DEREK Mackay has lost his finance position and is no longer tipped as the next First Minister. Now locals in his constituency are asking how long he will be their MSP.

While Mackay may not have risen to prominence at the national level until becoming Transport Minister in 2014, he has been a fixture of Renfrewshire politics for more than 20 years.

First elected to Renfrewshire Council in 1999 at the age of 21, he became council leader eight years later and entered the Scottish Parliament in 2011 as the first MSP for the new Renfrewshire North and West constituency, which he still holds.

Raised in Renfrew, he still lives within the bounds of the area he serves, which stretches into parts of Paisley and covers several villages.

The National:

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His popularity in the area saw his vote share grow by almost 6% in 2016, when he increased his majority to more than 7300 votes. But members of the public told The National the schoolboy text revelations had cost him their votes. And, speaking on the condition of anonymity, local party figures and former colleagues said they don’t know how long he’ll be able to stay in office.

One said: “The pressure to resign is going to be almost impossible to resist. I’d be very surprised if he’ll bear this out. The next Scottish Parliament elections are only a year away, but a year is a long time in politics and a very long time having to carry out surgeries and go to events under these circumstances.

“Even going to parliament, he’d have a pack of hounds with cameras following his every move. I don’t know how you can keep going under those circumstances.

“I would have put money on him becoming First Minister. I’m glad I didn’t.”

Mackay had been regarded as one of the frontrunners to succeed Nicola Sturgeon when she leaves the SNP leadership role she’s held since 2014. Yesterday she told the Scottish Parliament Mackay had been suspended from that party and an investigation into the schoolboy text reports will be held.

“We all do daft things, but not like this,” said an insider. “It’s not as if it was once or twice, it was hundreds of messages. It’s hard to take in.”

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That incredulity was shared with some members of the public. “People will say ‘16’s not illegal’, but come on,” one health worker commented. “You can’t imagine how anyone could be so stupid.

“We’ve not long moved to the area so we haven’t voted for him before, but no, you couldn’t vote for someone like that.

“You want your politicians to know what’s right and wrong.”

Cleaner Janice said she’d learned about the scandal from a client.

“I don’t watch the news, I don’t read the papers,” she said.

“When he told me all about it I thought, ‘oh my god’. I would never vote for him – who would?”

But a council source said rival parties are “smelling blood” and are likely to ramp up calls for a by-election. That would be bad news, according to one local SNP campaigner, who said: “We don’t know what will happen, but this isn’t good for the party.”

On the street, long-term SNP voter Andy said he’d struggle to back Mackay at the ballot box again. “I’ve heard worse,” he said, “but what he’s done is terrible.

“My Tory mate’s going mental over it and saying we were all idiots to vote for the SNP in the first place. He’s using it to criticise independence, which has got nothing to do with it, but that’s what we’re up against.”

If a contest is called, Mackay is – according to one local source – unlikely to be the SNP’s preferred candidate. “He’s 42, he’s never done anything other than politics, he’s unlikely to be reselected,” he said. “It’s hard to see where he goes from here and it’s hard to see a natural successor for him.

“People talk about his meteoric rise. Well, it’s been a meteoric fall.”