Can John Swinney finish the independence marathon?

Humza Yousaf piled the pressure on his successor during his resignation speech. 

“Independence feels frustratingly close,” he told the hacks assembled in Bute House. 

But, he added, “the last few miles of the marathon are always the hardest”.

The SNP had, he said, “run this race as a team and I now will prepare to pass the baton to a successor who I'm absolutely certain will lead us over the finish line”.

As it happens, Holyrood has someone who knows a thing or two about relay races. 

Brian Whittle was an Olympic relay runner. 

His run as the third leg of the GB 4x400 metres men's team at the 1986 European Championships is the stuff of legend. 

Team-mate Kris Akabusi accidentally ripped off his shoe as he handed over the baton, forcing Whittle to run without it. 

So what does the man, dubbed “one of the quickest socks in history” by David Coleman, think about the outgoing FM’s running metaphor?

“If we are looking at winning a relay race then you need someone on the last leg who is faster and tactically more astute than the opposition, assuming the previous runners have given the last leg runner a fighting chance,” he says. 

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“I don’t see any last leg runners on the SG benches.

“You also have to have a sense of direction to stay in lane. I would say the Scottish Government have been disqualified for leaving the track and leading Scotland in the wrong direction.”

Whittle is, of course, a Tory MSP, so his view on the constitution is perhaps not massively surprising. 

But what do others think?

Are we in the last few miles of a marathon, I ask Ailsa Henderson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. 

It depends, she says, on where we’re starting from.

“If you're thinking well the marathon started in the October election of 1974, then you might think, okay, yeah, maybe we're in the final leg.”

The FM, Prof Henderson adds, sounds like he's “about 20 years older than he is when he says things like that”.

“You can imagine that people who have been representing the party for far longer would look at the current polling situation and say yes, compared to where we were, then absolutely, we are within touching distance of 50%. I suppose if you've just been paying attention since 2014, you would say, well, it’s not really much different from where we were the day after the referendum.”

There is also, she adds, the “wider context in which we're operating”.

“That wider context says that whatever the public polling might be telling us, we're not having a referendum anytime soon, nor does it look like the route by which you would call for one is a clear one. 

“So from that perspective, it's not as if we're weeks or months away from a democratic contest in which we might radically change Scotland's future.”

There are 26.2 miles in a marathon. I ask polling expert Mark Diffley what mile he thinks Scotland is at.

It depends, he says, on where we’re finishing, 

Support for leaving the UK averages at around 48%.

“It remains relatively high historically and pretty robust. So in that sense it's not off the table. From a public opinion point of view, it very much feels like it's still an unresolved issue.”

However, when you ask people what their priorities are independence is low, with only around one in 10 keen to see the government dealing with it at the moment. 

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“So, well behind the staples here which are economic performance, state of public services, particularly in the NHS, housing, climate change, etc. 

“Well, well below measures for those issues.”

“It is absolutely impossible to know where the finish line is,” he adds. “The agreed finish line here would be probably another referendum in the absence of just sort of declaring independence or whatever.

“We have no idea as to when that might ever happen again. And so therefore not knowing where the finishing line is means that we can't really say with any sense of certainty which bit of that journey that we're actually on.

“I think we're probably still quite a long way from the finish line, to be perfectly honest.”

When John Swinney was asked during his campaign launch if he could lead Scotland to independence, he replied with a confident yes, receiving rapturous applause and cheers from the cabinet secretaries and supporters gathered in the room. 

In fairness, he could hardly have said, no. 

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Swinney’s a keen runner himself, and has, in fact, run a marathon.

So – and just to torture this running metaphor even further – he’ll know exactly what it’s like to hit the wall. 

The FM was wrong. In my very limited experience, the hardest part of the marathon isn’t the last few miles. There’s a real boost when you know you’re near the end. 

The hardest part is just after mile 20.

Will Swinney be able to reach the end line or will he DNF?