Swinney backing Matheson? He deserves to lose election

It’s time to drop the notion that John Swinney is somehow ‘the adult in the room’, or that our new First Minister puts ‘country before party’.

On the opening day of the new general election campaign, Swinney displayed an astonishing lack of political acumen, and made clear that what matters to him is the SNP rather than the interests of Scottish democracy.

The matter in hand was the case of Michael Matheson and his troublesome iPad.

Swinney has said that he will not support a recommendation by the Scottish Parliament’s standards committee that Matheson be banned from Holyrood for 27 days – a move which would potentially trigger a recall petition and subsequent by-election if it happened at Westminster.

The committee also recommended that the former health secretary lose 54 days worth of salary – roughly equivalent to the expenses racked up on his device.

One wonders if Matheson has something on the SNP. His behaviour helped undermine Humza Yousaf’s limping administration, and now Swinney seems intent on squandering political capital on Matheson in the teeth of the electoral battle of his career.

Describing Matheson as his “friend and colleague”, Swinney claimed the committee’s process was “prejudiced”. The grounds for his claim was that Conservative MSP Annie Wells should have removed herself from the committee due to previous comments she’d made about Matheson.

Swinney focused in on comments Wells made last November, at the height of the scandal around the £11,000 iPad expenses which Matheson incurred.

“Annie Wells said that Michael Matheson’s ‘desperate efforts to justify his outrageous expenses claim have been riddled with lies, cover-ups and the need for us all to suspend our disbelief’,” Swinney said.

He claimed that if a constituent was facing disciplinary action at work and their employer made similar comments, he’d “come down on that employer like a tonne of bricks”.

Swinney added: “That is the situation that Michael Matheson is facing here, and that is why I will not be supporting the sanction.”

So Swinney’s mind was made up long before the standards committee reached its conclusions. He makes a joke of our parliamentary democracy. It is conduct unbecoming of any First Minister.

Read more:

Unspun | Neil Mackay: The SNP has wrecked the prison system... here's how to fix it

It’s also hard to disagree with Wells. As health secretary, Matheson came under scrutiny last November when his iPad bill emerged. He initially claimed the bill was due to parliamentary work while on family holiday in Morocco.

The timeline is important here: on November 16, Matheson claimed to have discovered his sons had been watching football on his iPad.

He said he’d been told by his wife on November 9 that his sons used the device.

However, on November 13 when asked specifically if there was “any personal use” during the family holiday, Matheson said “no”.

Wells seems to have been pretty close to accurate in her summary of Matheson’s behaviour.

Perhaps, she should have stayed silent given her position on the standards committee. But politicians don’t often shut their mouths when a scandal is unfolding before them and there are points to be scored. Certainly, SNP MSPs aren’t known as shy and retiring wall-flowers.

Yes, Swinney has a fig-leaf of cover for his position on Matheson, but anyone apart from the most partisan nationalist sees the emperor is rather naked.

This all smacks of SNP chicanery over calls for a Scottish election when the nationalists change leaders without going to the country – as they did with Yousaf and Swinney.

The SNP is fast to demand an election when the Tories do the same at Westminster, but once the shoe is on the other foot cite Holyrood’s rules and regulations as reasons why an election can’t happen here.

Read more:

Unspun | Neil Mackay: Scottish Greens are sitting prettier than they ever were in government

Indeed, the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn was called “ridiculous” for sticking to such a position on Question Time this week.

The party hides behind technical language whilst chucking principle and morality in the bin. It’s the most grotesque hypocrisy, and voters are not blind to this behaviour.

In an election, every action and statement by political leaders is under scrutiny. Rest assured, voters will punish anyone seeming to play them for fools during an election campaign.

This Matheson issue will not go quietly away for Swinney, either. Parliament still has to vote on the proposals from the standards committee.

What matters to Swinney? The dignity of democracy and ministerial standards, or convenient get-outs which allow him to put the interests of his party and friends first?

That Swinney should behave like this in the run-up to a general election is bewildering. It’s almost as if he wants to lose. Some would say he certainly deserves defeat if these are his standards.

It would be far easier to take the moral high-ground and allow Matheson to face his punishment, than look like a standard underhand, self-interested politician.

Read Neil Mackay every Friday in the Unspun newsletter.

Indeed, Swinney now seems to have put himself in the same camp as the Boris Johnsons of this world: a politician prepared to defend the indefensible, and unable to see the damage that does to both his reputation and his party’s standing.

Has Swinney seen the SNP’s polling figures? The worst case scenario has the SNP on eight seats at Westminster. Does Swinney think that backing a disgraced minister is going to change the direction of travel for most voters?

Swinney’s position simply smacks of entitlement. He comes off as just another politician who doesn’t care about right or wrong, and is only interested in protecting his gang.