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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
National
Hamish Morrison

Anas Sarwar's 'full on John' jibe shows he's 'worried' about election, says FM

ANAS Sarwar is “worried about his position” and his prospects for the next Holyrood election, John Swinney has claimed.

The Scottish Labour leader made a jibe about the First Minister recently saying he was bringing “full-on John” to his leadership of the Scottish Government in an interview with The Scottish Sun.

Referencing Swinney’s joke, Sarwar said that Scottish voters would “fear” the First Minister putting his efforts into fixing the NHS – as he attacked the SNP over a shortage of hospital beds.

During First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, Sarwar (below) said that the phenomenon of “delayed discharge” – where hospital beds are taken up by healthy patients who are unable to be sent home because of inadequate care facilities – had “got worse”.

(Image: Jane Barlow)

He said: “On any given day, around 2000 Scots are stuck in hospital despite being cleared to leave and over the last decade we’ve had five health secretaries and the cost of their collective failure to deal with this has risen to over £1.5 billion.

"But the biggest price has been paid by countless Scots who have been failed as the situation has deteriorated.”

In a jibe at Swinney’s new nickname, Sarwar added: “Not to worry, we’re now told the self-described full-on John’ is rolling up his sleeves and taking personal charge of the crisis his party has created in our NHS.

“So given he rolled up his sleeves and wrecked our education system and he rolled up his sleeves and wrecked the public finances – is it any wonder Scots fear for the future of our NHS under the SNP?”

Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone gave the Scottish Labour leader a ticking off for the jibe, saying: “If I may just remind all members that we do not use nicknames in the chamber.”

Swinney replied: “I’m really touched that Mr Sarwar is taking such a close interest in all my press interviews.

“That suggests he’s a bit touchy about things these days, it suggests that maybe he’s a little bit worried about his position, that he’s not quite as confident that he was heading in the direction of Bute House.

“Well if he’s that worried, that tells us we’re on the right course in what we’re doing.”

Later in the session, the First Minister tore into Jackie Baillie (below), accusing her of giving “inaccurate” information to Parliament – after the Scottish Labour health spokesperson claimed the NHS was getting worse “every week”.

(Image: PA)

Swinney said: “Jackie Baillie just said that every week it gets worse. That is not true. That is not true. Listen, I’m getting lectured about the importance of what we all say to Parliament so Jackie Baillie better listen to her about her statement.”

The First Minister said it was untrue to claim things were getting worse every week in the NHS – pointing to figures which showed that hospitals were improving in meeting the four-hour A&E waiting time target.

Amid angry heckling from Labour MSPs, Swinney added: “I don’t think that Jackie Baillie wants to hear that she’s giving factual inaccuracies to Parliament today.”

Scottish Labour have been spooked in recent weeks by poor results in polls which complicate their ambitions to regain power in Edinburgh

Reform UK are expected to splinter the Unionist vote and a poll earlier this month predicted that the SNP would remain the biggest party in Holyrood after the 2026 election. 

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