Useless to the end.

So, today, we had Humza on the Sunday morning political telly. In my opinion, in his own terms, he did alright. His offer to Keir Starmer was a bit strange. How Parties work together after the next election is a matter for after the next election and if Humza had intended this as anything other than a stunt he wouldn't have qualified what he said by insisting that Starmer needed to come to Scotland for this meeting. Anyway, Starmer will have better things to do in Scotland between now and the election than meet with Useless. 

But of course after the election the UK Prime Minister will have to have meetings on some basis with the First Minister of Scotland. And that got me thinking. Will that be Useless? 

Now, I'm not writing a mystery story here, so I will start with the conclusion. Yes, it will. The SNP are stuck with Useless until May 2026. Because nobody else will want the job.

Let's just start with the current political consensus drawn from the current polling. Come the next UK election, the SNP are going to lose a lot of seats, probably more than half their current  roster. For what it's worth, I think they'll do a lot worse than that for there is no upside for them about the year ahead. Branchform will eventually report. I strongly suspect there will be charges and amongst those charged will be the former first minister. The significance of her being arrested has I think. if anything, been underappreciated. Section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act provides:-

A constable may arrest a person without a warrant if the constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person has committed or is committing an offence.

That's it. For the avoidance of doubt, a "constable" includes a Police officer of any rank and the word "only" is implied because without "reasonable grounds for suspecting that person has committed an offence" the Police do not have any power of arrest. Given the prominence of the arrestee you can be satisfied that these suspicions were believed to exist by officers of the highest rank . And I think further, given the reputational damage to the arrestee, if the Police had no further interest in her as a suspect that would long since have been made public.

But in any event, the one consolation for Useless might be that unless charges resulting in appearance in Court follow pretty soon then there will be no trial before the UK General Election and contempt of court consequences will prohibit any comment until the trial. Nonetheless, this will now hang around the SNP like a bad smell until any criminal proceedings are concluded, 

But that is only the beginning of the troubles that lie ahead of Useless in the nine months or so until the General Election. For starters there is the Covid Inquiry. It has only just started its work in Scotland but already with devastating impact. And it has weeks here to run. And then, in case the First Minister, might at least think "thank goodness that is behind us", we have still to have the distinctly Scottish Inquiry, a wholly unnecessary exercise brought about by the hubris of Sturgeon, determined to get ahead of the UK but which is now, in typically Scottish Nationalist manner of promising more than they can deliver, is now trailing months behind. Months that, assuming Lord Brailsford's early return to health, will nonetheless trail on throughout and beyond the election.

And then, currently, we have the Michael Matheson inquiry which has already run for nearly two months without anybody being clear who exactly is doing the inquiring, or what inquiries they have made to date or even having the remotest clue as to what is to happen when these inquiries are over. Suffice to say this will run and run but if the ultimate conclusion is, on a Parliamentary vote divided along Party lines,  that Matheson should face no sanction? Suffice to say that is likely to have electoral consequence with, unfortunately for the SNP, an election imminent.

And that's without even considering the already suppurating sores: The ferries; the health service; the schools; local government finance; the wholly inadequate ministerial team. To which bonfire of doom, Humza seems determined to throw on another rotting corpse in the form of revisiting the issue of Trans demands, albeit from a different direction.

So, suffice to say, the omens are not good for a SNP recovery at the polls. Yet Humza will survive the UK General Election, even if the SNP lose far more than half their seats.

 He will survive for two reasons. Firstly, there is simply no alternative from within the Sturgeon continuity faction who still dominate the higher ranks of the SNP. We've so far had four previous Deputy First Ministers: Jim Wallace; Nicol Stephen; Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney. Even their worst enemies would not have doubted their ability to step up to the top job as Wallace did (temporarily) twice and Sturgeon more permanently. The best Useless has been able to recruit is Shona Robison who, to be fair, given the limited pool he was prepared to fish in, was as good as it was going to get. But, suffice to say, when Useless eventually does go she will hardly be the first name on every, or indeed any, lip to succeed him.

But the second reason he will survive is that the obvious alternative candidate, Kate Forbes, would be mad to take the job on with perhaps less than 15 months until the next Holyrood election. The aftermath of a decisive reverse to the Nationalists will be a complete bloodbath. Dozens of Nationalists will be out of work. Not just MPs but their staff and other advisers. Fury will be in the air but not just fury, desperation to find other elected office. not least to pay the bills but also to continue to have a role in what was famously described as "showbusiness for ugly people".

And that will coincide with the commencement of the SNP's selection process for the Holyrood contest to come. There will be a battle royal for places on the list as sitting MSPs work out that their constituency seat is very much at risk. A battle joined by dismissed MPs and possibly some of their redundant advisers. This might even spill over into direct challenge to some of the more anonymous existing back benchers. And every Party knows such internal contests can....no inevitably are.....brutal. Who would want to be part of that. Particularly if they knew their very own elevation to the leadership might cause a collective nervous breakdown in certain quarters? Never mind among the inevitable departure of their coalition partners among a combination of denunciation and outrage. 

Oh, and then there will finally be the Branchform trial. 

And at the end of all this? Without much time to turn things round in terms of either policy or achievement (just one budget) and at the end of it all, every prospect of loss of government office and even a consequential leadership challenge. It is hardly an attractive vista.

So Useless will survive. Which is an additional reward for Anas and Jackie in the week the latter received her well deserved early reward. We'll hardly have to worry about having a competent Deputy First Minister when the time arrives.