Humza Yousaf needs a holiday. Not necessarily abroad, just some time away from that building at the foot of the Royal Mile we know as the Scottish Parliament.
The First Minister will mark 100 days in office this week. It has been a tough shift, to put it mildly.
The new SNP leader has inherited an increasingly ill-disciplined party that is hamstrung by both the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens and the controversy surrounding Nicola Sturgeon’s departure and the subsequent police investigation.
While it is no doubt the honour of his life to lead, he did not start with a blank sheet of paper, but a domestic record that’s creaking more than a boatyard on a dry day.
It will, therefore, take twice the effort to set a new direction, triple if he aspires to both do that and present himself as the continuity candidate for all the good bits.
Humza needs a holiday not just from the Parliament but from these binding chains. A summer to hone down on what exactly it is that he wants to achieve in his time in office.
He needs to build a plan rooted in the knowledge that his party has more days in power behind it than in front of it.
Exhausted SNP versus refreshed Labour means all bets are off
This is the last summer in the political calendar that is likely to be even remotely normal.
With a General Election now odds-on for October next year, next summer will be full steam ahead mode. And there’s an awful lot at stake.
Every General Election is a seminal moment, of course it is. But this one, in particular, represents a crossroads – not just for who governs the United Kingdom but how government itself works.
Should the Conservatives retain power, the SNP will have a renewed vigour to organise against austerity Britain – and all that represents – in their favour.
The SNP have governed Scotland for longer than the Tories have governed the UK. Twelve of their 15 years in power at Holyrood have been spent opposing a Tory Prime Minister, just three against a Scottish Labour PM in the form of Gordon Brown.
In 2007, the vim of Alex Salmond’s premiership faced what would turn out to be the final chapter of Labour’s UK reign.
But should Labour win the next General Election, it will be coming into office fresh as the SNP government tires.
This is unchartered territory.
Recent history means the SNP have become so used to facing off against the Tories in two Parliaments, they have lost sight of the fact that is is Labour they will largely face on the ground in their communities.
The summer gives Humza Yousaf’s SNP a chance to develop its dividing lines against Keir Starmer’s Labour.
Humza Yousaf needs to focus on his homework
There have been glimmers that they get this week, with graphics starting to appear on social media attacking Labour’s position on free school meals and rent controls in particular.
They will attack Labour from the left. But for that to be remotely successful they need to find a way of demonstrating that life can and will be better for people in Scotland with them and their 15-year-old record.
🏴 Scotland is leading the rest of the UK in providing free school meals.
🍝 All P1-5 children now receive free school meals and we're rolling out our next phase for some in P6-7.
🥀 In comparison, Keir Starmer has u-turned on Labour's pledge to deliver free school meals. pic.twitter.com/I5E7QEWtR1
— The SNP (@theSNP) June 29, 2023
They also need to do this without crassly inferring there’s no difference between Labour and the Tories. They might believe that but the public largely don’t.
As summer homework goes, this is a tall order.
You can now whisper without inviting incredulity that in the not too distant future, Labour could be in power in both Scotland and the rest of United Kingdom.
Whilst the odds say it’s still unlikely, it is plausible.
A Scottish politics that isn’t conducted through the prism of the constitutional question is possible again.
But whether or not that happens now largely lies in the hands of Humza Yousaf and his homework this summer.
