Stephen Flynn took over as leader of the SNP in Westminster this week and made a good first impression at Prime Minister’s Questions. He has only been an MP since the most recent election in 2019 and is all of 34 years of age, but possesses a confidence and fluency on the floor of the Commons. He told Rishi Sunak he needs to “up his game” and deftly threw some shade on Labour, portraying Keir Starmer and his party to be Tory-lite.
The Aberdeen South MP might also be given some credit for his audacious bid to usurp his predecessor, Ian Blackford, whose appearance at PMQs was guaranteed to raise performative groans from the Tory benches. That tactic will be harder to deploy when the energetic and forceful Flynn rises to his feet.
Much thanks, however, is he getting from his colleagues. You’d be forgiven for thinking that someone had passed a law decreeing that Scottish political honeymoons be rendered as short as possible, such has been the reaction to Flynn’s arrival. Blackford stood down rather than fight the Flynn challenge head-on but tells Talk TV, rather earthily, that he would and should have won if he wasn’t so noble as to party and nation first: “I could have seen this off, I believe I would have won if I’d put myself forward … some people have a different way of wanting to do things and I think it’s fair to say that some people probably wanted to see the end of my backside off the front bench. That’s fine. They’re entitled to that.”
