Humza Yousaf forgot the rule: leaders who want to look tough look stupid | John Crace

Be careful what you wish for. It’s hard not to feel a scintilla of sympathy for Humza Yousaf. On a human level, if not a political one. For well over a decade the SNP had ruled more or less unchallenged in Scotland. Free to do whatever it liked, though not, ironically, the one thing on which its existence was predicated: making Scotland independent.

The UK parliament was in no hurry to grant a second referendum, much to the SNP’s displeasure. The first had been labelled a once-in-a-generation event. The SNP saw it differently. Generations pass more quickly in Scotland apparently.

So when Nicola Sturgeon decided to step down as leader a year ago, Yousaf must have thought that he was inheriting her personal fiefdom. The last king of Scotland. Only it hasn’t worked out like this. Rather, it has all turned to dust. The questions about the SNP’s handling of party funds persist. Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband, is facing criminal charges. The fate of the motorhome remains unclear.

Nor have things worked out so well on a political level. The SNP hasn’t even been able to build a new ferry. Drug deaths are still at a terrifying level. The Scots have understandably become concerned about the state of public services. And most recently the SNP government has had to do a U-turn on meeting its net zero targets. People have begun to ask themselves if there is anything Yousaf has done well. Maybe it would have all gone wrong for whoever took over from Sturgeon. But Yousaf is the guy in the frame.

On Tuesday, Yousaf told the media that he was delighted with the way the SNP’s coalition government with the Greens was going. He adored Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, the joint leaders of the Scottish Greens. Everything was going brilliantly apart from the things that weren’t. He hoped the coalition would continue for ever and ever.

Just two days later Humza had a change of mind. A Damascene conversion. He summoned Harvie and Slater to an early-morning meeting to say thanks but no thanks. The coalition was no more. It was an ex-coalition. From now on he would continue as a minority government. Though he also seemed to think that the Greens would continue to back him. Out of habit presumably. They got thrown out the house but they would still be expected to pay the mortgage. Go figure. Either Humza is a genius or an idiot. You decide.

The Greens were furious. They had wanted to be the ones who ended the coalition. Now they found themselves on the wrong end of that equation. The dumpees. No one wants that humiliation.

“You’re fired.”

“No. You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me because I fired you first.”

“Well, I quit then.”

“You can’t quit.”

This is the kind of conversation that is embarrassing enough when it takes place between two individuals in the privacy of their own room. This one took place in front of the TV cameras and on social media. The Scots must be wondering whether there is a grown-up left in Holyrood. Still, on the bright side, Yousaf didn’t have to ask for the keys to the ministerial cars to be returned. The Greens always travel by bike.

So what changed? How did we get from the never-ending coalition to divorce in just 48 hours? The tipping point may well have been a confidence motion in Harvie placed by the MSP Ash Regan, who came third in last year’s SNP leadership contest and has since defected to Alba. Keep up.

Regan’s point was that she was less than impressed with Harvie’s response to the Cass report. She argued that Cass was more clued up on the science than Harvie and she had had enough of his ignorance. A view that was shared by quite a few of the SNP MSPs. Enough for the confidence motion to pass. So Yousaf felt he had to be decisive and push Harvie before he jumped. Thereby forgetting one of the fundamental rules of politics. Leaders who want to look tough, invariably look stupid.

But once done, Yousaf had no option but to front it out. So about an hour later he popped up in Bute House to give a press conference. Otherwise known as a car crash. He began with a statement. This was all totally normal. Nothing to see here. He couldn’t even think why he had called the presser. It was just a really great day for Scotland. Let him remind everyone of his fantastic achievements. The Scots had never had a better time of it. Hospitals were having to round up patients because doctors had so little to do. The cost of living crisis was over.

Come the questions, Yousaf crumbled rather. Was this not a sign of the disintegration, the weakness of the Scottish government? How was the SNP even going to function as the minority government? Humza umm-ed and ahh-ed. “This was a sign of my brilliant, decisive leadership,” he declared. So brilliant, so decisive that he said the complete opposite a few days ago. He had had enough of working with the idiot Greens. Things would work out, he went on. Just you wait and see. He would have another cunning plan. Just as soon as he had thought of one.

Moments later, the Greens gave their own press conference on the steps outside Bute House. “It was an outrage,” said Slater. How dare the SNP sack her party when she had planned to sack them? If only she had got up half an hour earlier all would have been well. In any case she had never liked the SNP. Just another bunch of reactionary Tories in disguise. So grown-up.

Then came first minister’s questions. It never rains but it pours. Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Tories, went first. This was a shambles, he said. A fiasco. He wasn’t wrong. Yousaf did his best to front it out, rehashing old memories. À la recherche du temps perdu. Scotland had never been better. The Tories had wrecked the rest of the country. Also true, but not strictly relevant to the current situation.

He then went on to say that the Bute House agreement – the deal with the Greens – had lasted 19 times as long as Liz Truss’s government. Note to Humza: any comparison to Truss automatically loses the argument. That level of failure is never the benchmark. Ross ended by saying he would be tabling his own no confidence motion in Yousaf.

Labour’s Anas Sarwar could only agree, quoting Yousaf’s previous declaration that ending the coalition would be tremendously foolish. He added that he would be supporting the no confidence motion. Later in the afternoon, the Greens also backed the motion. So this time next week Yousaf could be gone. How many Liz Trusses is that? Eight? Hard to believe, but the Scottish government is in almost as bad a place as the Tories in Westminster. Maybe it’s contagious. SNAFU.