‘My decision comes from a place of duty and of love,’ Nicola Sturgeon said as she announced her resignation in February. ‘Tough love perhaps – but love nevertheless, for my party and above all for the country.’
It’s an intriguing formulation. ‘Tough love’ most commonly refers to authoritarian parenting or withdrawing financial support from a drug-addicted relative – often amid a mess of contradictions and pain. Neither could represent, generally speaking, the kind of relationship with the public that a liberal politician would consider desirable. But with Sturgeon having now handed over the reins to Humza Yousaf, a political ally if not a competitor in the realm of charisma, it sums up pretty well the uneasy settlement that the modern Scottish Government has reached with its people.
After devolution from Westminster in 1999, the first two terms of Scotland’s new government were overseen by a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats – both parties which support Scotland remaining within the United Kingdom. Labour had hoped devolution would take the wind out of the separatist Scottish National Party’s (SNP) sails. But instead the party continued to grow, first as a more leftwing alternative to New Labour, and latterly as the voice of an aggrieved population forced to bear the consequences of Conservative governments and a decision to leave the European Union. Scotland voted for neither.
