John Swinney is the smartest move by the SNP in a decade

But, what do we see before us? We see an SNP which has made its smartest, most strategic move in well over a decade. Sometimes, when an answer seems too obvious to be right, it is because it is obviously right. And the alliance between Mr Swinney and Kate Forbes is, so incredibly obviously, right.

It’s funny, I reflect, how the political bubble thinks. I have spent a fair amount of time in conversation with politicians from all parties during the course of this week, since Humza Yousaf announced his intention to resign. You can barely keep a smile off the faces of Labour and Conservative MSPs, with their SNP counterparts looking like someone just shot the family dog.

They are all upside down, but because they’re upside down together, nobody knows the right way up. The Scottish Labour Party is chuckling its way through a week which puts its aspirations for government at risk; the Scottish National Party is crying its way through a week which gives it an unforeseen lifeline.

Anas Sarwar's job just got a lot harder, says Andy Maciver (Image: free)

This time last month, Scotland had a First Minister whose competence, fairly or unfairly, was in question, and whose government was detached from the concerns of the everyday person. A government which prioritised issues about which few cared, and then landed on the wrong side of those issues. A Government desperately in search of the political radar it once coddled, but had long since thrown into a box in the attic.

This time next month, Scotland seems likely to have a First Minister whose middle name is Competence, and whose government may be ready to reacquaint itself with the matters of importance to the everyday people of this country.

It has always amazes me that political parties seldom ask themselves “what do our opponents want us to do?”. That is an easy answer. Labour wants you to keep Mr Yousaf in office, stay well to the left, and leave the social democratic lawn wide open for Anas Sarwar to plant his compassionate, competent flag on.

And the Tories want you to to keep giving gender affirming care to vulnerable young girls, to keep saying that independence is just around the corner, to keep hiking taxes, and to keep Ms Forbes a million miles away from government.

Perhaps the penny has now dropped. Mr Swinney will be First Minister. And Ms Forbes will be his number two. As an exercise in party unity, it is obvious. As an electoral proposition, it is credible. And I say this as neither a supporter of the SNP or as a nationalist; as a service to this country, it is a delightful cocktail of relief and optimism.

However, it is not sufficient. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. This government's problems run deeper than personnel. At the heart of its troubles are failures of policy, and failures of prioritisation. As someone deeply involved in its design, Mr Swinney will require an element of self-reflection; he got it wrong as much as anyone else.

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Part of changing that is changing the entire structure of Cabinet. There is scarcely a more obvious manifestation of the disconnect between the governors and the governed than the scope and titles of Scottish cabinet secretaries. Reader, out in the street, have you ever heard people talking about the ‘wellbeing economy’? Is your local cafe awash with discussion about ‘fair work’? Is your bus journey a hotbed of discussion about a ‘just transition’? No, me neither.

Mr Swinney should have a sheet of paper in front of him, titled ‘Cabinet’. The only job which should be presumed to survive is the one which he is about to assume. Beyond that, he should start again.

Scotland’s biggest long-term problem is demography. So, let us have a Cabinet Secretary for Population Growth, with ministers sitting underneath responsible for everything from childcare to higher education to inward migration.

The world’s biggest problem is climate change, and Scotland has both a responsibility and a seismic opportunity, so let us have a Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change, with ministers sitting underneath responsible for transport, housing and energy, the areas which currently contribute to carbon emissions but which can both expand and decarbonise at the same time, driving emissions down and growth up.

And on that note, how about a Cabinet Secretary for Economic Growth, without which everything else is moot, with a ministerial team covering not just tax and inward investment, but infrastructure and remote and rural areas, which are far more likely to power late-21st century Scotland than those us sitting here in the central belt.

The changes brought on by this remarkable week in Scottish politics may not save this Scottish Government from the verdict of the electorate. But it will give them a chance. And after nearly two decades in power, surely that is about all they are entitled to expect.

On an episode of the Holyrood Sources podcast earlier this week, I surmised that, in the end, I have faith in smart people doing smart things. Perhaps, after all, that faith is not misplaced.

• Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters and Zero Matters