No sweat broken by veteran John Swinney at FMQs grilling

Meet the new boss. For once, he's not the same as the old boss. 

John Swinney faced a grilling from party leaders on Thursday as he took part in his first session of First Minister’s Questions as that self-same First Minister.

He's been around this block many, many times before – as a member of the Scottish Government, he served as education secretary and finance secretary and Deputy First Minster.  

He’s been an MSP for 25 years and has seen all six previous First Ministers come and go. He even stood in this very spot as a substitute for Nicola Sturgeon when she was called away on other duties.  

This was not new ground for the veteran SNP stalwart. But things are different when it’s you in the spotlight, and curious eyes tuned in to see how the man at the top of the table handled the pressure.  

Short answer: it didn’t trouble him at all. There were laughs, there was heartfelt emotion. There was even time for an arithmetic lesson.  

It was nothing like the FMQs of the past 12 months when Humza Yousaf sought to defend his party’s record against all comers. 

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First up was Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who tried to pin Mr Swinney on an SNP pledge to increase teacher numbers, at a time when cuts are being made to education budgets.   

This line of questioning would have had Yousaf rifling through his Big Book of FMQ Answers, before falling back on his oft-repeated strategy of hollering about the dastardly Tories at Westminster, and their own woeful record on whatever topic he was discussing.

(When especially flustered, Mr Yousaf would question Mr Ross’s own part in these iniquitous affairs or his support for Boris Johnson – on the grounds that always seemed to go down well with the SNP faithful.) 

Not so Mr Swinney, who calmly deflected Mr Ross’ questions with an explanation of how skint the Scottish Government is, thanks to austerity and inflation. 

No fire, no brimstone. No bother. He even took the Conservative leader to school with an impromptu class on how the value of money decreases when inflation rises – though he did blame inflationary pressures on the Tories down south. Some things never change in politics.  

You could tell he was an education secretary. This was schoolmaster Swinney, the dusty voice of reason and debate putting the facts into FMQs.  

The topic of education, and, more widely, the SNP’s failures in this field, were also the subject Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar chose to go in on.  

Glasgow City Council has begun to slash teacher numbers by 450, putting pressure on those left behind and sparking fears among the newly qualified that their jobs are on the line. Would the new First Minister intervene?

Mr Swinney stressed that the Scottish Government would not. It doesn’t tell local authorities what to do. But it would work with Glasgow “constructively”. This may become a byword of Mr Swinney’s time in charge.  

Mr Sarwar pressed on, widening his attack to the SNP’s record in government and decrying “more of the same” from Mr Swinney’s well-kent face.

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Then the new First Minister did something his predecessor never managed in one of these argy-bargy sessions, and united the house in intentioned laughter.

With an almost straight face, he told the Scottish Labour leader: “I've got good news for Mr Sarwar – the fresh leadership has just arrived.” 

Self-deprecating humour? Yousaf never tried that. Swinney the stand-up comedian wasn’t something anyone expected, but it worked – taking the sting out of Mr Sarwar’s barbs and sending him chuckling back to his seat to think again. He’ll have to work on his one-liners. 

Not so easily dealt with was the next, and last, party leader to question the First Minister.  

Scottish Green leader Patrick Harvie had a pretty big hand in Yousaf’s downfall, and is now grappling with the law of unintended consequences, in the shape of the socially conservative – to put it mildly – new Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes.  

Mr Harvie said that the appointment of Ms Forbes, an opponent of same-sex marriage and having children out of wedlock, had put the fear of God into those of an LGBT persuasion.  

He said: “The second most powerful job in government given to someone who has opposed LGBT people's legal equality, who's expressed judgmental attitudes against abortion, and has even expressed the view that people who have families without being married are doing something wrong.”

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Mr Harvie asked: “Is this the Scottish Government's vision for the future of Scotland? Taking us back to the repressive values of the 1950s?” 

Now we saw Swinney the statesman. The First Minister replied: “I take very seriously the challenge that Mr Harvie puts to me. I want people to be reassured in this country by my leadership.  

“When I saw I want to be the First Minister for everyone in Scotland, I deeply mean that. I want to lead a modern, dynamic and diverse Scotland. A place for everybody, where everybody feels at home, at peace, that they have a place.  

“And that their place in our society is protected by my leadership.”