Anas Sarwar’s state-of-the-nation speech was a missed opportunity in his bid to become First Minister next year. Opinion polls show Scottish Labour in decline and he should have used his address for two purposes.
The first was to set out a clear position on the top issue at Holyrood – the SNP Government’s draft Budget.
Finance Secretary Shona Robison last month announced billions extra for public services, reintroduced winter fuel payments for pensioners and started the process of ending the two child benefit cap. All these centre-left policies will be paid for by the extra funding provided by Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Sarwar had the chance to say so.
But he again dodged the Budget by saying as little as possible in his speech about a tax and spending package that will dominate the Parliament until it is resolved.
If the Budget falls, public sector staff will not receive a pay rise, services will be placed under unprecedented pressure and older voters will be denied their WFP. If it passes without Labour support, Swinney will taunt Sarwar until polling day about voting against measures that will help millions of Scots.
Sarwar squandered another opportunity of claiming the Budget as a Labour victory and moving the conversation onto delivering results with the extra cash.
Part of the sluggishness is down to internal Labour tensions. Some shadow cabinet figures would rather sleep on a bed of nails than help the SNP even if they agreed with every policy in the Budget. Others know the political cost of voting against a fairly progressive Budget and want Labour to abstain in February.
The second mis-step was in failing to use a New Year speech to announce a single original policy that sets Labour apart from the SNP.
Sarwar instead announced a reheat of a policy Scottish Labour first promised twenty five years ago. Henry McLeish, the then Labour First Minister, promised a ‘bonfire of the quangos’ in 2000, only to quit after less than a year in charge. Labour have dusted down a McLeish-era cast off and presented it as new.
Sarwar still has time to unveil radical policies in his quest to topple Swinney and lead Labour into Government. He is also right to hone in on the disastrous state of public services under the SNP. Despite the awful state of the polls, there is little love for Swinney’s Government.
But Sarwar has to make rapid progress and stop wasting time on fights he cannot win. Ending his party’s pointless opposition to the Budget would be a good place to start.
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