[SCOT goes POP!] Installing the ill-suited John Swinney as leader would amount to "faction before country, faction before party"

[ALBA-Bot]

Installing the ill-suited John Swinney as leader would amount to "faction before country, faction before party"

Professor John Curtice has summed it up - 

"Swinney's expertise, I think, is being able to say nothing for three minutes. Definitely who you want as your deputy but it's not the person to front an election campaign."

The problem being that the SNP face one of the most important election campaigns in their history within a few months at most, and the continuity faction are hellbent on installing the ill-suited Swinney to front it.  For the second time in just over a year, we're watching them make a destructive mistake in real time.  On some sort of level, they probably even know themselves that they're doing the wrong thing, but they don't care, because their priority is different from ours.  Faction before country.  Faction before party.

There's an extremely silly reason suggested for why Kate Forbes shouldn't want the job right now, and yet it's bandied around dozens of times a day - that she'd be better off waiting until someone else takes the blame for the SNP losing dozens of seats at the general election.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want Forbes to become leader simply because I think it would be a nice birthday present for her - I want her as leader because my judgement is that she's the person best placed to stop the SNP losing dozens of seats at the general election and thus rescue the independence cause.  Installing her five minutes after the avoidable disaster occurs would completely defeat the purpose.

However, the "let her profit from calamity" brigade should realise that even on their own logic, it now makes sense for Forbes to stand, because if she does, Swinney will still be favourite to win and she'll be able to reap the "I told you so" benefits when Swinney falls flat on his face at the general election.  She won't be able to do that if she doesn't stand, and especially not if she backs Swinney, because she'd be effectively buying shares in the coming disaster.  

To be ideally placed to take over after the general election, she needs people to look back at that point and say "actually, Kate Forbes had the right prescription for avoiding this defeat".  But they'll only say that if she stands up to be counted right now.

Source: Installing the ill-suited John Swinney as leader would amount to "faction before country, faction before party"