[ad_1]
Ian Blackford watched the election of his successor Stephen Flynn via zoom, surrounded by his closest allies. And by boxes.
His imminent forced departure from the two-floor, wood-panelled suite of offices afforded to the leader of parliament’s third party, was a source of sadness and frustration.
Nicola Sturgeon had made her own unhappiness clear to colleagues. For this brutal political hit job was a rare display of ill-discipline in her ranks.
Public criticism of colleagues is explicitly banned in the Westminster group’s standing orders, but in private SNP MPs can be surprisingly vitriolic.
“What a c***”, is one parliamentarian’s assessment of a colleague. “He’s an a******* and lazy”, is how a different MP sums up a fellow SNP politician.
A nationalist who represents a large rural patch “has an ego the size of his constituency”. A lesser-known MP is “a zoomer… thick as two planks”.
Wrangling these mixed talents is now the unenviable task of the SNP’s new Westminster leader Mr Flynn.
His hurried election was not just the latest evidence of division within the party but also a clear sign of a generational shift.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
SNP’s Westminster leader steps down
The ‘hit job’
Mr Flynn was both the parliamentarian behind the coup and its main beneficiary, but never confronted Mr Blackford directly.
Instead after months of wooing MPs and even after claiming he had “no intention of standing”, Mr Flynn got his friend and fellow MP David Linden to do the dirty work.
David Linden carried out the ‘dirty work’ of dispatching Mr Blackford. Pic: House of Commons
Acting as emissary, Mr Linden met Mr…
[ad_2]
