A YEAR IS A LONG TIME IN POLITICS

Humza Yousaf has survived the most turbulent opening 12 months experienced by any first minister of Scotland but with a general election on the way, Political Editor Paul Hutcheon believes the coming year will be just as tough

HUMZA Yousaf's greatest achievement in the last 12 months has been holding on to his job.

He has faced the most turbulent start of any first minister in the history of devolution and survived.

He is not a perfect politician but he is a resilient one.

All leaders have to balance weathering the storms of everyday troubles with delivering the sunny uplands promised to voters.

Most of his time in office has been spent under black clouds he could not dodge.

Within weeks of him becoming First Minister, predecessor Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell were arrested amid an SNP fraud probe.

Even though they were released without charge, the ongoing Operation Branchform still haunts Yousaf's leadership.

The scandal of Sturgeon and her team deleting their Covid WhatsApps was another mess that landed on his lap.

And the taxpayer-funded farce of his Health Secretary Michael Matheson's data roaming bill sapped even more of his energy.

Yousaf's early support for Matheson contributed to the growing sense of crisis but all three debacles were not of Yousaf's making.

He also inherited a shambles from Sturgeon on indyref2 after her preferred approach of going to the UK Supreme Court failed.

The legitimate criticism of Yousaf is the slow progress - in some areas he has even gone backwards in meeting his key goals.