The SNP and Humza Yousaf were torn apart on Question Time this evening, to the evident fury of one of their top politicians.
Former Conservative advisor Anita Boateng rinsed the SNP’s record in Government amid ongoing turmoil following Mr Yousaf’s resignation.
Ms Boateng criticised the spin of the SNP’s Kirsty Blackman, who highlighted the party’s record on education.
Ms Boateng said: “I kind of wish you’d given that spiel in Aberdeen because I’d like to see the reaction of Scottish people given the number of ways in which, for instance, schools international in SNP Scotland have plummeted down the PISA tables for maths and critical education issues”.
“You’ve got the issues of drug deaths per head in Europe which are extraordinarily high, there are some serious challenges in Scotland.
“Actually Humza Yousaf was dealing with the repercussions of that unpopularity as a result of 17 years of SNP leadership where there hasn’t been enough focus on those issues.
“Instead you have a botched bottle scheme, hate crime bill, gender recognition, which felt like huge distractions!”
She went on to accuse Humza Yousaf of shooting himself in both feet, as well as the SNP, over his governing style and the presumption the Greens would still back him despite being ditched.
“Humza Yousaf – I cannot believe the levels of catastrophic failure that he has precipitated for the SNP.
“He shot himself in both feet and shot the SNP too, and I don’t see how they fully recover from that!
“The arrogance to fire the Greens and then presume they were going to keep the SNP and Humza in place!”
Ms Boateng also tore into the apparent pending coronation of John Swinney, who was leader of the party 20 years ago.
“It was John Swinney, then it was Alex Salmond, then it was Nicola Sturgeon, then it was Humza for one year, and now it’s back to Swinney again!
“It feels like we’re going around and around and I don’t think the Scottish people are going to stand for it much longer!”
Tory MP Bim Afolami also criticised the SNP for being too focussed on independence to the detriment of other policy priorities.
He accused them of neglecting every other issue in their pursuit of independence, also criticising them for raising taxes.
“Instead of saying ‘we lost the referendum, let’s focus on governing Scotland, they decided to insist on pushing independence and that’s why you’re in the problem you’re in today.”
