Steady as She Goes—Into Stagnation

John Swinney’s SNP has traded ambition for caution while Scotland’s real problems fester. With platitudes, distractions, and cherry-picked stats, nationalists hope no one notices the widening cracks

There was a moment when the nationalists in Holyrood sensed their dominance over Scottish politics slipping away. Sturgeon was disgraced by police investigations and a toxic culture war legacy. Humza Yousaf had resigned after a string of almost clownish political missteps. Scottish Labour stood poised in the polls to overtake them. Fast forward eleven months, and the landscape looks very different. Under ‘Steady-on John,’ the SNP’s polling has stabilised—diminished from the heady heights of yesteryear, but steadied nonetheless. As First Minister, John Swinney has calmed SNP ranks, restored internal discipline, and set his party on a war footing ahead of the May 2026 Scottish elections. Yet as Swinney’s programme for government is unveiled, it embodies a ‘steady as she goes’ strategy that sidesteps major challenges while chasing popularity over delivery.

Keep the lead

Nicola Sturgeon’s final election as SNP leader saw her party secure 47.7 per cent of the constituency vote, dominating as the opposition vote split between the Scottish Conservatives (21.9) and Labour (21.6). By June 2025, Labour edged ahead on 35 per cent. If Swinney, a fixture of the SNP’s 18 years in power, has achieved anything since taking over, it is restoring a slim nationalist lead. But at 36 per cent over Labour’s 22, this is no resurgence to past glories.

The SNP’s programme for government makes clear that clinging to this restored lead is paramount. The nationalist media blitz is geared towards headline-grabbers. Scotland leads Europe in drug and alcohol deaths? Never mind that—here’s an end to the prohibition on drinking on trains. A Holyrood government chronically unable to deliver infrastructure projects on time or budget? Forget it—here’s an abolition of peak train fares. Great, if you can squeeze onto an overcrowded train running on our crumbling railways.

Don’t rock the boat

Nothing sums up this ‘don’t rock the boat’ mentality better than the denial of reality. Take education: once the SNP’s ‘defining mission’ was closing the attainment gap. Now? Not-so-honest John has draped a ‘mission accomplished’ banner over Bute House—channelling his inner George W. Bush—and declared mission accomplished.

Pressed by Labour’s Anas Sarwar in Holyrood, Steady-on John insisted the SNP had reduced the attainment gap by 60 per cent since 2009/10. You could practically hear the collective whoosh of sceptical eyebrows being raised across the nation.

Digging into the methodology reveals Swinney’s 60 per cent claim rests on a single measure: school leaver destinations. Other metrics tell a different story. Fact checkers at The Ferret conclude “There is no overall measure of attainment, and his claim is based on one specific measure – school leavers destinations since 2009-10. On other metrics, such as school pupil achievement, there have not been similar reductions in the gap.”

According to pupil achievement data, The Ferret is correct, the gap is not closing—it's widening:

“The attainment gap between the proportion of school leavers from the most and least deprived areas who had one pass or more in National 5s or equivalent qualifications was 22.7% last year – up from 20.2% in 2022/23.”
— BBC, Feb 26

Turns out Swinney’s ‘mission accomplished’ banner is about as accurate as Bush’s was before Iraq spiralled into chaos.

Ducking the big challenges

This evasiveness extends beyond education. According to Professor Lindsay Paterson of Edinburgh University, “unlike in England and other countries, there has never been a proper programme of educational recovery” post-pandemic in Scotland.

No matter. Education Minister Jenny Gilruth assures us there are “clearly positive signs,” pointing to marginal improvements in primary literacy and S3 numeracy. Forget the absence of a post-pandemic recovery programme or the worsening attainment gap—just focus on this carefully cherry-picked good news.

Professor Paterson was unconvinced, telling journalists: “The Scottish government has never had a coherent strategy for dealing with the educational effects of poverty.” He added there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with pupils leaving after S4—provided they have somewhere worthwhile to go. The trouble is, many don’t.

Why? Because since 2021, under Sturgeon and then Yousaf, the SNP has spent more energy deriding the very idea of economic growth than delivering it. Up until months ago, the administration seemed convinced all that mattered was a ‘wellbeing economy’—GDP was passé.

Don’t worry about Scotland’s structurally severe economic problems: stagnation, chronic productivity weakness, anaemic growth, a lack of diversification beyond services, demographic decline, and regional inequality. Forget all that. The SNP-Green coalition told us to focus instead on Mad Maggie Chapman’s assertion that “we must move away from the artificial and archaic framework of GDP,” and Patrick Harvie’s insistence that “the pandemic has exposed the shortcomings of an economy built on the pursuit of endless growth.”

Archaic frameworks? Endless growth? Personally, I’d settle for Scotland enjoying some good old-fashioned growth and private wealth creation. Especially given that, since the SNP took office in 2007, average annual GDP growth has fallen to just 0.7% prior to the pandemic—down from 2.4% between 2000 and 2007.

Empty platitudes, please…

Ultimately, nothing will change under John Swinney’s ‘steady as she goes’ approach. As a central architect of the last 18 years, all he can offer is to dodge big challenges, gloss over uncomfortable realities, and prioritise popularity.

I recall The Courier’s Andrew Liddle telling me on one of our Speakeasy podcast episodes last year that Swinney’s biggest challenge was delivery. The SNP didn’t need flashy announcements—they just needed to get the trains running on time.

Ironic, then, that a year out from the next Holyrood elections, the best example of SNP spin over substance is a pledge to abolish peak train fares and lift alcohol bans for passengers.

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Dean M Thomson is currently a lecturer with Beijing Normal - Baptist University (BNBU), formerly known as Beijing Normal - Hong Kong Baptist University, United International College (UIC).

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