Sarwar’s vision for Scotland must match anything independence offers

‘There is no route to a Labour government that doesn’t go through Scotland.” Thus spake Anas Sarwar as he commenced his party’s bid for power. “We have to make significant gains here in Scotland.”

Quite how they do that is not immediately clear. The polls may have swung their way in recent weeks — Labour on 39 per cent in the most recent poll, with the SNP down to 29 per cent — but Scotland has yet to warm to Sir Keir Starmer. And Sarwar, while likeable, is still something of an unknown quantity to the average voter.

It is difficult to work out exactly what Labour’s appeal is to be, apart from getting rid of the SNP, and that is something it cannot do.