{"id":1136,"date":"2023-03-31T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/?p=1136"},"modified":"2023-03-30T21:58:25","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T21:58:25","slug":"humza-yousafs-kitchen-cabinet-signals-more-of-the-same-from-the-snp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/?p=1136","title":{"rendered":"Humza Yousaf’s kitchen cabinet signals more of the same from the SNP"},"content":{"rendered":"

SO it\u2019s all over now, bar the shouting \u2013 the new SNP leader has been installed and he\u2019s surrounded himself with a cabinet that wouldn\u2019t be out of place in an old kitchen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a fan of Humza Yousaf. I\u2019ve always reckoned he thinks too much of himself, which was o\"\"bvious during the leadership hustings. I thought it hilarious when Kate Forbes put him very firmly in his place during one of their debates, trashing his record in every government job he\u2019s held.<\/p>\n

She was correct there \u2013 can you imaging anybody in the private sector employing someone who had failed so abysmally in all their most recent jobs?<\/p>\n

But he bounced back from that to win the race and pledged to reunite his party, which appeared more divided than ever after years of work by Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes keeping their disagreements and splits well out of the public eye.<\/p>\n

He was seen as the continuity candidate (ie more of the same) and we saw that with his cabinet of\u00a0 <\/span>six women and three men \u2013 mainly allies of Nicola, including her close pal Shona Robison.<\/p>\n

\n

I do wonder what the new minister for independence, Jamie Hepburn, will do to justify his salary of up to \u00a398,000 given the SNP\u2019s total inertia on the issue since they came to power. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No wonder he\u2019s smiling so heartily in every pic I\u2019ve seen of him!<\/p>\n

One thing Yousaf has not done is live up to the crap he spouted during pre- and post-election interviews regarding his contenders for the top job (keep your friends close and your enemies closer).<\/p>\n

OK, he made Kate Forbes an offer she could quite easily (and did) refuse, apparently thinking that because she has a rural seat that she\u2019d welcome a demotion to the rural affairs brief.<\/p>\n

No chance!<\/p>\n

What about his other rival for the leadership, Ash Regan? I don\u2019t know if the new FM sees her as a particular threat, but in the latter days of the campaign there certainly appeared to be a groundswell of support for her as Yousaf and Forbes went for each other\u2019s throats.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve made no secret of my view that had I been a member of the party I would have voted for and probably campaigned for Ash, but I\u2019m not so I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I am surprised at Yousaf\u2019s choice for energy minister \u2013 the potty-mouthed Aberdeenshire East MSP Gillian Martin \u2013 who apparently will never stop apologising: https:\/\/news.stv.tv\/scotland\/humza-yousaf-criticised-for-making-gillian-martin-minister-after-offensive-jokes-about-trans-and-black-people<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s one that will come back to haunt him.<\/p>\n

Pip pip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SO it\u2019s all over now, bar the shouting \u2013 the new SNP leader has been installed and he\u2019s surrounded himself with a cabinet that wouldn\u2019t be out of place in an old kitchen. I\u2019m not a fan of Humza Yousaf. I\u2019ve always reckoned he thinks too much of himself, which was obvious during the leadership […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}