EUAN MCCOLM SKETCH: Cringey! Swinney apes The Smiths...and heaven knows we're ALL miserable now

First Minister John Swinney and singer Morrissey don’t appear to have much in common. One’s an aloof eccentric who divides the crowd into lovers and haters. And the other’s the former singer with pop heroes The Smiths. But addressing delegates at the SNP ’s annual conference, Mr Swinney revealed a formerly unknown affinity with pop’s Myrmidon of Misery. A common lie peddled by senior SNP figures is that each and every thing said and done by their Unionist opponents is motivated by panic. Nationalist First Ministers are fond of telling their supporters they’ve ‘got them scared’. Mr Swinney told his acolytes the stars were aligning in their favour. They were winning the battle, persuading increasing numbers of Scots that their best future lay in an independent nation. Unionists, he said, were united in their panic. ‘You might say,’ said the First Minister, ‘There’s panic on the streets of London .’ A sufficient number of delegates caught the reference to the 40-year-old Smiths hit for a ripple of laughter to break out. The idea, however, that Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, or any other Unionist politician, is panicked by the SNP is a joke. And it isn’t funny anymore. Had Mr Swinney been inclined to level with his audience, he might have admitted ‘I know it’s over’. Instead he continued to argue that the independence movement was unstoppable. John Swinney joins transport minister Stephen Flynn at the SNP's conference in Aberdeen Morrissey, of iconic band The Smiths, whose songs featured in Mr Swinney's speech 2026 had been a special year for the SNP, said the First Minister. And who would argue with that? Not many parties of government see their former chief executive jailed for embezzling hundreds of thousands of pounds. But, no, of course Mr Swinney wasn’t referring to that astonishing crime. He was, instead, indulging the fantasy that Scotland stands on the brink of breaking away from the rest of the United Kingdom: a rush and a push and the land that we stand on is ours. The truth is that these things take time and the SNP is too impatient by half. John Swinney told delegates that Scotland was ‘ready’ to become independent. This will have come as news to anyone with a job, a mortgage, or a pension who – more than 12 years after the SNP led the Yes movement to defeat in the 2014 referendum – is still without vital answers on the economy of a new nation. Scotland is not ready for independence for two reasons. The first and most important is that the majority of Scots do not support independence. The second is that John Swinney has no plan for achieving it beyond a plaintive cry of please, please, please, let me get what I want. This failure to address key questions about the costs of independence means that the SNP continues to get nowhere fast on the constitutional question. The ghost of Nicola Sturgeon wafted around the room as Mr Swinney spoke. No longer a wonderful woman in the eyes of SNP members, now the Queen is Dead. Her corporeal form may flit around London but her presence looms over the SNP’s incoherent politics. The First Minister bragged that the Scottish parliament now has its largest ever pro-independence majority and that is certainly true. But does he really want to tie himself to the Scottish Greens, a party that refuses to accept ‘some girls are bigger than others’ because those girls are boys? When John Swinney tells his supporters they have their opponents on the run, it’s a miserable lie. The First Minister ‘wants the one he can’t have and it’s driving him mad’. There was a hint of policy in his speech with news that the First Minister plans to bring the bus network back into public ownership. Given the SNP’s record of incompetence, the chance that a double-decker bus crashes into us is almost certain to rise. Money changes everything, of course, and Mr Swinney let it be known that the SNP’s finances are in rude health. The party would soon launch its ‘most sophisticated’ independence campaign yet, funded with a ‘six-figure war chest’. It’s true what they say about blind loyalty. SNP members, having been robbed by Peter Murrell, shrugged ‘what difference does it make?’ and continued donating. When John Swinney became leader of the SNP, he pledged to be the man who would lead Scotland to independence. But with his party running out of ideas and the Yes movement in disarray, it could not be clearer that the First Minister ‘started something he couldn’t finish’. Accept yourself, Mr Swinney. You just haven’t earned it yet, baby.