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Until last month John Swinney was in the singular position of
being the only former party leader on the backbenches in the
current Scottish Parliament. This status seems to suit the MSP for
North Tayside well. He says that as soon as he made the decision to
resign as the SNP leader he instantly felt a huge burden lifting
from him. He recalls that after his resignation was announced Tommy
Sheridan stopped him to offer his good wishes and John tried to
explain to him the feeling of release that he had experienced.
Tommy Sheridan has since told John that he did not understand what
he meant at the time but since his own resignation last month,
Tommy now knows exactly what he meant. The former party leaders
club might be small in numbers but you get the feeling its members
will be big on impact. John certainly has plans to be a lively
contributor to the Parliament and after being in a leadership
position in the SNP for the last 20 years, he is clearly enjoying
his gamekeeper turned poacher role.
He says that he still works the same number of hours that he did
as party leader but that the whole backbench experience is more
rewarding. As leader he spent most of his time trying to
avoid things happening, whereas now he spends much more of his time
trying to make things happen. Before, it was impossible to
escape from the intense pressure and daily grind of always being
the party leader, but now he is more at ease; and he is enthused
that he is now a local politician connected to his constituents
with the views of those at the grassroots getting through to
him. What's more he also feels that he is in a position to
give a steer to other MSPs and generally to buck the Parliament up
a bit. He has found that another advantage of not being party
leader is that he is no longer seen as the "demon threat", so more
MSPs from all the parties are willing to co-operate with him on
issues that he wants to push forward and as a result he can achieve
more.
However, one of the biggest benefits of being a backbencher is
that he is now free to choose the issues that he wants to
concentrate on. For this parliamentary session he has taken up the
cause of young carers as a direct result of two young people coming
into his surgery. After listening to what they said he felt that
this was really an issue that he wanted to take forward. He has
done his research and been in contact with the Young Carers
Alliance. John says that the welfare of young carers is more
involved than just passing a law, as they already have as much
legislative protection as they need; they require services, support
and assistance. He intends to get these issues further up the
agenda of Ministers and of local authorities. He has started
by holding a member's debate on the subject, in which the Minister
gave him a favourable hearing on the welfare of young carers.
John Swinney has been a lifelong season ticket holder of the
Scottish National Party. When he was only ten years old, the SNP
burst onto the scene (in 1974), and even then he was aware of what
was going on. He says that he can see his own daughter (now
10 years old) going through the same process of having a growing
awareness of what is happening around her. Although she also
has the added burden of having a father in the public eye - when he
resigned as leader of the SNP her friends were talking about it at
school but encouragingly they were very supportive of her.
John joined the SNP at the age of fifteen because he had a "deep
instinctive sense" that Scotland should run her own affairs and he
felt a real disappointment at the 1979 referendum result.
He then continued to campaign for a Scottish Parliament even
during the "dark periods of the 1980s" when many believed that all
hopes of a Scottish Parliament were finished. It is no
surprise then that the biggest highlight of his political life to
date was the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in
1999. He says that he felt a sense of enormous excitement and
fulfilment and he believes that we now have a Parliament fit for a
modern Scotland. He says the challenge now is for it "to live
up to its fine surroundings". He says that he is a man
motivated by a firm sense of the importance of public service and
that this public service ethos has governed all his political life,
"overwhelming everything he does". It is obviously inspiring those
that support him - his clerks have adopted the New York police
department motto of "protect and serve"!
His biggest disappointment is that the political culture has not
matured to reflect the new Scottish Parliament, instead there is
"too much Westminsterisation". It means that each Chamber debate
will follow the same predictable pattern of political point
scoring, so much so that he said he could script the debate on
transport that the Parliament was holding that afternoon and who
would vote which way. He says that the only way this will
change depends on individuals. And he plans to lead by
example. He said that he had recently given what he
considered was a non-typical speech from the SNP - he gave the
Executive praise where it was due, gave a critique of where he felt
that they were being pedestrian, and then offered constructive
suggestions on where they could improve policy.
John is also an individual who has a deep religious faith and he
feels that there is no distinction between religion and politics.
For him the fundamental tenets of faith include the pursuit of
justice, peace and the Christian message of the power of God's love
- all of which he carries with him in his political life. He also
thinks that the churches should be more vocal as they represent a
strong voice. He remarked that one of the great privileges of
leading the SNP was that he had an active working relationship with
Scotland's religious leaders where he could actively seek out their
involvement on issues such as international development and
conflict in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
Outside of politics his family is his biggest passion and he is
enjoying a more engaged family life than he has had in years.
He is also "slowly" getting back into leisure pursuits such as
cycling and reading (the last book that he read was The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-time). And should he
ever get stranded on a desert island with two people (but not
allowed to take his immediate family), he would like to have his
mother and father with him just because they are his mum and dad
and "wonderful" to boot. His one luxury item would be a CD player
which would play a "ludicrous and eclectic" selection of music
ranging from traditional Scottish folk music, great classical
music, particularly choral - the chorus of Handel's Messiah would
be heard quite frequently on the island and he would take his
teenage passion of The Jam as a connection to his youth.
There is no doubt that John Swinney is a politician who is
clearly looking forward to keeping the political leadership on
their toes - he knows how the system works and in his new position
of poacher he shows every sign of using his insider knowledge to
good advantage. Just call him Sparky Swinney, the Parliament's
latest livewire.