Why John Swinney's character faces its greatest test after his confirmation as First Minister
John Swinney must commit himself to the hard work required to improve people’s lives and not take the easy way out offered by an independence culture war with Westminster
After John Swinney’s confirmation as First Minister by MSPs, following the SNP’s election victory, he now has his own mandate. He is no longer a caretaker, simply picking up the pieces left by the previous occupants of Bute House, but instead has the right to pursue his own agenda.
As he sets out to define ‘Swinneyism’, he should feel the hand of history on his shoulder and must give serious thought to what kind of leader he wants to be remembered as.
There are, essentially, two main choices. He can extend the woeful track record of recent years by engaging in near-constant culture war politics with the UK Government over independence. Or, he can endeavour to get the economy moving, schools performing, patients off NHS waiting lists, ferries running, and all the rest of it.
A thousand times more rewarding
The first path represents the easy way out, given it provides a bogus explanation for everything that is wrong with the country: blame Westminster. The second requires ministers to actually take responsibility for all the things that they are responsible for, to own our country’s problems, and to stake their careers on finding ways to fix them.
While it is clearly much more difficult, the latter path would also be a thousand times more rewarding, and in more ways than one. If the SNP were able to demonstrate that jobs were being created, businesses were thriving and public services were getting better, not worse, because of their actions, then support for the party would surely increase.
This would make their ultimate goal of independence more likely and is therefore an approach that should appeal to serious nationalist politicians. Cultivating a national feelgood factor would provide a far better basis for growing a new nation than attempting to persuade people that times are so bad a plunge into unknown territory would be worth the risk.
However, ministers might also discover something profound – the kind of job satisfaction that is experienced by people who work long, hard hours as doctors, nurses, and teachers when they save a life or change one for the better. We await John Swinney’s decision about which path he will choose.
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