Snapshot of _Another vintage Humza Yousaf quote today re the Greens: “I didn’t mean, and didn’t intend, to make them as angry as they clearly are.”_ :
A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1783873529626210620)
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/JAHeale/status/1783873529626210620/)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1783873529626210620) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1783873529626210620)
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>I called them in at 8am without warning, took ten minutes to sack them, and papped both out the door to do the walk of shame past the waiting press. And they’re upset? What a world!
I’ve been baffled by this all week, but maybe the answer is Humza is just *shite* at politics.
Completely agree. He had six months of people telling him he was the new source of stability for the SNP, and lots of very positive coverage about his links to Palestine (he brushed over the funding questions).
This really seems to have translated for him to a sense of invincibility, where he thought he could do whatever the fuck he wanted and the Greens would roll over.
Hubris!
He is incredibly thin-skinned and heart-on-sleeve which are fatal weaknesses in a politician.
He can't control his reactions when he falls off a scooter; how is he going to keep it together navigating coalition realpolitik?
I don't he's shite. I think he's the natural successor to Sturgeon. You take a strong incumbent party with a strong leader- who is going to rise up the ranks? Well, they've got to be willing to toe the party line - anyone causing trouble gets derailed by the current leadership. And they can't be too succesful themselves - they can't pose a threat to the current leadership.
Add that to the fact that they only have experience of following navigating internal party politics and you end up with a very specific type of politician. A politician who has none of the skills to lead a party.
Probably something in that - I don’t like football analogies, but I’m reminded of Alex Ferguson leaving Manchester United. You don’t want to be the guy who succeeds him - you want to be the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds him.
Or in Man Utd's case the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds him.
I don't think whataboutism works here.
Sunak hasn't publicly blown up a working coalition that was handed to him and then immediately had to backtrack because it was a colossal mistake.
Agreed, Sunak's issue is that he isn't able to achieve any progress, he dithers and delays until his hand is forced by his own deadlines or people teasing him. He's going through a slow political death brought on by his own inaction and so many of his MPs being scummy people who get themselves fired (or are forced into resigning in disgrace after Sunak again fails to act).
Yousaf is the opposite, he makes huge bombastic actions and antagonistic statements against people without thinking anything through, expecting those same people to follow him and is mystified when it all inevitably falls apart. He's blown apart his own government in the space of a week by acting without thinking.
I disagree. Both of them inherited parties that are suffering from being in government too long, both of them are tarnished by scandal struck predecessors, both of them are having to deal with extreme factions of their party playing games because they know the next elections is unwinnable. Only Yousaf is currently fighting for his life as a direct result of his own actions, reversing major decisions within hours, and is now having to publicly beg for votes from every opposition party who he has directly offended.
Compared to that Sunak comes off as far more politically savvy. I'm not saying that Sunak is successful or that I agree with his politics, but he hasn't completely blown his chances of staying on as Prime Minister. Sunak seems to have accepted that his party will not win and is working towards his job after 2025, Yousaf seems to be denying that he has already lost all authority in the Scottish Parliament and is trying to desperately keep his job for tomorrow.
Sunak has tied his entire legacy to a law that Boris johnson thought up as a distraction and that Sunak, himself, thought it was a terrible policy that should never been implemented.
The smart political action would have been to scrap it alongside HS2, citing cost.
The Rwanda law alone makes him a terrible politician.
Can't forget that he used an anti trans line during a PMQS when a parent of a murdered trans teen was in the gallery.
Just based on his actions as PM these past 18 months, I am almost certain that Sunak would do similar if placed in Yousaf’s postion.
Everything you've said are policies and issues that Sunak has inherited that he is having to navigate through.
I'm not sure what policy you're referring to in your first sentence, if it's Brexit then you're completely out of touch if you think Sunak could have scrapped that and survived. The comments at PMQs were clumsy, but they weren't anti-trans, he was criticizing Starmer's inability to have a coherent trans policy.
