After 26 years in office, Fergus Ewing enters what could be his last full year as an MSP in no mood to fade away quietly. In fact he seems more determined than ever to go out with a bang, or a series of thunderclaps.
Mr Ewing has clashed repeatedly with – and been disciplined by – the SNP hierarchy, but he scarcely seems to have been humbled by the experience.
Particularly notable was a Courier column he wrote which was so far removed from mainstream SNP thinking as to be from another planet – or at least another continent.
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Showing the most blatant disregard for SNP sensibilities, Mr Ewing paid qualified and justified tribute to Donald Trump – who to the horror of First Minister John Swinney and his acolytes becomes US president again – for being in touch with the views and values of ordinary people. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he also had words of approval for the new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. The rebel MSP has vigorously gone on the offensive over SNP negligence on the A9 and other issues, but praising Trump and Badenoch is sacrilege in SNP circles.
While Fergus Ewing speaks his mind more plainly and forthrightly than ever, his former colleague Drew Hendry’s days of engaging in political controversy seem over. After nearly a decade as the constituency MP he was ousted against the odds in the July election by Liberal Democrat Angus MacDonald, but there is no animosity or resentment involved and Mr Hendry has wished Mr MacDonald well.
He is now back with a digital company he helped set up a number of years ago. His broader focus includes developing practical ways to assist young people to get into careers of their choice.
He has departed the Westminster hothouse and has shrugged off any regrets he may have had about the severance.
There may be an obvious reason for that.
After a disastrous election in which they came close to a wipe-out, the SNP presence at Westminster has been reduced to just a small handful of MPs.
The days of Ian Blackford and his successor Stephen Flynn holding forth at Prime Minister Questions are gone. The SNP at Westminster are now a virtual irrelevance. Restless party activists who have long had doubts about them participating in the “English parliament” now insist they shouldn’t be there at all. And for all the difference they make to anything, who could argue with the critics?
Meanwhile the independence issue has disappeared over the horizon.
With the appalling decision to scrap the winter fuel payment – and much more besides – Labour are making such a mess of things that John Swinney and co may have hopes of a revival in the Holyrood elections next year. But it is not a good time to be an SNP politician at Westminster. What is your purpose? What are you there for?
Drew Hendry was an MP at a different time entirely, filled with independence marches, energy, determination and hope. Much of that has now vanished, for the time being at least.
In his new life he has ideas, aims and ambitions to fulfil. It is a life of positivity. And that looks a more enviable situation than being just another inconsequential SNP politician drifting aimlessly along in that supposedly alien “English parliament”.