In what has been a rather subdued Scottish election campaign thus far, this week past has been the most eventful. It started with a bit of genuine hilarity with Gary Tank Commander interviewing all of Scotland's political leaders. It is well worth a watch and well done to all of them for being such good sports. Personally I have trouble envisaging Corbyn and Cameron being in that hot seat but you never know.
After that it got back to being serious with Scottish Labour launching its much delayed manifesto on Wednesday. In a brave move and breaking with tradition they decided to do the launch after postal votes had gone out. The central theme was clear – Leader Kezia Dugdale said that the manifesto is “a simple anti-austerity pledge to the people of Scotland” and her government would ”increase spending on our public services in real terms and stop the cuts to schools and other vital public services.” With the new powers coming to Holyrood, Labour would restore the 50p rate of tax, increase the basic and higher rates of income tax by 1p, and scrap council tax and replace it with a fairer system based on property values. It asserts that these plans will raise £1.2 billion extra per year so that spending on public services can increase in real terms. The party also guarantees that nobody earning less than £20,000 per year will pay any more than they do currently.
There were two polls out this week, one by TNS and another by Ipsos MORI which both showed the SNP on course for a majority but perhaps more interesting is that they were split on whether the Tories overtake Labour to come second place. Our seat predictor, Scotland Votes, shows that it is on a knife edge as to whether the Tories will get more seats – so there really is all to play for. Should that occur it would be yet another seismic event in Scottish politics.
With these polls and just a week to go, events south of the border yesterday were the last thing Scottish Labour needed. Voters loathe parties that talk about themselves and they frankly couldn’t have picked a worse topic. We will soon know if it has had a spill over effect into this and other elections.
The polls also asked the EU referendum question and it confirmed that Scotland remains steadfastly more pro-EU than the rest of the UK. Because of this difference the First Minister’s conditions for a second referendum have come under increased scrutiny – with her restating that should the UK vote to leave and Scotland stay that would be the ‘material change’ to trigger it.
On 6 May, Nicola Sturgeon could well be the most powerful First Minister the people of Scotland have ever elected. The party she leads strides confidently across the UK political landscape. Managing expectations, using new powers creatively to deliver manifesto commitments and trying to work another referendum into the equation will make for a busy and challenging fifth term of the Scottish Parliament.