Shona Robison stood to deliver the Scottish Budget and socked Labour squarely in the jaw.
With a twinkle in her eye, the cabinet secretary scrapped the two-child benefit cap and sealed the deal on the day’s headlines. It was a pitch for votes that puts the SNP on the front foot, only possible thanks to the £3.4 billion top-up in Barnett consequentials that Rachel Reeves generously triggered in her autumn statement.
So, Robison outplayed Labour here, the latest in a sequence of election manoeuvres. Before this we had John Swinney’s ‘reset’ moment last week: his speech at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where he set out to articulate his governing style.
Visionary leadership? Hardly. Both Swinney and the party at large have the quality of a former champion boxer readying for one last prize brawl. The fact that they’re even up for the fight is astonishing. This is a geriatric regime in electoral terms. With a newly minted administration down south, Labour should be able to run rings around the SNP at this point, and yet they’re struggling to land a serious blow.
The budget is just another example of this. Having watched the statement play out yesterday, I am left with three conclusions.
Firstly, this statement ought to put to bed any speculation that the budget will fall. Many a headline has been written recently over the idea that the SNP may struggle to pass the Budget due to unfavourable arithmetic in the chamber. The party has offered too many goodies for all other parties to vote it down.
In the absence of much else to say on the issue, the Lib Dems’ Alex Cole-Hamilton was left to welcome the following inclusions: spending on social care, affordable homes, insulation, winter fuel payments, additional support needs, ferries, GPs, dentists, long Covid, mental health, Edinburgh’s Eye Pavilion, the Belford Hospital and business rate relief for hospitality. It read more like the Lib Dems’ Christmas list than a budget offering.
Therefore, we can likely park speculation around a pre-26 election.
Secondly, the budget acknowledges and attempts to mend much of the damage done by last year’s statement, from affordable housing to local authority budgets. The party’s dealings with businesses have so often been ham-fisted and contradictory, but the budget offers something here too. Punitive policies like the grocery surtax and the retail levy are confirmed scrapped, and the ScotWind budget is partially restored – a welcome move towards long-term thinking and investment.
In short, the Budget tries to make the case that the government has listened.
Performing screeching u-turns and saying you have listened is hardly a grand case for power. But what better options are there? The UK Tories are a rump party with no clear vision yet. Russell Findlay, meanwhile, has yet to make an impact. Labour, with mere months in power, is discredited among many who had hoped for better.
It’s no small wonder that any party that seems to have a bit of fire behind it can capture the political weather. It’s what’s buoying Reform, it could buoy the SNP as well. Their animating force, in the past, has been independence, but there is more on offer here: an alternative to Labour with (mixed) credentials on social reform. Moreover, perhaps finally, the party is matching its warm words to business with action.
With the Scottish electorate increasingly atomised, this won’t be enough for a majority in 2026. In this respect, the budget is good practice, forcing the kind of negotiations that the coming administration will need to embrace. Swinney himself referenced this in his Royal Society of Edinburgh speech, nodding to a more consensual style of politics.
My third observation is that Labour must mount a response, and quickly. There is still a window of opportunity between now and 2026 for the UK party to right itself and for Scottish Labour to articulate a vision. This must also involve moral case for power and similar bridge-building with business following a damaging UK budget in the autumn.
This shouldn’t be difficult. The SNP’s weaknesses are clear. Firstly, its central mission is independence: a lodestone around its neck and a barrier to future deals in parliament. Secondly, it is a regime well past its prime, with nearly two decades’ worth of mistakes to its name. Thirdly, while the budget seeks to address the party’s political woes, its fiscal challenges – such as employer National Insurance contributions – continue to have serious bite.
With the right strategy, Sarwar could yet come out on top. Defending from the left and from the right, however, his path to power is narrowing.