Rennie calls for review after Humza's howler

The Scottish Government has a Minister for External Affairs, whose job it is to represent the Scottish Government on the international stage. This role is currently undertaken by SNP rising star Humza Yousaf.

Humza has spent this week in Doha at the International Forum there. This is an event which discusses key international issues as they affect the Middle East. He has been caught on video telling this international audience of academics, political leaders and intergovernmental organisations that the UK Government wants to leave the European Union. Unfortunately for him, he was caught on video doing it. Have a look at the 6th video down, starting at 2 hrs 6:20 in.

Even at the moment, the United Kingdom Government is wanting the UK to leave the European Union but the Scots wish to remain a part of the European Union.

To try to suggest that the personal views of a couple of Cabinet ministers on how they would vote in a referendum that is not going to happen in this Parliament is the official position of  the UK Government is at best mischievous.

Willie Rennie has called on First Minister Alex Salmond to rein in his errant colleague:

The Minister for External Affairs seems to have deliberately misrepresented UK Government policy.  At no stage has the UK Government stated it wants to leave the European Union.

After comparing the Scottish independence movement with the Arab Spring, Humza Yousaf is morphing into a Scottish version of Johnny English.

It is not fitting for a government minister to misrepresent the position of either of Scotland’s governments on the world stage. This blundering, cavalier style of diplomacy can paint a false picture to international partners and have real implications for our businesses.
The First Minister needs to rein in his minister before he causes any more problems.

He has put down a motion to the Scottish Parliament which calls on the Scottish Government:

to review the way in which it conducts its international relations so that audiences, whether domestic or international, can have confidence that its ministers are giving an accurate and honest statement of the position of other governments.

On the Arab Spring issue, there is a predilection amongst some nationalists to compare their fight for independence to other struggles against brutal regimes. I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago after a comment to that effect was left on here. On this occasion, I think that maybe the pudding was being over-egged a little bit by his critics. After all, he did explicitly say that you couldn't directly compare the two.  I think the rest of his comments were more deserving of further scrutiny. He talked about the need for:

We need to learn more about how we can use digital media as a means of consulting with the youth, to make young people feel more engaged.

Well, maybe - but you could try talking to them as well. The techy stuff is an add-0n. There's nothing as good as actually listening to what they have to say in person.

And I hope he was joking when he said this, on the construction of a new political framework:

More importantly than anything it must be inclusive of women, young people, minorities and even of our opponents.

Wow. Don't get too over-enthusiastic about the idea of political pluralism, there, Humza.

I'm cross with Willie Rennie........

Well, kind of. Even though it's not his fault that he found himself having to high tail it to St Andrew's last night to take part in Question Time at the last minute.

There was even a sort of symmetry about one great by election winner taking a role on the national stage exactly 50 years after another's ground breaking win.

But, did it really have to be the night before the F1 practice sessions started in Australia? I need my sleep, otherwise I turn into the Witch Queen from Hell. There was no way I'd manage to get up at 5:30 for Free Practice 2 if I'd been up till all hours watching Question Time. So who was it going to be, Michael Schumacher or Willie Rennie?

I did wonder if little month old Michael Green would be up watching his namesake for the first time. His daddy works for the Mercedes team and his mummy is probably an even bigger Schumi fan than I am.

Anyway, I digress. I couldn't really go to bed without seeing how Willie had done. He was on with Janet Street Porter, Humza Yousaf, Ruth Davidson and Frank Field.

I felt that he really didn't get his fair share of airtime, but when he did speak he talked sense. If any random, normal people had been watching, other than the political geeks who normally gather round on Twitter, I think they would have seen a reasonable, articulate, very sensible guy. He's much wiser than I am because I was urging him on Twitter to have a go at Humza Yousaf over the SNP's economic failures over the economy and its Plan MacB, but it wasn't the right place. I wish he'd got the chance to bring up Alex Salmond's close links to Rupert Murdoch and this grubby little association they seem to have going on independence. He really had Salmond flailing on that last week and I think actually it's relevant to a UK audience that a vengeful Murdoch is quite happy to try to break up the UK over Leveson.

It was very interesting to see Ruth Davidson take credit for the rise in the tax threshold and Nick Clegg's Youth Contract - both Liberal Democrat ideas.

Humza Yousaf showed why the leadership contest he'll have with Nicola Sturgeon after the Independence Referendum will be an interesting one indeed.

Willie talked about how the argument we need to put forward on wind farm isn't just about jobs, it's about protecting the future. On minimum alcohol pricing he said that we could either sit and do nothing on harmful alcohol consumption, or do something we know works. On jobs, he talked about the difficult tightrope the Government was walking at the moment between spending enough to keep the economy going and spending too much which would cause problems with our credit rating and markets. It's good to see politicians acknowledge that it's a tough environment and it's hard to steer the right course. Labour would just go on about how it was a global recession and nothing to do with them, but then take credit for saving the world. Willie's comments were very real.

Anyway, I've done my usual Storify of my tweets and some interesting Twitter conversations I had along the way last night and you can see it for yourself here. Enjoy.

.