Scottish budget showcases campaigning beginning on 2026 Holyrood election

By Kieran Andrews, Scotland's Political Editor

John Swinney is often described by his critics as resembling a bank manager. In recent months he has had the quiet grin of someone in line for a political bonus not seen since before the financial crash.

But is everything as rosy as it seems for the first minister and his once-again confident SNP?

On the plus side, a collapse in support for Labour since last year’s resounding general election victory has put his party back in pole position as the (very) long campaign starts for the 2026 Holyrood election.

Swinney is also on course to have his first budget passed with remarkable ease – despite the SNP being a minority government – after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar confirmed his party would not vote it down next month when it comes to parliament.

The Liberal Democrats were already expected to back the tax and spending plans and the Greens are also being courted.

The budget is explicitly political, parking its tanks firmly on Labour’s lawn by offering a mitigation to the winter fuel payment and a promise to do the same with the two-child cap on benefits.

Ahead again in the polls and forcing your main opponents not to oppose your most important parliamentary proposals of the year sounds ideal.

Yet pitfalls remain. The fact that the budget will now sail through Holyrood means that far less time will be spent discussing the wranglings about whether or not it is in jeopardy, a suggestion the first minister was very keen to push on Monday in his first speech of the year and in a subsequent interview with ITV Border.

Focus will instead shift back to public services. New data published on Tuesday showed that just 59 per cent of people visiting accident and emergency services in the Borders were seen within four hours.

That figure was 74 per cent in Dumfries and Galloway. The target is 95 per cent and it is consistently missed across Scotland.

There are also concerns about education standards, court backlogs and the transport and roads networks, particularly the Borders Railway and the A75, the key route to and from the Cairnryan ferry port.

Senior figures in Scottish Labour have been frustrated by what they see as unforced errors by Sir Keir Starmer. They are also fearful of the prime minister’s decisions causing continued electoral harm.

This is clear from Sarwar publicly disagreeing with multiple policies coming from Downing Street in recent weeks, much of which has seen him agree with plans in Swinney’s budget.

Make no mistake, the starting gun has been fired on the Holyrood 2026 election even if we are in January 2025.

It has been a bad few years for incumbent politicians. Canada’s outgoing prime minister Justin Trudeau is the latest example.

Labour will keep presenting itself as the party of change in Scotland despite being in government in the UK.

The SNP will attempt to sell itself as an alternative to the established UK parties despite having been in power at Holyrood for the best part of two decades.

Whichever party of government is able to take credit – or perhaps more pertinently avoid the blame – for the direction people feel their lives and the country is headed is the one most likely to claim victory next May.

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