisive leadership of Sturgeon. He defends his safe rather than radical cabinet appointments on the grounds that they are “the best people for the role they are performing” and he argues that the SNP has achieved far more in government than his critics claim.
“I think our record stands up to scrutiny and I’ve got to get the public in Scotland to see that, to believe that,” he says.
With regards the future, he believes he can work with Labour in a way that he found impossible with the Conservatives, who he described as “a hostile, difficult government”. Sir Keir Starmer, he thinks, will be different. “I look to Friday, July 5 with a view as first minister willing to work constructively with a United Kingdom government because I recognise there will need to be common ground on certain questions and I hope that there is the space and the willingness to do that. I certainly commit myself to do that.”
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(Article)
—
John Swinney would not be leading his party into the general election if Humza Yousaf, his predecessor, had resigned just one month earlier.
Mentally and physically exhausted after 16 years in ministerial office, he had Covid when Yousaf stood down and was also caring at home for his wife, Elizabeth, who has multiple sclerosis.
His lungs had not fully recovered after his illness and he felt, he admitted candidly on the campaign bus taking him and his team to the Borders “very defensive”.
It is unusual to hear a party leader admitting his own frailty, but Swinney, who is fighting fit again, is the first to concede that there is a human cost to the unforgiving life of politics.
“I have to be, as time goes on, more conscious of the issues that I wrestle with — making sure that everyone is OK at home,” he said. “If Humza had stood down a month before he did so [in May], I would have had to say no because things were quite fragile … Elizabeth was not well at all. Thankfully, for all that’s happened, she has got stronger.”
When, a year earlier, he stood down as deputy leader following Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, there were suggestions that he should succeed her, but he knew he was in no fit state to do so. “I couldn’t do it,” he says. “If I had stood for the leadership in the spring of 2023, I would have started out very tired, mentally and physically — and very defensive — after 16 years of continuous ministerial life. I didn’t think it was right for me to stand. I thought the party needed to move on, to have new faces at the head.”
By February, he had begun to recover. “It took me that long,” he says. “One of the things that made it difficult for me to recover was the engagement I knew I was going to have with the Covid inquiry. I knew I would have to revisit material that was really tough. It was a tough period in my life, and that undoubtedly impeded my recovery.”
By March, at the age of 60, he was running several miles day — not quite the 10km he once did, but not bad: “I was in a much better place physically and mentally, and very rested.”
Party activists knew about his circumstances and, following Yousaf’s shock resignation, were hesitant to approach him to stand as leader. At the same time, however, they believed there was only one person in the SNP who could unite the party.
“The first call I got to tell me it was going to happen came with a message that said: ‘You’d better think about what you’re doing, because there’s a lot of us want you to do it.’”
He admits he was stunned to get the call. “It was the start of what one might call la déluge,” he grins. “People from every walk of life in the SNP, basically, contacting me to say ‘we need you to do it’. One of my colleagues phoned me up and said, ‘I hate to do this, but I’ve got to do it. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t do it. I know it’s tough for you, but we desperately need you to do this, we need you to stand.’”
The caller was so relieved when Swinney replied “I’m not closed to it” that he burst into tears. “It was tears of relief that I was even prepared to contemplate it,” Swinney recalls. “Such was the concern that people had about where we were. From all shades of opinion, people said this is what we need, which was a tremendous personal encouragement and endorsement.”
It is difficult to reconcile the “fragile” and “defensive” Swinney, with the confident figure on the campaign trail. For the past three weeks he has been traversing the country in his yellow bus, with its slogan “A Future Made in Scotland” plastered along the side, next to a large picture of himself, so detailed you can see how recently he has shaved. “Quite low profile, don’t you think?” he jokes.
He is unapologetic about placing independence “front and centre” of his campaign at a time when most voters say they are fed up with the constitutional issue and want to focus on the “here and now” — the cost of living, energy prices or even potholes. We tell him about Linda, a carer in his home town of Blairgowrie, who wishes he would forget about independence and concentrate on day-to-day issues.
He disagrees. “I suspect, listening to how you’ve recounted Linda’s views about the cost of living, about making ends meet, about access to public services and about economic opportunities in relation to care workers; the availability of enough people to deliver social care packages in our community … All of them are significantly affected by Brexit and the loss of freedom of movement of people.
“So, my answer to all these issues is to take a different set of decisions to the ones that have been taken by United Kingdom governments in London.”
He believes that a future Labour government — “and I think there will be a Labour government next Friday” — will not differ greatly in policy with the Conservatives when it comes to investment in public services.
“So, that’s why independence is relevant and matters and why it’s central to this election campaign,” he says. “Our challenge would be a great deal easier if we had a bolder agenda coming from an incoming Labour government, but we’re not getting a bolder agenda.”
Swinney’s critics, while conceding that he is “a nice man”, accuse him of a certain blandness of manner: “More like a bank manager than a political leader”, said one.
Does he accept the charge? “Well, it was [his colleague], Fiona Hyslop, who said: ‘Yes, he is very nice, he’s very kind, but he’s also ruthless when he has to be.’”
Is that true? “It’s not a word I use to describe myself,” he admits, “but one of my close associates does. I sometimes have to do tough stuff. I might have a smile on my face while I do it.”
What Swinney has undoubtedly achieved is to unite his party after the post-Yousaf shambles, the fraud investigation into the SNP’s finances and the divisive leadership of Sturgeon. He defends his safe rather than radical cabinet appointments on the grounds that they are “the best people for the role they are performing” and he argues that the SNP has achieved far more in government than his critics claim.
“I think our record stands up to scrutiny and I’ve got to get the public in Scotland to see that, to believe that,” he says.
With regards the future, he believes he can work with Labour in a way that he found impossible with the Conservatives, who he described as “a hostile, difficult government”. Sir Keir Starmer, he thinks, will be different.
“I look to Friday, July 5 with a view as first minister willing to work constructively with a United Kingdom government because I recognise there will need to be common ground on certain questions and I hope that there is the space and the willingness to do that. I certainly commit myself to do that.”