‘Ane lecherous and bluidy Tyrant, slain be his nobillis in the viij yeare of his reign.” So the old chronicles record about quite a few Scottish kings. Succession to power has not often been a smooth business in Scotland and the competition to succeed Nicola Sturgeon, though bloodless, is happening in a landscape pitted with uncertainties.
Kate Forbes resembles Sturgeon in her bold self-certainty, but not in her distinctly conservative politics – well to the right of Sturgeonite social democracy. Humza Yousaf, the experienced “continuity candidate”, is a likable man rather unfairly mocked as a serial incompetent (though operation waiting times, on his watch as health secretary, are awful – far worse than England’s). Ash Regan, lagging behind the other two, enjoys her freedom to criticise the SNP and the wider independence movement for lack of energy. If she or Forbes were to win and become first minister, the governing coalition with the Greens would almost certainly collapse. That would leave the SNP as far the largest party in the Scottish parliament, but just short of an absolute majority.
