How Starmer government's massive political errors are overshadowing SNP incompetence

In the short term, that led to Mr Sarwar’s isolation though nobody believes he was alone in his reluctant conclusion. It also provoked charges of disloyalty which disregards the fact that obligations of loyalty cut in several directions.

Mr Sarwar owes loyalty to the large majority who want to see change at Holyrood and might have placed hopes in Labour to deliver it. He owes loyalty to people who worked tirelessly to create that possibility, only to see rugs repeatedly pulled from under their feet.

Indeed, for Keir Starmer and those around him, the pertinent question is whether Mr Sarwar’s loyalty has been reciprocated. How much recognition has there been of the challenge he faced, or its far wider significance? The inescapable answer is “very little”.

READ MORE: Anas Sarwar 'right to speak his mind' on Keir Starmer, says Jack McConnell

Labour’s disappointing policies

Despite results in the general election, it was never going to be easy for Scottish Labour under a different electoral system. Labour returned two-thirds of Scottish MPs on 35 per cent of the vote. It needed to maintain that two years later to become Holyrood’s biggest party.

This depended hugely on that period being used to demonstrate what should be obvious – that two governments working in common cause is the best outcome for Scotland. In turn, that required the Starmer government to keep one eye sharply focused on these elections.

It never happened. My own concerns were alerted when early decisions seemed designed to alienate and disappoint – notably winter fuel payments and benefit changes; both perfectly defensible in a wider context but completely botched in timing and presentation.

READ MORE: How Labour and the Tories are playing politics like losers in the online game Risk

I kept hearing this macho approach being defended on grounds there were “five years” to demonstrate the government’s credentials. In other words, there was plenty time to recover so the best time to administer unpleasant medicine was early on.

This seemed politically crass in several respects (and of course these brash initiatives proved so unnecessary that they were soon withdrawn in response to the backlash, without the economy collapsing). But the most obvious flaw lay in that smug “five year” perspective.

READ MORE: Sarwar open to campaigning with Starmer despite urging him to quit

Clichéd thinking

In Scotland, Wales and great swathes of English local government, Labour did not have five years. It had two in which to consolidate its general election success and demonstrate what Labour governments could deliver, particularly when working together in partnership.

That priority seemed to have been entirely missed by Starmer, Rachel Reeves and those around them. Their long-game delusions were both naïve and disrespectful of the very different timescale which colleagues far beyond the Westminster bubble, and the clichéd thinking it produces, were so glib about.

As far as Scotland was concerned, this would never have happened if there had been more voices of influence at the centre of government to emphasise the Scottish imperative.

Long before Labour’s general election victory, a Donald Dewar figure would have drilled it into the leadership’s consciousness that every action must take account of the electoral challenges to be faced in 2026 – not 2029. That would have been non-negotiable and a more politically astute Prime Minister would have embraced it.

Deeply misguided North Sea policy

Actually, the first indication that no such discipline existed came prior to the general election when, out of nowhere, it was intimated on Ed Miliband’s behalf that there would be no new licences in the North Sea under a Labour government.

I have never doubted that this was deeply misguided in terms of energy – or indeed environmental – policy but it was also completely blind to the Scottish political implications. These had been completely ignored on a matter of disproportionate importance to Scottish voters, not to mention livelihoods.

Starting from the lowly point bequeathed by the 2021 Holyrood elections, Mr Sarwar has been doing as much as any Scottish leader humanly could to recover the position and create a plausible case on all the devolved areas of policy.

It must have been beyond frustrating to see that work repeatedly undone by the massive political errors made at Westminster, culminating in the Mandelson debacle. Rationally, these are not the issues Scotland will be voting on in May, but that is difficult to explain to those who feel no great need to appreciate the distinction.

Unpopular SNP

There is no enthusiasm for the current Holyrood administration and ‘Honest John’ Swinney is repeatedly shown to be anything but. Even with Labour’s difficulties, the SNP’s opinion poll standing has flat-lined in the low to mid 30s, far down on 2021. There is all to play for.

On devolved issues, Mr Swinney’s government has won few hearts or minds. Scandals like the one surrounding Glasgow Queen Elizabeth Hospital regularly confirm why they are neither loved nor trusted. Yet no matter how much Mr Sarwar does to highlight these issues, he is repeatedly competing for Scottish headlines with mistakes and transgressions at Westminster.

Equally, everything good the Labour government has done – both in general and specifically for Scotland – has been overshadowed. Billions of extra pounds head north with hardly anyone noticing. To take one example, a £1 billion fund to support community energy was announced. Did anyone know?

I have long argued that the logic of devolution dictated that Scottish Labour (like other non-separatist parties) should become distinct from the Westminster entity while coalescing at times of UK general elections. That would follow, for example, the Spanish model and give the Scottish party far greater autonomy and, critically, the right to disagree without cries of “disloyalty”.

A single speech or gesture by Anas Sarwar cannot deliver that change in relationship but it does signal why it necessary. Meanwhile, all he can do is keep campaigning on devolved issues – and hope that audience is able to filter competing messages.