Flynn is a high-flyer with lofty ambitions who is widely talked about as a potential successor to the first minister.<\/p>\n
The SNP’s former Westminster leader was a commanding presence in the House of Commons, but his new role as a cabinet secretary is a whole different game. He has to be across a huge range of detail in an expansive brief.<\/p>\n
Swinney is well regarded for a deeply technocratic approach to his politics. By that measure, Flynn stumbled at his transport committee appearance last month.<\/p>\n
He was not across the day’s news on the Glen Sannox leak and, according to the emails revealed today, his office did not pass on the details of the leak story – despite receiving two emails.<\/p>\n
Opposition politicians, who pounce with glee at any sign of weakness in a big political beast, suggest a touch of arrogance for the first part and a dysfunctional office for the second.<\/p>\n
Transport Scotland has been clear \u2013 it says draft media statements do not constitute a briefing.<\/p>\n
What’s more concerning for Flynn is: how this will be viewed within the party?<\/p>\n
He certainly ruffled feathers in the SNP last year as he sought the Aberdeen Deeside & North Kincardine nomination. Some regarded his approach as heavy-handed and there’s maybe a certain amount of schadenfreude in the north-east today.<\/p>\n
His loyal supporters will also be troubled by this unforced error from the man who could be first minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flynn is a high-flyer with lofty ambitions who is widely talked about as a potential successor to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-797069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}