Conversations with the Scottish Labour leadership have not been happy ones in recent months: wrinkled brows, worry, prevarication, hedging. If they never quite thought they were on a glide path to victory at the 2026 Holyrood election, Keir Starmer’s entrance into Downing Street certainly helped them believe it was likely. But then came a summer and autumn of wild missteps.
Too many own goals at Westminster, too little dynamism, a reckless squandering of what should have been a useful honeymoon period. Starmer’s personal poll rating has cratered. John Swinney’s SNP has started presenting as a more reasonable, moderate and agreeable force.
Eek. The effect is that Anas Sarwar’s momentum has stuttered. We’ll see what the polls say in the coming months, but a Labour victory in 2026 no longer feels inevitable, as perhaps it had come to seem.
The Budget, therefore, mattered not just in terms of its impact on the overall UK electorate, but in its specific impact on Scotland, and on the mood of Scottish Labour. And on that front, it’s fair to say that the tails of Sarwar and his team are back up again. The important message, the one they really needed in their competition with the SNP for left-of centre voters, is that the era of austerity is over.
Rachel Reeves announced a real-terms increase next year in the Scottish budget of £3.4bn, taking funding from Westminster to £47.7 bn, the largest in the history of devolution.
There will also be a £1.5bn increase in this ye.