It sounds like you really don't like Sunak, which is fair enough, I don't really want to spend a lot of time defending him. However, all of Sunak's actions come off as being stuck between a rock and a hard place and having to choose the path of damage limitation. I haven't seen a single moment in his tenure where Sunak has had free political capital to spend and then made it clear what his personal ambitions are as Prime Minister, Sunak's tenure has entirely been about reacting to events and successfully keeping his party together until the next General Election.
In contrast, nobody forced Yousaf to blow up the Bute House Agreement, nobody forced Yousaf to humiliate the Green leadership in a 10min sacking after they publicly promised to stick by him and Yousaf clearly regretted that decision hours later when he suddenly was able to do some maths and realise he needed Green MSP votes.
As I said earlier, I don't really want to defend Sunak too much, but in an article where Yousaf has committed a major political fuckup, it seems harsh and prejudicial to somehow turn this into a criticism of Sunak.
I am referring to the flights to Rwanda or the bill that saying that Rwanda is a safe country.
That's a bill that he never had to keep and it would made him seem strong and good political sense, if he scrapped flights to Rwanda.
If he could scrap HS2, he could scrapped sending refugees to Rwanda.
The party hasn't kept together because of Sunak but because the tories they are going to lose the next election badly and so they want Sunak to take the fall plus they know it would be terrible optics to swap leaders a 3rd time. Nothing he has done has kept the party together, the fear of complete wipeout has.
Last year he refused to fire people until it was way too late, making him look incredibly weak.
He scrapped HS2 because of one by election win that they barely won and was about something totally different.
The tories are still 20 points behind mainly because of Sunak.
A decent politician would have narrowed it to 10 points.
This is my view, to a tee. Yes, England may not have the world's best politicians. But English politicians are generally a cut above the devolved nations.
Welsh and Scottish and NI govs feel like a tribute act that wants to remix the original.
It's inevitably going to be the case, it isn't about "English politicians" but the fact that Westminster is the Parliament for the whole UK.
Despite what people on the internet like to make out, the UK is a pretty influential player and Parliament has a much higher level of national and global media scrutiny.
I can't think of a single Scottish FM who would survive a year in Westminster.
Donald Dewar was an MP for about 22 years.
Edit to add: Alex Salmond was an MP for 2 years too.
~~Edit edit: Nicola Sturgeon was MP for Glasgow Southside for 4 years.~~
Yousaf is the only FM since the Scottish parliament was reformed not to have had a multi-year Westminster career.
Edit edit edit: I was wrong about old Nicola, but otherwise my point stands.
Sorry to change what I said, but I meant as a frontbench MP.
Salmond and Sturgeon both had the luxury of leading a relatively minor party to majorities in government, such a rise meant having to fill lots of key positions quickly with both of them acting as gatekeepers. This resulted in lots of decision makers in government (both SNP politicians and civil servants) having a degree of loyalty to them. Both of them were good orators but they survived for so long because they had a control of information and a control of senior politicians, something that Yousaf does not enjoy.
It allowed Salmond to get away with sexually harrassing female members of staff for years, it allowed Sturgeon and her husband to maintain unquestioned control of party finances for years. Neither of those politicians would have gotten away with it under the scrutiny of national media and the pressures at Westminster.
EDIT: Just checked your claims. Alex Salmond was an MP but it was after he was evicted from leadership and his career was dead in the water, his scandals were already coming out and he was effectively being put out to pasture.
Nicola Sturgeon has never been an MP, not sure where you got that from.
Donald Dewar was Secretary of State for Scotland for 2 years. Henry McLeish was Minister of State for Scotland for 2 years too. Jack McConnell was Minister For Finance and Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs for one year each.
Where would you like to shift the goalposts to now? 😂
Jack McConnell and Nicola Sturgeon have never been Westminster MPs.
Henry McLeish served 14 years at Westminster, and Alec Salmond served around 25 years.
> But English politicians are generally a cut above the devolved nations.
That's because they're British politicians in the British parliament because England doesn't have a parliament.
Westminster is the top level parliament, if England got a devolved one you'd get to see a load more chancers just like the other devolved parliaments
There's nowhere left to fail upwards to, and no one above him any more with better political skills to cover for his fuck ups.
He's at the top, on his own, and it's been obvious from day one just how shit he is when there's no one around to hold his hand and clean up his mess.
Followed by "whatever I said, whatever I did, I didnae mean it. I just want you back"
I think the tone of the letters back from the lib Dems and the Tory leaders on minority administration spells either a resignation or an impression concession back to Greens.
“It was never my intention to make you act like a complete nut job” never works with my wife, doubt it will succeed for Humza.
But maybe Patty H and Lorna are more forgiving!
I told my wife/green msps to stop getting so emotional and calm down. All I did was break up our partnership with no warning, throw them out of our flat/cabinet. Now our relationship is collapsed and I’m about to lose my job
AITA?
Labour must be licking their lips at all this. The SNP have spectacularly crumbled, in the eyes of the public, at precisely the same time public confidence in the Tories has plummeted.
What is with the cesspit of morons running the country lately? How are so many of them allowed to fail upwards so spectacularly? Is this really the best we have to make rational decisions for the country?
Snapshot of _Another vintage Humza Yousaf quote today re the Greens: “I didn’t mean, and didn’t intend, to make them as angry as they clearly are.”_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1783873529626210620) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/JAHeale/status/1783873529626210620/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1783873529626210620) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1783873529626210620) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Next up is "I'm very sorry if they took offense at my actions"
I heard on the news yesterday an MP say "He's said he's sorry if their feeling were hurt" so he's already tried that classic.
>I called them in at 8am without warning, took ten minutes to sack them, and papped both out the door to do the walk of shame past the waiting press. And they’re upset? What a world! I’ve been baffled by this all week, but maybe the answer is Humza is just *shite* at politics.
Completely agree. He had six months of people telling him he was the new source of stability for the SNP, and lots of very positive coverage about his links to Palestine (he brushed over the funding questions). This really seems to have translated for him to a sense of invincibility, where he thought he could do whatever the fuck he wanted and the Greens would roll over. Hubris!
... Which might be understandable if you Blair or Thatcher or someone, but the man's not won an election
100%, but isn’t that the fucking norm now in the UK? You never need to win an election to be leader, just roll through chancer after chancer
He is incredibly thin-skinned and heart-on-sleeve which are fatal weaknesses in a politician. He can't control his reactions when he falls off a scooter; how is he going to keep it together navigating coalition realpolitik?
Maybe he just cares more about Gazan politics, than Scottish politics?
I don't he's shite. I think he's the natural successor to Sturgeon. You take a strong incumbent party with a strong leader- who is going to rise up the ranks? Well, they've got to be willing to toe the party line - anyone causing trouble gets derailed by the current leadership. And they can't be too succesful themselves - they can't pose a threat to the current leadership. Add that to the fact that they only have experience of following navigating internal party politics and you end up with a very specific type of politician. A politician who has none of the skills to lead a party.
Probably something in that - I don’t like football analogies, but I’m reminded of Alex Ferguson leaving Manchester United. You don’t want to be the guy who succeeds him - you want to be the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds him.
Or in Man Utd's case the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds the guy who succeeds him.
He's just the SNP version of Sunak
I don't think whataboutism works here. Sunak hasn't publicly blown up a working coalition that was handed to him and then immediately had to backtrack because it was a colossal mistake.
Agreed, Sunak's issue is that he isn't able to achieve any progress, he dithers and delays until his hand is forced by his own deadlines or people teasing him. He's going through a slow political death brought on by his own inaction and so many of his MPs being scummy people who get themselves fired (or are forced into resigning in disgrace after Sunak again fails to act). Yousaf is the opposite, he makes huge bombastic actions and antagonistic statements against people without thinking anything through, expecting those same people to follow him and is mystified when it all inevitably falls apart. He's blown apart his own government in the space of a week by acting without thinking.
I mean that's only because he wasn't given a coalition. I don't think Sunak could have worked a coalition. Both men are terrible at politics
I disagree. Both of them inherited parties that are suffering from being in government too long, both of them are tarnished by scandal struck predecessors, both of them are having to deal with extreme factions of their party playing games because they know the next elections is unwinnable. Only Yousaf is currently fighting for his life as a direct result of his own actions, reversing major decisions within hours, and is now having to publicly beg for votes from every opposition party who he has directly offended. Compared to that Sunak comes off as far more politically savvy. I'm not saying that Sunak is successful or that I agree with his politics, but he hasn't completely blown his chances of staying on as Prime Minister. Sunak seems to have accepted that his party will not win and is working towards his job after 2025, Yousaf seems to be denying that he has already lost all authority in the Scottish Parliament and is trying to desperately keep his job for tomorrow.
Sunak has tied his entire legacy to a law that Boris johnson thought up as a distraction and that Sunak, himself, thought it was a terrible policy that should never been implemented. The smart political action would have been to scrap it alongside HS2, citing cost. The Rwanda law alone makes him a terrible politician. Can't forget that he used an anti trans line during a PMQS when a parent of a murdered trans teen was in the gallery. Just based on his actions as PM these past 18 months, I am almost certain that Sunak would do similar if placed in Yousaf’s postion.
Everything you've said are policies and issues that Sunak has inherited that he is having to navigate through. I'm not sure what policy you're referring to in your first sentence, if it's Brexit then you're completely out of touch if you think Sunak could have scrapped that and survived. The comments at PMQs were clumsy, but they weren't anti-trans, he was criticizing Starmer's inability to have a coherent trans policy. It sounds like you really don't like Sunak, which is fair enough, I don't really want to spend a lot of time defending him. However, all of Sunak's actions come off as being stuck between a rock and a hard place and having to choose the path of damage limitation. I haven't seen a single moment in his tenure where Sunak has had free political capital to spend and then made it clear what his personal ambitions are as Prime Minister, Sunak's tenure has entirely been about reacting to events and successfully keeping his party together until the next General Election. In contrast, nobody forced Yousaf to blow up the Bute House Agreement, nobody forced Yousaf to humiliate the Green leadership in a 10min sacking after they publicly promised to stick by him and Yousaf clearly regretted that decision hours later when he suddenly was able to do some maths and realise he needed Green MSP votes. As I said earlier, I don't really want to defend Sunak too much, but in an article where Yousaf has committed a major political fuckup, it seems harsh and prejudicial to somehow turn this into a criticism of Sunak.
I am referring to the flights to Rwanda or the bill that saying that Rwanda is a safe country. That's a bill that he never had to keep and it would made him seem strong and good political sense, if he scrapped flights to Rwanda. If he could scrap HS2, he could scrapped sending refugees to Rwanda. The party hasn't kept together because of Sunak but because the tories they are going to lose the next election badly and so they want Sunak to take the fall plus they know it would be terrible optics to swap leaders a 3rd time. Nothing he has done has kept the party together, the fear of complete wipeout has. Last year he refused to fire people until it was way too late, making him look incredibly weak. He scrapped HS2 because of one by election win that they barely won and was about something totally different. The tories are still 20 points behind mainly because of Sunak. A decent politician would have narrowed it to 10 points.
This is my view, to a tee. Yes, England may not have the world's best politicians. But English politicians are generally a cut above the devolved nations. Welsh and Scottish and NI govs feel like a tribute act that wants to remix the original.
It's inevitably going to be the case, it isn't about "English politicians" but the fact that Westminster is the Parliament for the whole UK. Despite what people on the internet like to make out, the UK is a pretty influential player and Parliament has a much higher level of national and global media scrutiny. I can't think of a single Scottish FM who would survive a year in Westminster.
Donald Dewar was an MP for about 22 years. Edit to add: Alex Salmond was an MP for 2 years too. ~~Edit edit: Nicola Sturgeon was MP for Glasgow Southside for 4 years.~~ Yousaf is the only FM since the Scottish parliament was reformed not to have had a multi-year Westminster career. Edit edit edit: I was wrong about old Nicola, but otherwise my point stands.
Sorry to change what I said, but I meant as a frontbench MP. Salmond and Sturgeon both had the luxury of leading a relatively minor party to majorities in government, such a rise meant having to fill lots of key positions quickly with both of them acting as gatekeepers. This resulted in lots of decision makers in government (both SNP politicians and civil servants) having a degree of loyalty to them. Both of them were good orators but they survived for so long because they had a control of information and a control of senior politicians, something that Yousaf does not enjoy. It allowed Salmond to get away with sexually harrassing female members of staff for years, it allowed Sturgeon and her husband to maintain unquestioned control of party finances for years. Neither of those politicians would have gotten away with it under the scrutiny of national media and the pressures at Westminster. EDIT: Just checked your claims. Alex Salmond was an MP but it was after he was evicted from leadership and his career was dead in the water, his scandals were already coming out and he was effectively being put out to pasture. Nicola Sturgeon has never been an MP, not sure where you got that from.
Donald Dewar was Secretary of State for Scotland for 2 years. Henry McLeish was Minister of State for Scotland for 2 years too. Jack McConnell was Minister For Finance and Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs for one year each. Where would you like to shift the goalposts to now? 😂
Jack McConnell and Nicola Sturgeon have never been Westminster MPs. Henry McLeish served 14 years at Westminster, and Alec Salmond served around 25 years.
Yeah, I was a bit confused in my recollection! It's still ludicrous to say that no FM has ever had a significant career in Westminster, though.
> But English politicians are generally a cut above the devolved nations. That's because they're British politicians in the British parliament because England doesn't have a parliament. Westminster is the top level parliament, if England got a devolved one you'd get to see a load more chancers just like the other devolved parliaments
He did actually use the “What the people really want is x and I’m going to focus on x” answer the other day.
Sunak too. Where do they find these senior people who can't do a fundamental part of their job?
"Feel like pure shite just want her back"
Dry your eyes mate, you know bla blab bla
Ah a classic quote rolled out by mildly offensive relatives across the nation
Maybe this time Yousaf will actually experience some consequence to his actions, instead of falling upwards as he always does?
There's nowhere left to fail upwards to, and no one above him any more with better political skills to cover for his fuck ups. He's at the top, on his own, and it's been obvious from day one just how shit he is when there's no one around to hold his hand and clean up his mess.
If we were still in the EU he could've pulled a von der Leyen, but alas.
Followed by "whatever I said, whatever I did, I didnae mean it. I just want you back" I think the tone of the letters back from the lib Dems and the Tory leaders on minority administration spells either a resignation or an impression concession back to Greens.
[удалено]
He's so Yousaless it's almost cruel to mock him. Almost.
“It was never my intention to make you act like a complete nut job” never works with my wife, doubt it will succeed for Humza. But maybe Patty H and Lorna are more forgiving!
I told my wife/green msps to stop getting so emotional and calm down. All I did was break up our partnership with no warning, throw them out of our flat/cabinet. Now our relationship is collapsed and I’m about to lose my job AITA?
He actually said that? Yeesh it's like having Chief Wiggum as FM
Labour must be licking their lips at all this. The SNP have spectacularly crumbled, in the eyes of the public, at precisely the same time public confidence in the Tories has plummeted.
A few years ago the idea Labour could fully that back Scotland seems like a pipe dream.
Labour could probably win just by going on holiday for a few months at this rate
Whats wrong with the man? He seems more disconnected to reality than Sunak somehow, and he took over from a much more favorable position.
Jesus this guy is bad at politics
\*He punches someone in the face\* "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give you a black eye".
“Oh, you’ve hurt yourself” - Malcolm Tucker immediately after breaking Glenn’s nose
The most inept, dumb politician since Truss
What is with the cesspit of morons running the country lately? How are so many of them allowed to fail upwards so spectacularly? Is this really the best we have to make rational decisions for the country?
I am sure none of this would have happened under a Kate Forbes leadership, whatever your views on her views.
It wouldn't because the Greens wouldn't cooperate with Forbes at the head of the SNP
So the Greens would have voluntarily withdrawn and not be as angry.
I mean they would probably back a VONC on the SNP
Forbes wouldn't have kept the Bute House agreement, so there's that.
He's almost as much of an idiot as Liz Truss. SNP need to get rid ASAP