Iain Macwhirter

Line one page one of the SNP manifesto is, as promised, about independence. If the SNP wins a majority of seats it will 'be empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country'. Well in your dreams. No one seriously believes that independence is coming, even in the SNP. The leadership has been underplaying independence in this election so far; John Swinney hardly mentioned it in the first leaders debate. The nationalists realise that it is better not to call this 2024 general election any kind of 'de facto referendum' as Nicola Sturgeon claimed it would be. This is for the very obvious reason that they would lose it.

Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, has said he’ll resign after the 4 July election following criticism of his treatment of a rival Tory candidate and questions over his expenses. It is unusual, to say the least, for a party leader to announce their intention to step down during a general election campaign rather than after it. Even more singular for that leader to continue representing his party in leadership debates, as Ross did on the BBC last night. That elicited the best line of the night from a quick-witted audience member: 'You need to tidy the flat before you move out, John' With this in mind, the best question of the night came from the BBC presenter, Stephen Jardine, who asked Ross: 'Why should anyone vote for a party you don’t even want to lead?'.

You thought things couldn’t get worse for the Conservative party in this election? They just did. The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, has announced that he is to resign his leadership following yet another alleged scandal concerning a Tory politician. Few in Ross’s own party can keep up with the twists and turns of his political ambitions Allegations were reported over the weekend that Mr Ross had used his Westminster expenses to travel around the country performing his side hustle as an assistant referee for the Scottish Football Association. Mr Ross denies acting improperly and insists that he has only ever claimed expenses related to his role as MP. Needless to say, the Scottish opposition parties are sceptical and demanding an investigation.

Scottish Tory Leader Douglas Ross has a side hustle as an assistant referee for the Scottish Football Association. Now, Scotland's opposition parties are showing him the red card for his last minute decision to stand as parliamentary candidate for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency. It’s a 'stitch up,' says the SNP. Ross is being cast as 'shameful', 'nasty' and the leader of a 'morally bankrupt' party for apparently elbowing aside former Tory minister, David Duguid, who’d said he was expecting to stand in the seat. Duguid has been in hospital with a spinal illness. But last night the Scottish Conservative Party Management Board announced that his 'recovery would be put at risk if he stood in this election'.

When Alex Salmond was leader of the SNP he used to complain bitterly to the broadcasters that it was unfair to stage TV debates with three unionist party leaders – Labour, Conservatives and the Lib Dems – against the one nationalist. In last night’s Scottish leaders debate though, the unionist imbalance hardly figured. That is because independence hardly figured.  Anas Sarwar arguably won by sheer persistence, though his robotic delivery might have alienated some voters. The Tory leader, Douglas Ross got in his customary line about the SNP’s ‘obsession’ with separatism and the SNP leader, John Swinney, agreed that independence remained ‘line one, page one’ of the SNP manifesto, but that was about it.

It is five years since Labour’s then equalities spokeswoman, Dawn Butler, told a BBC interviewer that babies aren’t born with a sex. It was the high point of transgender ideology, which captivated all the politician parties to some extent in the 2010s.  Even the Tory minister, Penny Mordaunt, told MPs in 2018 that ‘trans women are women trans men are men’ – a genuflection to the quasi religious dogma that people can be born in the wrong body. They cannot of course, and this weird doctrine has been one of the most extreme examples of the flight from reason and scientific certainty on the left since the millennium. Badenoch’s intentions are honourable and many women will support her efforts.

It is less than three years since Nicola Sturgeon was taking selfies with Greta Thunberg at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. Now in this election the climate, if you’ll excuse the pun, has changed beyond all recognition. Gone is the moral posturing and climate alarmism of recent years as the Scottish parties desperately roll back on their climate rhetoric in the face of huge job losses in Scotland’s energy sector. Black is the new green. Oil and gas companies are no longer climate pariahs. It was of course Nicola Sturgeon back in 2021 who made Scotland the first country in the world  to declare a 'climate emergency'. We cannot continue to extract another drop of oil from the North Sea, she said, if we want to avoid global catastrophe. There’s not a moment to lose.

There is a distinct air of unreality about the position of the Scottish Labour party as it enters this election campaign. Frankly, many in the party don’t believe opinion polls suggesting, as YouGov did last week, that they are 10 per cent ahead of the SNP and could return up to 35 MPs on 4 July. ‘In yer dreams, pal’ say canvassers tramping the rainy pavements of urban Scotland. The collapse in the fortunes of the Scottish National party, and their own corresponding rise, has just been too sudden. Perhaps Anas Sarwar’s biggest task is to get his battered troops to believe After all, the Scottish Labour party currently has only two MPs in Scotland out of 57 – that’s the same as Alex Salmond’s tiny Alba party. Even the Scottish Liberal Democrats currently have four.

The last time John Swinney was leader of the SNP, 20 years ago, the party went on to return only six MPs in the next general election. Labour returned 41 north of the border. Swinney had resigned the year before, but this was his electoral legacy.  The party has had a traumatic year since the precipitate departure of Nicola Sturgeon Could history be about to repeat itself now he is leader once again? The most recent YouGov poll, conducted after Swinney became leader and First Minister, suggests that Labour has a ten point lead over the SNP in Scotland. If that were maintained on polling day, the nationalists would be reduced from 43 MPs to only 11. Scottish Labour would win 35 seats – which could mean the difference between Keir Starmer entering No.