John Swinney has insisted he is "still friends" with Nicola Sturgeon despite her pointed criticism of the SNP's election campaign. The First Minister said today he last spoke to his predecessor "over the summer" after she accused him of running a campaign that lacked "vision" and "big picture thinking".
Election results and Sturgeon's concerns
The SNP was comfortably reelected in May after winning 58 MSPs - but fell seven seats short of the majority Swinney had said was crucial to secure an IndyRef2. The Nationalists also saw their vote share drop to its lowest level in 20 years and lost constituency races to the Scottish Greens for the first time.
Sturgeon used a new foreword in the paperback edition of her memoir, Frankly, to set out her concerns about the campaign led by Swinney. The former MSP, who has since left Scotland to live in London, said her party's offering to the electorate was "detached from the big issues bearing down on people lives" and warned it would be "a massive blunder for the SNP to soften its left-of-centre environmentalist credentials".
Swinney's response
In an interview with the BBC ahead of this week's SNP conference, Swinney was asked about why Sturgeon had been "quite tough on you". The First Minister insisted they remained friends and added: "The point I would make is I won the election pretty commandingly."
Put to him he had won a lesser share of the vote than Sturgeon, Swinney added: "Well, in a six party system, the SNP under my leadership polled 38 per cent of the vote - a higher share than Keir Starmer when he won his landslide victory (in 2024)." Swinney added his Government was "dealing with a very difficult situation" but said "everybody assumed we would be defeated" when he took on the job as party leader in 2024.
Defence of Stephen Flynn
Meanwhile, the First Minister was forced to defend one of his senior Cabinet members after mounting criticism of his performance in front of a Holyrood committee. Stephen Flynn, the Transport Secretary, told MSPs last month he was unaware of a highly flammable gas leak on a CalMac ferry.
When asked about the incident on the Glen Sannox during an appearance at a Holyrood committee last month, Flynn told MSPs he was not aware of it - despite the story having been online for several hours. Asked by Transport Committee convener Willie Rennie if he had been briefed on the incident, Flynn replied: "No," before adding: "Unless I have missed it."
Documents released later under a freedom of information request show the Transport Secretary's office was emailed about the incident and was warned he could face questions about it. Flynn last week insisted it was "not true" to say he was told about the ferry gas leak before his committee appearance.
"I should've seen the BBC news that morning – but the FOI confirms I was not briefed," he said. "If I'd known, I'd have given a damn sight better answer than I did at the time. An answer that wasn't acceptable and nobody was more frustrated than myself about that."
Asked about the matter, Swinney said "Nobody's perfect, nobody's infallible. Stephen Flynn, when he realised he was not across that issue, remedied that with the Transport Committee later that day."
