Going to the Polls

The polls open for the SNP leadership contest today. The winner will be both SNP leader and, barring an absurd shock, the next First Minister of Scotland, so while I don't have a vote (not being a member of any political party), I obviously have an interest.

There are three candidates: Kate Forbes, Ash Regan, and Humza Yousaf. But, realistically, there are only actually two - Ash Regan is the least well-known of the three, she has had virtually no media coverage, and so regardless of any other factors she's not going to win. (In the same way that the Lib Dems aren't actually going to win the next General Election.)

The problem with that is that there isn't really a great choice available. On the one hand, Humza Yousaf is undeniably the more experienced of the two, having held almost all the big roles in Sturgeon's government at one time or another. Unfortunately, he's made a mess of all of them. And he seems extremely cold on the topic of Independence - the de facto referendum notion would be off the table, being replaced by, well, nothing. Which means that a Humza Yousaf-led SNP wouldn't be getting my vote - I wouldn't be voting on the competence of the government, and neither would I hold my nose and vote for independence.

On the other hand, we have Kate Forbes. She's much less experienced, but in the big job that she has had she has done very well (and, indeed, did well at extremely short notice). She also presents far better than Yousaf, and has made no bones about identifying that the SNP government has been slipping for a long time. She might just make for an SNP government that I wouldn't have to hold my nose to vote for.

But...

There are two big negatives with a Kate Forbes-led SNP. The first is that she's also very cold on independence, dropping the de facto referendum plan. Her replacement plan is slightly more credible than Yousaf's, but not meaningfully so.

The other one, though, is her social conservatism. As I noted before, I don't agree with many of her views. The truth is, though that they wouldn't be a block on my voting for her - but that's the nature of the privilege I enjoy. For those more directly affected, I can well understand that those views would make for a much more significant problem - and that might be an absolute block on her running the type of government that we really need.

It's fair to say that it's a tricky one.

Only, not really. Because as I've indicated, a Humza Yousaf-led SNP is almost certainly not one I could vote for; a Kate Forbes-led one probably is. So while I'll readily accept that others may come to a different conclusion, and while I understand entirely why, my support, caveated and wavering as it is, basically has to go to Kate Forbes.