Yousaf the Useless

Yousaf, Wee Harvie and Ms Bottlebank pose for photographs

Humza Yousaf is the equivalent of using a breakfast waffle as a stone skiffer tossed across the surface of a pond to see how far it will hop, skip and jump. He leaves no ripples. He floats awhile and soggy, sinks. The superficiality of the SNP sucks.

There is not a rebellious bone in his body, but from his utterances, too much bone in his head. Like his deadweight predecessor, he is not a visionary. Can he make a good cup of coffee? Who knows? I suspect the only thing on his mind is when he needs a haircut. One brilliant flash, and the thought has gone. But he has his devotees, those who think he can succeed where Sturgeon failed, which is to say, in almost everything. He will keep all the secret cupboards locked and promote his old-guard pals. The mediocre promote the mediocre. They feel safe and among high intellect.

He is not even a democrat. No one supporting SNP’s obvious anti-progressive policies right down to barring assembly around our own Parliament can call themselves a democrat.

The most exciting thing he has done, and by accident not by plan, was fall off his mobility scooter under his own propulsion in a flat calm concrete corridor in the Holyrood Parliament. The pratfall might well be a warning signal of his tenure as first minister. The accident prone Labourite Jim Murphy is now giving a sigh of relief, his place on the podium of mediocrity replaced.

He talks of inclusiveness all the time but remained in a party that was anything but inclusive. It even rejected its own faithful uncomplaining supporters. Does he mean, any NO-voting incomer moving to Scotland is welcome here? I call an NO-voting Englishman in my homeland, a thief. Yousaf has had eight years to educate the country about the evils of colonialism and the benefits of keeping all money Scotland earns. He did absolutely nothing, not even a teensy-weensy wee memorandum to Nicola telling her to reinstate the independence committees she was cancelling, and instead embark on a campaign of information.

Commenting on Yousef’s rise to nowhere meets two hurdles: the lack of any positive, substantial achievements on his track-record, and the race card. What did he do in all his SNP jobs? Figuring that is like nailing jelly to a tree. His brain seems permanently on cruise control.

On the accomplishment front, the public think of the Hate Crime Bill that he steered through Hoyrood. It is so riven by serious flaws it ought never to have entered a suggestion box let alone placed before a parliamentary group for discussion. It traps the innocent as well as condemning the guilty. You can be defamed, fined or imprisoned for a thought crime. Craig Murray can attest to that. So can Neale Hanvey. And so can I. Shocking to admit Scotland in the 21st century has thought crime laws. The banality of it. The injustice of it. Laws concocted by the workaday, average MSP with the intellect of a pork sausage. (No insult intended to Jewish relatives and readers.)

The Hate Crime Bill: loud, sustained public protest was ignored. Yousef emulated Sturgeon’s imperious attitude and took little notice. He talked of ‘listening’ – the cliché of the bogus politician – but he hardly altered the Hate bill. It insults the intelligence of an entire nation. Trying to impose discipline on people as if one group in one town, change that does not rely on peer pressure and education from an early age is a waste of time and funds, a futile gesture.

As for the racist label, it will be used whenever Yousaf needs cover from criticism. It has to be said, a lot of Scots will not vote for a Muslim as head of the nation, no matter how much he talks of freedoms and wears tartan ties.I will march shoulder-to-shoulder with him if I ever see him marching toward a colonial institution to demand equality but I know from his past he will noot venture out of his personal ambitions. The clash of cultures is simply too weird for people who already find a Scot in a kilt at Burns Night and wearing full Highland attire at weddings, yet votes NO to his nation’s liberty, a psychological paradox.

And what of his letters and calls and meetings with Little Sunak? Will each cry ‘foul’ at the first mention of England’s governance of India, or enjoy a gin and tonic together while swapping stories of a fee paying education and nom-dom status?

As the ‘continuity’ candidate, Yousef has the nickname Yousaf the Useless, an accurate nomenclature. In my schools days as a teacher I noticed Glaswegian kids were quick to find and append an accurate nickname on an eccentric dominie. One teacher with a long scrawny neck and a stutter was named Super Chicken within days of taking the job.

So, Yousaf the Useless it is, based on his years of floating along, apparently doing nothing much except whatever the vindictive Nicola instructed. He will be lost without her instruction, the assistant journeyman without the boss and the architect’s plans. The inadequacy guarantees he will consult her for the big decisions, and a few small one’s too: how many sugars in your coffee? In fact, it will be interesting to see how much he can bring himself to do without first checking with Oor Nickla.

Only seventy percent of SNP members felt enervated enough to vote, and those that did voted for their pensions while thinking of a nice, soft padded snooze on a velvet Victorian chaise longue. They really are a disgrace to Scotland. They have forced us to go back at least eight years and start again. No wonder, people are saying openly, the ALBA party is the best solution for active protest and progress.

And, by the way, as well as boring, Yousaf is a liar. He claimed credit for achievements in which he was never involved. That alone makes him untrustworthy. It also signifies he is capable of boasting to grab the kudos. His tendency to hold back until he thinks its safe to be seen, and a dull personality, leave Scotland wide open to a Tory takeover. Little Sunak will deny race has anything to do with pinning down those bare-arsed, pain-in-the-arse, Jocks. (Sunak has already rejected Yousaf’s impotent call for another referendum.) It is not a matter that Yousaf is slothful gradualist, it is a matter that he is complicit with Sturgeon in grounding the march to independence to a standstill. Like his instructor, are we about to witness a rash of blocking supporters who use the Internet?

On hearing his name called, elected to leader, he gave his co-contender Kate Forbes a warm hug, a sign she will find a place in his cabinet. He gave Ash Regan a peremptory cool handshake who, by the look on her face, knows she has a BIG decision to take: remain ostrasized on the back benches for daring to mention liberty for indigenous Scots in her campaign, or resign and switch to the ALBA party, a group dedicated to what she thought she was fighting for all these years.

From now on, the bucks stops with Yousaf. But he’s a switch-off, another caretaker first minister. To gain some sort of credence, a name beyond Useless, he might choose to distinguish himself by being the first to advocate conscription and send our youth to Ukraine on behalf of the US of Amnesia. His children, if of army age, will be exempt. And he has the still missing £600,000 referendum fund and police investigation to handle. Will he scotch it, close it down? Or will his wife send messages on WhatsApp demanding Police Scotland hunt down that villainous Peter Murrell?

As already mentioned, Yousaf is no rebel. We cannot look forward to surprise moves by Yousaf. At least his time will be curtailed by a general election, and that cannot come soon enough for Scots tired of waiting while its elected national body does nothing. Then again, if he ever looks chippy, the British State can always smear him with a sexual accusation, or that he leads an anti-semitic party. (Currently, up in arms over a louche reduction in their supreme court laws, the whole of Israel is anti-Semitic!) I have a hunch – only a hunch, mind, that there lurks a hundred percent misogynist just under the surface. Anybody pushing a GRR bill must surely be afraid of women enough to ostrasize them, put them in an inferior place in society.

The SNP proves the colonial theory, the oppressor bribes the best and leaves the poorest to clean the streets. Not all SNP MSPs will remain annoying. Some like aged life-long Indy supporters will be dead.

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