Members of the Scottish Labour party may be forgiven for feelings of jubilation following publication of a new poll. Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Leith near Edinburgh this morning to be met by comrades cheered by the suggestion their party is on course to defeat the SNP at a general election for the first time since 2010.
A Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times has Labour winning 26 of Scotland’s 59 seats and the nationalists just 21. Given that Labour took only one seat in Scotland in 2019 while the SNP won 48, this would mark quite the reversal of fortunes. But Labour supporters who believe this poll signals the beginning of the end for the SNP’s political dominance in Scotland would be wise to insert a degree of caution into their analysis.
From the day the Scottish parliament opened in 1999, senior Labour figures at Westminster (most notably Gordon Brown) meddled in policy, undermining colleagues at Holyrood.
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