This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

Sometimes in politics, it is the little things that really tell the tale about the state of a party.

That was the thought that came to me last month as I watched Graham Leadbitter, the newly elected SNP Member of Parliament for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey, rise to give his maiden speech in the House of Commons. Save for his other new colleague Seamus Logan, he stood alone.

Of their better-established associates from the SNP, there was no sign. Not their leader, Stephen Flynn. Not his deputy. Not even their Chief Whip. No sign, no smiles, no support – just empty green benches.

Perhaps they have all just become camera shy.

That in of itself would be quite the change. When the SNP’s Grande Armée arrived in the House of Commons in 2015, you could hardly accuse them of being timid. Each and every parliamentary foray was backed up by the full force of 56 MPs, braying and stamping and scowling at the government benches, the opposition benches, and indeed at anyone within a fifty-yard radius. Whether a maiden speech, a point of order or a mere intervention – there they would be, in full voice and shouting down anyone else around them as best they could.

It did not make for particularly productive or constructive political debate in the months that followed. When your answer to every policy question is to blame someone else and call for independence, it does not encourage the most rigorous critical thinking. Some SNP members got their heads down and worked hard for their communities, but too many saw their primary task as being to shout, snarl and secure social media clips.

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I cannot deny, however, that their ferocity and mass of numbers made the SNP benches of 2015 appear united and energised. Whatever the topic, whoever their interlocutor, they raged against the machine as one.

That was then. Over the years we all watched as the SNP’s legendary discipline dissipated – slowly, then all at once.

That the much-reduced SNP cohort could not even be bothered to turn up to their new colleague’s first speech to Parliament really does tell a story about how far they have fallen. It also tells a tale about how much effort they are willing to make to pick themselves back up. No doubt it is more convenient for Stephen Flynn as SNP leader to play to a news camera or plot his ascension to Holyrood, rather than to sit around in the House of Commons in support of his junior team members. This job, however, is about far more than what is convenient.


These are the little things, but they do matter – especially when you are a small group that is supposed to be trying to rebuild.

I can speak on this with some experience. There have been tough days for my party in the past decade. After the bitter disappointment of the 2019 election, in which we gained votes but lost seats, including our leader, some might have expected our small Liberal Democrat contingent to pipe down and keep schtum.

We did not. Instead we put together a tough, tight-knit, laser-focused team, fighting hard for our constituents and for our values together. We may have had only a handful of voices – at one point I found myself shadowing not one but fourteen government ministers – but we sang from the same hymn sheet and we belted out loud.

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Perhaps the demoralised SNP group will yet find similar mettle, instead of focusing on their escape routes to Holyrood. The early indications, however, do not augur well.

Half an hour after Mr Leadbitter’s maiden speech, it was Seamus Logan’s turn to stand. Again the nationalist benches sat empty. After a couple of minutes one more SNP colleague wandered in, stretching to the limit the old saying “three’s a crowd”.

And then within the span of an hour, both of the SNP new joiners were done. Politics and Parliament moved on, and in place of the stamping and shouting and triumphalism of 2015, there was silence. It is the little things that really tell the tale.

Alistair Carmichael is the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland.