Humza Yousaf’s debut FMQs descends into chaos

Humza Yousaf’s debut at First Minister’s Questions was never going to be straightforward. The First Minister’s questionable track record in government offered, to use his own words, an ‘open goal’ to his opposition. Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar was quick to point to Yousaf’s ‘incompetence’, while Scottish Conservative’s Douglas Ross belittled the new cabinet. But what made Yousaf’s FMQs debut even more chaotic were seven serial interruptions by climate activists.

When the protests eventually stopped – after the public gallery was, in an unprecedented move, cleared bar two groups of schoolchildren – the attacks against Yousaf continued while today’s guest, the ambassador to Iceland, looked on. Riding the wave of SNP division, Ross used Yousaf’s own words against him. Quoting former business minister Ivan McKee, who, like Kate Forbes recently resigned from government, and former MSP Alex Neil, one of Forbes’s backers, Ross criticised the lack of business acumen in Yousaf’s new cabinet, before slamming his ‘divisive’ opponent.