With public services crumbling, Yousaf must demonstrate commitment to substance over style – Scotsman comment

However, the First Minister stressed that “in this chamber, we must never forget that while we will disagree – sometimes, and quite rightly, passionately – there is more that unites us than divides us”. And he added a nice touch, as he stressed he would stay true to his own values, when he quoted a warning by the late Scots Tory leader David McLetchie against “worshipping the false god of consensus”.

An olive branch to the party Yousaf’s predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, professed to “detest”? Time will tell whether this marks a significant change in rhetoric, to the point when the Conservatives are no longer portrayed as a hated enemy, but rather democratic opponents worthy of at least basic respect.

There was much in Yousaf’s speech for many to agree with. The Programme for Government was, he said, “unashamedly anti-poverty and pro-growth”. Given pro-poverty, anti-growth politicians are somewhat rare, we wonder whether the PfG is also unashamedly in favour of “raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens” and such like.

There was talk of building “a greener, fairer Scotland” and a commitment to deliver “high-quality public services”, the latter accompanied by claims that the NHS was “already making progress in recovering from the pandemic” and had “the best-performing accident and emergency departments in the UK”. The pledge to dual the A9 “from Inverness to Perth” during “this government, my government” was another crowd-pleaser, although given the lack of progress since the SNP first made this commitment 16 years ago – and industry estimates that it could take until 2050 – this may be just the latest example of the Scottish Government’s tendency to over-promise and under-deliver.

And it was this fundamental question about competence that overshadowed everything the First Minister had to say. It may sound good to say the government will provide more free school meals, boost social care workers’ pay, and increase social security spending by nearly £1 billion, but in doing so the question of affordability must at least be addressed – particularly with a looming £1 billion black hole in the Scottish Government’s budget.

The SNP appears to have fallen into a trap in which any major government announcement must be accompanied by extra spending. That’s not necessarily good government and may be causing a build-up of problems for the future.

It’s not as if there are not already serious problems within vital public services. The Scottish Police Federation’s concern over a newly announced trial scheme in the north-east in which officers will not investigate ‘minor’ crimes will be shared by many members of the public. The federation said this risked setting a “very dangerous precedent indeed”, one that could be exploited by “reasonably intelligent criminals”. Meanwhile, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine is warning that Scotland no longer has enough doctors to “effectively staff” the NHS and, if that wasn’t bad enough, there are too few hospital beds to cope with the expected peaks in demand this winter.

These are warning signs of life-saving public services crumbling under the pressure of work that the public needs them to do. This is the reality of life in Scotland under the SNP-Green coalition – people who are sick and in pain languishing on waiting lists and crimes going uninvestigated and unpunished. Yousaf is still new in the job, but he needs to show greater signs of a new governmental commitment, almost to the point of obsession, to substance over style.