THE Tories may have been the masters of leadership turmoil in 2022, but they weren't the only group at Westminster who had a gutful of their boss.

After five years in charge of the third largest party in the Commons, the SNP also got shot of Ian Blackford, although in far less colourful fashion.

An early sign of trouble came in February when the Glasgow SNP MPs David Linden and Chris Stephens defied their party whip to vote against a paltry Tory-led rise in benefits.

This was consistent with previous opposition to it, but against the SNP's bizarre last-minute decision to abstain on the vote, rather than oppose it.

They were rebuked for having "compromised group discipline".

Their true crime, in the eyes of their supporters, was to show the group's management was flaky. Mr Linden would go on to become a key lieutenant for the MP who ousted Mr Blackford.

Still, the Skye MP was an effective prosecutor over Partygate, often cutting to the heart of the matter in away in which Sir Keir Starmer did not.

The brutal cost of living crisis was another of his strengths. Pensions, however, were a different matter.

In February, Mr Blackford kicked off an almighty stooshie when he gave an interview to ITV Border in which be blithely asserted the rump UK would keep paying state pensions in an independent Scotland.

The White Paper of 2013/14 had been clear: Scotland would be responsible for it.

Opposition parties declared the SNP was in a muddle over a cornerstone of social security, and it was left to Nicola Sturgeon - not for the last time - to clear up the mess.

It was unedifying, but ultimately it was only a gaffe. The real scandal was to follow.

In April, it was reported that Westminster's ethics watchdog had upheld sexual misconduct complaints against two SNP MPs - Patrick Grady of Glasgow North and Patricia Gibson of North Ayrshire & Arran - with the latter calling the claims "malicious".

With the SNP quick to damn the PM and other Tories for bad behaviour, there were calls for the pair to lose the party whip. The SNP refused.

The following month it emerged the party knew Mr Grady had a problem with his conduct, and had sent him for "training" af" ater he was accused of groping a male stafer in 2016.

Mr Blackford, who still let the MP become chief whip, tried to draw a line under the matter by having him apologise to his victim in a meeting the latter likened to an ambush.

In June, the Commons independent expert panel recommended Mr Grady be suspended for two days for drunken harassment in a pub, but even then the SNP did not remove the whip.

In a sign of how dysfunctional the SNP group had become, the MPs' weekly meeting was recorded and leaked, the audio revealing Mr Blackford urged colleagues to give Mr Grady their "absolute full support" despite previously boasting of his "zero tolerance" approach to harassment.

Only after the leak came out did Mr

Blackford apologise publicly for his mishandling of matters, including what the FM called "utterly unacceptable"

behaviour at the MPs' meeting.

A few days later Mr Grady finally quit the party - but only after the Metropolitan Police got involved.

Ms Gibson, the other MP accused of misconduct, was cleared of wrongdoing on a series of procedural technicalities despite admitting she was too drunk to remember whether she had harassed a junior party staffer and asked him to "come home and s*** me".

It was low point for Mr Blackford, and set a clock ticking on his leadership.

The Edinburgh Fringe in August was also eventful for the Westminster SNP.

To audience gasps, MP Joanna Cherry KC revealed she had had "no support whatsoever" from the FM or Mr Blackford after receiving rape threats, blaming her refusal to toe the party line on gender reforms.

Meanwhile, Mr Blackford stunned another audience - namely his MPs and SNP members - when he told a Fringe show of his "love" for Westminster life and being mates with Unionists.

To many, it was another sign of him settling down rather than settling up.

The rumblings over his future grew through the autumn. His chances of survival weren't helped by a poor FMQs appearance in which he was, miraculously, worse than Liz Truss.

Wrong-footed by her initial answer, he chuntered on with a script that had become instantly redundant.

"I am a fighter, not a quitter," Ms Truss told the same session. She quit the next day.

Mr Blackford took a bit longer, and with only a little more dignity. In November, the 2019- intake Aberdeen South MP Stephen Flynn, inset, mounted a bid to oust him at the group's forthcoming AGM, but was briefly talked out of it despite having the numbers.

Mr Blackford was initially defiant.

"I look forward to being the MP that leads the SNP group out of Westminster for the last time," he said, as Mr Flynn appeared to slink away.

But with his MPs still unhappy over his failings and readiness to go along with Mr Sturgeon's plan to gamble their jobs by fighting the next General Election as as a de facto referendum, he could read the writing on the wall.

A week after saying he would stay put, he agreed to go, taking on the role of the party's liaison with the business community. As Mr Flynn bounced back into view, Ms Sturgeon tried to head him off by getting loyalist Alison Thewliss into the race, but in vain.

So far, Mr Flynn has yet to make much of an impact in charge.

An early stunt to have a Westminster Bill tee up Indyref2 deflated, as most stunts do.

But his presence is a reminder of Ms Sturgeon's chilly neglect of her flock at Westminster - pastoral care was never her forte - and the desire of the party's younger MPs to assert themselves.

A generational change is afoot.

It was fair sore for Mr Blackford to lose his job, but what his exit portends may well hurt Ms Sturgeon more.