After my initial guarded uncertainty when I voted for him, I'm actually pretty impressed with his performance, not that the media would give that impression.
The Scottish Green Party has run out of road as far as I'm concerned. See here for the history and rationale for abandoning the unrealistic and impossible 2030 CO2 target that triggered this crisis: https://www.democraticunderground.com/108822833
The Green leadership must certainly be aware of these considerations. Maybe some of their constituency who've been very vocal in their condemnations aren't so au fait, but if so, I'd lay responsibility for that at their leadership's feet. In their time as ministers, they've been near invisible in selling publicly the Green-championed measures the government has gone ahead with and taken massive amounts of flak for. I started out moderately enthusiastic at the prospect of giving them a chance at participating in power. In the end, I've not been at all impressed, particularly in the last week or so.
The Greens were on the verge of voting on whether to continue with the Bute House Agreement anyway. Yousaf pre-empted them by shortening the agony. In view of that, their anger and vociferous spouting about betrayal rings totally hollow.
If things pan out with Yousaf resigning, Ash Regan doesn't have a chance in hell of getting the leadership - not insignificantly, she'd have to re-turn her coat after becoming an Alba MSP. Even if she hadn't done that, I don't think she'd improve on her poor distant third performance last time.
If Kate Forbes threw her hat in the ring, she might be in for a surprise, much as she's not short of self-confidence. She got my second vote last time mainly because I didn't want Regan sneaking in if the dice fell in a certain way. She has no chance whatsoever of getting any vote from me in a future leadership election. My misgivings about her tendency to be a loose cannon and display political naivety bordering on disloyalty have only been confirmed since the leadership election. She and the SNP would be mincemeat if she got in given the almost universally hostile media environment. She's also decidedly right-wing on social and some financial issues, and that doesn't reflect the wider SNP or my own views.
Who else might stand if there was another SNP leadership election is anybody's guess. There's enough talent for condidates to emerge who could do a good job, but as Yousaf's term has shown, it's a bloody difficult and thankless post.
I have a feeling Yousaf will hang on, but I've no idea how at the moment. It may be that in the end the Greens wake up and realize the likely electoral cost to them if they put the SNP out of power. They could whistle for many of the second votes from SNP supporters that gave them the PR list seats that make up their only representation at Holyrood.
Even if Yousaf doesn't survive a no confidence vote, there are more hoops to jump through before this debacle is over.
The SNP could call a premature election. All bets are off if that happens, but I'd be surprised if the Greens didn't pay a severe price for effectively bringing down the government.
The SNP could remain as a minority government as the largest single party by far in Holyrood, but the opposition and their allies in the media would no doubt kick up a lot of noise and dust if that happened.
Scottish Labour and the Tories are nowhere near being fit for government, with no serious big hitters and a lot of time-serving visionless opportunists even in their upper echelons, and that would soon become only too apparent even if they did manage to squeak together some sort of working majority between them at any stage.
In among all this, until this last week at least, the SNP's vote has held up tolerably in all but the most pessimistic polling, and support for independence has even coasted moderately higher.
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