Humza Yousaf’s UN row is entirely of his own making

Humza Yousaf has a gift for landing himself at the centre of crises of his own making. One recalls his advice during Covid for people to ‘think twice’ before calling 999 for an ambulance or his asking a group of Ukrainian women refugees ‘where are all the men’. 

More recently there was his Quixotic defence of XL Bully dogs and the futile backing of the former health secretary, Michael Matheson, over his iPad expenses. These were unforced errors he could ill afford. Now Humza Yousaf has managed to confect an extraordinary media storm over an apparently innocuous government donation of £250,000 to a Gaza relief organisation, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Notoriously thin-skinned, the First Minister erupted when it was suggested by the Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr that he should make a ministerial statement to explain this use of public money. Yousaf went ballistic. On Twitter/X he accused Kerr, and the Daily Telegraph which had reported the donation, of ‘Islamophobia’, ‘outrageous smears’ and pursuing a ‘far-right conspiracy’.