ANAS Sarwar is haunting the corridors of Westminster.
The chatter is he’s gone guising on Downing Street in search of treats to take back up the road.
Sarwar’s most recent jaunt saw him attend the Holyrood magazine reception in London last week, where he rubbed shoulders with the good and the great of the Scottish Westminster lot.
Ahead of the Budget, he posted a cute photograph with his “friend” Chancellor Rachel Reeves hailing her status as the first woman to run the Exchequer.
If he gets his way, the only first Sarwar will make on entering Bute House is being the first Labour first minister for nearly 20 years. That’s if he can kick the SNP out of power.
Just a few months ago, it seemed that would be a skoosh. Now, like an electoral Buckaroo, they are straining under the weight loaded on them by head office.
SNP MP Pete Wishart (below) told the Worst of Westminster: “You can’t move round the corridors of Westminster without tripping over Anas Sarwar desperately making representations to his Westminster bosses to make them think about him and his election in a year and a half’s time.”
He added: “Anas Sarwar is spooked about the impact of the first 100 or so days of Labour. There seems to be a buyers’ remorse kicking in around communities right across Scotland. This idea that he would walk the Scottish elections is certainly not the case.
“He’s getting no favours at all from a Westminster government who are not prepared to reverse the cut to the Winter Fuel Allowance or the two-child benefit cap.”
These are thorny issues for Labour. The 2026 devolved parliament elections (they’re happening in Wales, too) have symbolic weight for the party. Can they keep the people’s republic of Cymru under control – or will Cardiff Central Committee collapse under counter-revolutionary pressure?
READ MORE: Labour detail plans to bypass Holyrood with £1.4bn 'direct investment' in Scotland
Perhaps of greater import: can they win back their Holyrood supremacy after almost two decades in the wilderness? If so, it will have taken them longer to get back into power in Edinburgh than it ever has in Westminster.
Both elections have more than symbolic import. Apologies for the Americanism but they are a make-or-break “midterm” test for Labour.
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said Wishart’s comments were “proof that the SNP is spooked by the transformative Labour Budget”.
Perhaps the SNP are “spooked”. If they are, they’re not showing much sign of it.
Big spending announcements were given a cautious welcome by the SNP in Edinburgh. But they still see weakness in the cut to the Winter Fuel Payment – expect many grim tales of freezing pensioners across the political spectrum this winter and the next.
And no doubt the SNP will hammer Labour on benefits cuts as they did the Tories.
While the headline figures from the Budget will please many on the left – the voters Labour need to win back in Scotland for the coveted Holyrood prize in less than two years’ time – dig a little deeper and the picture looks much gloomier.
True, the SNP can’t charge the Chancellor with implementing “austerity” when she literally chanted the word “investment” at the despatch box.
READ MORE: Applause as Question Time audience member tears into Labour and Tory MPs
But the independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts little improvement in people’s disposable incomes in the years to come. That’s where people really feel politics, in their pockets.
Disposable income growth is set to be half what it was on average per year in the decade leading up to the pandemic. How much better off did you feel in 2019 compared with 2009?
There runs an even deeper risk for Labour in all of this. Tory MPs howled “record investment” at the Chancellor as she gave them a ticking off for their stewardship of the NHS. But believe it or not, they had a point.
What the Tories didn’t get though was that everyone felt worse off, no matter how much they shouted about the money they were spending in Government.
It made them seem out of touch. And if Labour think that shouting about investment while everyone feels skint, they’re only going to have the same problem. It’s not something voters like.
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