Sketch: John Swinney nicks Keir Starmer’s slogan

‘National renewal’ appears to be the new fashionable phrase, the latest hot trend that our politicians have stumbled upon. Forget ‘levelling up’. Never mind ‘fixing the roof’. Those phrases are only said by has-beens. Politicians of the past. Boomers. Now these young new things (men in their 60s) are all about ‘renewal’. It’s the equivalent of buying a Lambo and ditching the wife, but for middle-aged bureaucrats.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been wanging on about national renewal for months. He even released a blueprint for it. And, fresh from the Hamilton by-election shock, First Minister John Swinney has decided maybe he should go for something similar. It’s all about those (electoral) gains. So the first minister trudges out to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to deliver a speech on national renewal.

Scottish Labour is quite paranoid about the SNP stealing ideas. And no wonder; this is brazen intellectual property theft. Assuming you can call anything MSPs do intellectual, that is. But the first minister, he would probably argue, is just in listening mode – a good government takes on board good ideas, right?

Besides, they’ve not just nicked it. They’ve added to it. Renewed the renewal. Swinney is speaking about national renewal and prevention. Prevention, presumably, of Anas Sarwar entering Bute House next year.

Nothing says national renewal like second-time leader clutching a 14-year-old document

His deputy Kate Forbes introduces the moment by calling it a “landmark speech”. That’s meant to get us in the mood for what will surely be a fist-pumping, foot-stomping, barn-storming speech.

So what are these new, radical changes the Scottish Government wants to drive forward? Swinney brings out a 2011 report, dusting the cobwebs from the cover.

“I asked the late Dr Campbell Christie to lead a Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services,” the first minister reminds the room. Nothing says national renewal like second-time leader clutching a 14-year-old document.

Ministers knew “even then” that driving forward reform was a “necessity”, Swinney continues. So why has the government not, you know, actually delivered any of those reforms?

Not so, says the FM. There has been the merger of police services and there’s been the expansion of early learning and childcare. We’ll just ignore the fact that those things happened years ago too, shall we?

Swinney is flabbergasted that, despite that investment, “our public services strain at the seams”. So he’s come to remind us all of those Christie principles again. He reads them out to the audience, padding out his speech much like a school kid putting a massive quote in an essay to bump up the wordcount. Inspiring stuff.

Tory MSP Craig Hoy urges him to 'stop talking and start swinging the axe'

It is time to be “a nation renewed and reborn”, he insists. And who better to do that than a man who has experience his own renewal and rebirth – or so he’d have you believe. Full On John is here to stay, at least in his own head.

“Barriers must be navigated, and any blockages removed,” he says, before warning: “I am talking as much to my ministers and officials as I am to you.” That’s right, if ministers don’t buck up their ideas they will… have Ivan McKee to answer to, apparently. Because McKee has been given the task of being the enforcer for all this renewal. Swinney really is sending in the big guns.

When McKee heads to parliament a few days later to set out his “statement of belief” – whatever that means – Tory MSP Craig Hoy urges him to “stop talking and start swinging the axe”.

But the minister says his strategy is about “leading our own agenda for reform, not following that of others”. Because if there’s anything Scottish ministers hate more, it’s looking like they aren’t a world leader. No matter the topic, they want to be seen as being ahead – particularly of any Tory MSPs. 

This “statement of belief” is “rooted in realism, driven by urgency and focused on delivering for Scotland”, McKee continues. It won’t sit on a shelf in St Andrews House for 14 years. He hopes.

He goes on to talk about “key efficiency programmes”, “optimising”, and “allowing leaders to lead”. These are all “easy to grasp but hard to deliver”, as everyone in the room struggles to grasp what he means. Is he still talking about national renewal? Or is this more about prevention – prevention of anyone being able to hold him to account because no one is sure exactly what he’s accountable for. Apart from, as the first minister said, removing blockages. He spends his work day, when not delivering word salad to parliament, lurking outside fellow ministers’ office with a big plunger.

Hoy accuses the SNP of delivering “real change for the worse”. That’s probably an adaptation of a Labour slogan the party won’t be taking forward.