With just 15 months to go until crucial devolved elections in Scotland, 2025 will be a momentous year in Scottish politics. Few leaders understand this better than Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who hopes he will be the man to end two decades of SNP dominance come May 2026.
Yet Scottish Labour has fallen down in the polls in recent months and Sarwar needs to figure out how to make his party stand out. It was therefore little surprise that he began 2025 by pledging to use the year to set out how he and his party would chart a ‘new direction’ for Scotland. ‘In each area of responsibility for the Scottish government,’ Sarwar told a gathering of supporters on 6 January, ‘we will demonstrate the consequences of [the SNP’s] incompetence and set out what a Scottish Labour government would do differently’.
Just five weeks on from that pledge, however, and Sarwar is already proving it is easier said than done.
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