Labour isn’t doing enough to win over Scotland

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney began 2025 in the traditional manner – with a chorus of Auld Lang Syne. Speaking at Edinburgh University on Monday morning, Swinney called for unity across the political divide and urged opposition leaders to get behind his government’s budget. Failure to do so, said the FM, would ‘feed the forces of anti-politics and of populism’. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, however, was in no mood to clasp hands with Swinney and sing along about bygones correctly placed. As the First Minister spoke in Edinburgh, Sarwar delivered his own state-of-the-nation address, 50 miles west at his alma mater, the University of Glasgow. While Swinney was reaching out, Sarwar was reciting a litany of SNP failures.

The Scottish Labour leader used his speech today to describe – accurately – the miserable state of public services in Scotland after almost 18 years of SNP government.