'Scottish politics looked very different a year ago': One year to Holyrood elections

Scottish politics looked very different a year ago.

On May 9 2024, the day after John Swinney officially became First Minister, Redfield and Wilton Strategies published a poll that put Labour ahead of the SNP in both constituencies and the regional list vote for the next Holyrood election.

Then came the Westminster humbling in July as the Scottish nationalists tumbled to just nine MPs while their rivals surged past them and Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.

Surveys now show anything from a 10-point to a 20-point gap between the parties, but it is the SNP who are back in front and cautiously eyeing a third decade in power that seemed improbable 12 months previously.

This reversal in fortunes has not been caused by a great regaining of support for Mr Swinney’s party, although it has ticked up by a few points in opinion polls.

Rather, it is thanks to a collapse in backing for Labour and a wave of anger directed at Sir Keir.

A year out from the Holyrood elections, this is a problem for the party’s Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar.

Some commentators had assumed he could by this point be booking the removal van early and measuring the curtains to Bute House.

The SNP is in a much happier place with Mr Swinney than it was with Humza Yousaf, his predecessor, who was forced out after sacking the Scottish Greens from government.

This has proven to be a helpful decision for the party and there are some senior figures who are grateful for a “fall guy” who took the hit so his successor didn’t have to.

It has provided the opportunity for a laser focus to deliver policies Mr Swinney and his inner circle believe will be popular with the public, while jettisoning some of those left over from Nicola Sturgeon’s time in office.

“We’re only doing things over the next year we think will win us votes,” said one source.

This was reflected in Mr Swinney’s programme for government. More GP appointments, cheaper train fares and reintroducing the ability to drink alcohol when travelling by rail are unlikely to go down badly in many quarters even if the package was criticised as being lightweight by campaigners.

A forthcoming reshuffle to put in place an "election-winning team" will only reinforce that narrative.

Some people underestimate how intensely political Mr Swinney is. He has been around a long time and knows which bruises to punch to inflict maximum pain on his opponents.

This is why he is relentlessly focusing on his budget decision to partly mitigate Labour’s cuts to the winter fuel payment and refusal to lift the two-child cap on benefits.

Those same pinch points are why Labour will spend the next 12 months trying to shift the narrative away from its performance in government across the UK and make it all about the SNP’s efforts at Holyrood.

Private polling and focus group work have led party strategists to believe that if they can have the debate be about public services – primarily the NHS – then they can win back those people who have drifted away since the general election.

“A lot of voters we’re talking to might have frustrations with Keir Starmer or the wider UK government, but they have a deeper antipathy towards the Scottish government,” said a senior figure. “And they’re smart enough to know what they’re voting for.”

Nevertheless, Sir Keir’s popularity has gone off a cliff since he entered Downing Street and Labour will have to find a way to change something if it wants to shift the narrative.

Nervous MSPs privately grumble that they need the UK government to not only up its game but to communicate its successes better if it is to have any hope of being competitive next year.

Meanwhile, Reform eats away both at its support and that of the Scottish Conservatives as people’s frustrations with governments of all colours threaten to boil over.

“All the focus groups we do suggest people despise the UK Labour government the same way they did us,” said a Tory source.

“The feeling has just transferred from Rishi to Keir and that’s extraordinary.”

There is an acceptance amongst senior Conservatives that their party’s legacy from government is still causing problems.

Expect to hear lots more about “common sense values” as the party majors on the economy, NHS, schools, crime and where government money is spent.

Note the lack of independence. That is the wedge issue that has defined relatively successful Tory campaigns in recent years and doubts remain about how they will do without it front and centre of this contest.

Worries also emanate from MSPs that the party is shifting too far to the right, while the bitter internal divisions that characterised last year’s leadership election have not gone away: the dissenters are just complaining a bit more quietly.

The Conservatives will also attack Mr Swinney’s record at the heart of the Scottish government over the last 18 years.

This will particularly focus on the downgrading – and subsequent U-turn – of school pupils’ exam results when he was education secretary and his role in signing off on the finances for a deal to build two ferries that ran massively overtime and over budget.

They also hope to squeeze Reform in constituencies where they are going head-to-head with the SNP, particularly in the south and northeast of Scotland.

Nevertheless, the rise of Nigel Farage’s party will present a major challenge to both the Conservatives and Labour on the regional list vote.

This is where the bulk of their MSPs are returned from and a strong showing by Reform would severely dent the representation of the two main opposition parties at Holyrood.

Reform, which doesn’t have a Scottish leader, also plans to put Mr Farage up as its representative in the Holyrood TV debates.

Expect Mr Swinney to further paint Mr Farage as a pantomime villain as he tries to use Reform’s rise to his advantage.

If the party returns a solid clutch of MSPs, as polling currently suggests is on the cards, it will lead to a fractured parliament of minorities not seen since the 2003 term, which included Scottish Socialist MSPs.

Coincidentally, that was during John Swinney’s first go as SNP leader.

In Holyrood, where no one party dominates, the Scottish Greens and Liberal Democrats could each play key roles in whoever forms the next government.

Both are eyeing a couple of gains at the election, particularly in the south of Scotland and Edinburgh.

Meanwhile, Alba, the party founded by Alex Salmond, is in a state of flux with Ash Regan, its only MSP, at loggerheads with the new leader, former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.

The shape of politics has shifted so much over the last year that, despite the SNP’s position currently seeming comfortable, some figures at the top of the party have nagging doubts that more twists – such as the criminal proceedings hanging over former chief executive Peter Murrell – could move the dial again.

Or as one senior opposition figure, perhaps wryly thinking of last year’s general election betting scandal, put it: “You would have to give me seriously good odds before I would have a flutter on the Holyrood result.”

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