May’s council elections will be the first true test of whether Anas Sarwar is making genuine progress as Scottish Labour leader.
Nicola Sturgeon has been First Minister for over seven years and a disappointing result for the SNP could easily be explained as mid-term blues.
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross continues to be haunted by partygate and will be preparing for a dismal result.
Tory weakness and the cost of the living crisis are fertile ground for Sarwar, who stands an excellent chance of regaining the second place his party lost to the Conservatives in recent years.
Labour’s poor Holyrood election result - third by a long way - could not with any justice be pinned on Sarwar, who had only been in post for weeks.
But he no longer has the luxury of being able to blame his predecessors for electoral failures. The council poll is a way for Sarwar to prove to Keir Starmer he can deliver in Scotland.
Labour’s goal in May, according to sources, is to build a narrative of revival by beating the Tories on first preferences.
This explains the party’s scramble to find candidates in places where they have little chance of success. Every additional fifty votes helps achieve their overall objective.
A poll by Survation, commissioned by Ballot Box Scotland, found Labour comfortably in second place. If replicated on polling day Sarwar could legitimately claim to have taken his party forward.
But the poll also shows Scottish Labour are no closer to knocking down a more formidable barrier to lasting electoral success.
Despite the SNP being in power for fifteen years, the poll put the First Minister's party on 44% - way up from the last council election.
Sarwar is winning back Tory voters while at the same time making little impression with the army of independence supporters he needs to woo. Coming second is better than third, but it is still a place on the losers’ rostrum.
The long-term consequences of Labour’s political strategy for the council elections is open to question.
Sarwar has publicly rejected the prospect of Labour council groups forming any coalitions with the Tories or the SNP - despite such arrangements existing in the last term.
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Labour accuses the SNP of not valuing councils and undermining local democracy, yet in the same breath they do not trust council colleagues to decide what is best for their own areas.
By ruling out town hall coalitions, Labour could paradoxically find itself with more votes in May but controlling fewer councils.
The wider problem is the dubious signal the ‘no coalition’ pledge sends to the persuadable SNP voters who Sarwar believes could one day put him in Bute House.
Labour are effectively saying: “The SNP and the Tories are pretty much the same. We won’t be dealing with either of them.”
The reality is different. SNP supporters do not see themselves as people who are voting for a shadow Tory party. It is a message that will simply not be believed.
Labour only became electable in the 1990s when they took themselves out of their comfort zone and realised they had to widen their focus to include moderate Tory voters.
A similar challenge presents itself in 2022 for Scottish Labour. Without understanding the hopes, fears, aspirations and dreams of SNP voters, Labour will always be competing for the silver or bronze medal.
Sarwar has to ask himself: does he want to be Neil Kinnock, or Tony Blair?
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