John Swinney has looked more relaxed over the last two months than he has in his entire political career. His well-received Budget will sail through Holyrood and Keir Starmer’s woes have seen Scottish Labour’s poll rating collapse.
He has gone from caretaker manager to becoming the overwhelming favourite to retain his job after May’s election. But two words will cause him sleepless nights: Operation Branchform.
Speculation about the police probe into alleged fraud in the SNP derailed the final few months of Nicola Sturgeon’s time in office.
Humza Yousaf’s political honeymoon ended abruptly when Sturgeon and husband Peter Murrell were initially arrested and released without charge. Murrell has since been charged.
Swinney knows Operation Branchform is political poison for the SNP. He wants to focus on winter fuel payments and ending the two child benefit cap, but the cop probe makes voters think about a police tent outside Sturgeon’s home.
He has taken the melodrama out of the SNP and regained an element of trust his party had lost. Branchform takes his party back to a dark place and is a banana skin on the road to the Holyrood election.
Swinney used to be a Sturgeon loyalist and her biggest champion. Now he must see her as a roadblock to re-election.
Little wonder that senior SNP figures are muttering about why the investigation is taking so long to conclude. They see Branchform as a mortal threat to their chances of securing a fifth term.
It is in Swinney’s interests for the probe to be resolved as quickly as possible.
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