As Nicola Sturgeon delivered her emergency briefing on the calamitous state of the Scottish NHS yesterday (9 January), it wasn’t at first clear that Humza Yousaf had even been allowed into the room. The TV cameras were focused tightly on the First Minister, and it was only ten minutes in, when she dismissively waved a hand to the side, that it became evident her hapless health secretary was standing beside her rather than languishing in a cupboard somewhere.
At her side but thoroughly sidelined, Yousaf had the haunted eyes of a man just given some very bad news by a consultant. “How long have I got, doc?” “In this job? I’d say about a fortnight.” He cut a crushed figure when he was, at last, allowed to speak, and struggled to raise his voice above a stuttering whisper. He is so transparently overwhelmed by the scale of his duties, so obviously having to operate way beyond his capabilities, that the only prescription should be a nice lie down in a dark room. Until July.
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