Humza Yousaf and Anas Sarwar’s debt to private schools

Humza Yousaf, the favourite to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as Scottish First Minister, has been ticking all the right boxes in his campaign so far.

Last week, he declared: ‘As your SNP First Minister, and as someone from a minority background myself, I will stand up and champion equal rights for all.’

I don’t imagine he’ll be championing the rights of Scottish public-school boys, though. But that is exactly what Yousaf is. 

Yes, the 37-year-old Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is the first non-white, first Muslim cabinet minister in the Scottish government. But he’s also an old boy of Hutchesons’ Grammar School, Glasgow, one of the oldest public schools in Scotland, founded in 1641 by brothers George and Thomas Hutcheson. 

The school has its own dark blue and red tartan and all pupils are in one of four magnificently named houses: Montrose, Stuart, Lochiel and Argyll. Old Hutchesonians include the great novelist and Governor-General of Canada, John Buchan, and Ken Bruce, the masterly DJ, late of Radio 2.