STOP PRESS: 2pm News
POLITICAL REPORTER Kirsten Campbell has just told BBC Scotland that Kate Forbes, pictured right, will NOT take part in the SNP leadership election. This means that John Swinney will take over from Humza Yousaf and most probably take First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood next Thursday.
LABOUR LEADER ANAS SARWAR reacted:
Commenting on the news that Kate Forbes has stepped aside to allow John Swinney to likely be crowned as the new SNP leader, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said: “The people of Scotland are crying out for change – but all the SNP is offering them is yesterday’s man in John Swinney.
“John Swinney was the Finance Minister who broke the public finances, the worst Education Secretary in the history of the Scottish Parliament, the Deputy First Minister who deleted evidence meant for the Covid Inquiry and the man who has been at the heart of this incompetent SNP Government for the past seventeen years.
“Scotland’s public services are in crisis with almost one in six Scots on NHS waiting lists, the economy stagnating and homelessness on the rise.
“But rather than facing up to the challenges that we face, the SNP has put the interests of their party before the country yet again.
“It’s time for change.
“While the SNP stands in the way of democracy, Scottish Labour is looking to the future and is focused on delivering the change that Scotland needs.”
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, left, said: “Kate Forbes has caved into SNP demands for a stitch-up to install John Swinney as leader and spare the party the bloodbath of another leadership contest.
“But this shady backroom deal won’t cover-up the bitter splits that exist within the SNP – it just applies a sticking plaster to a gaping wound.
“Kate Forbes famously warned that ‘continuity won’t cut it’ when it came to Humza Yousaf, yet she’s now urging the SNP to go back to the future by imposing John Swinney – a failed former leader, tied at the hip to Nicola Sturgeon – as First Minister.
“Scotland deserves better than someone whose fingerprints are all over 17 years of SNP failure and secrecy. John Swinney has confirmed, via his campaign slogan, that he will ignore the public’s real priorities to obsess about independence yet again.”
Responding to the news that Kate Forbes will not stand in the SNP leadership race, paving the way for John Swinney to be the next SNP leader and First Minister, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP, right, said: “If he is the presumptive leader of his party, then I congratulate him. But this is a candidate with more baggage than an airport carousel.
“For more than two decades, John Swinney has been complicit in every moment of the SNP’s division, neglect and failure.
“He was Salmond’s right-hand man, he was Sturgeon’s right-hand man. He was in charge of the pandemic exams chaos and deleted his WhatsApps, denying the Covid bereaved the answers they deserve.
“Scotland has been divided for so long- that’s why Liberal Democrats want to bring people back together. It’s why we want to put Scotland at the heart of Britain and fix our broken relationship with Europe.
“We want to help everyone who can’t get a GP appointment or see an NHS dentist, support our schools, deliver for business and get islanders the ferries they have been denied.”