Anas Sarwar came close to quitting politics during the pandemic. It was, the Scottish Labour leader tells The Herald, despite some very difficult moments, the only point in his career when he contemplated walking away.

“I was spending a lot more time with my family, as we all were. The Labour Party wasn't in very good shape.

"You could see where and what felt like what the sense of political direction was, and I did think for a period, perhaps I should look at whether, if I still want to give something, is there a different platform in politics?”

He’s not kidding about Labour not being in very good shape at the time. Boris Johnson had not long been returned with a majority of 80. The party’s modest gains north of the border in the 2017 general election had been wiped out, leaving Ian Murray as the sole member of the Scottish Labour Westminster group.

The year before, they had finished in a previously unthinkable fifth place in the last European elections.

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Mr Sarwar — who replaced Richard Leonard as leader ahead of the 2021 Holyrood election — won the Herald’s Scottish Politician of the Year Award in 2022 for helping to turn his party’s fortunes around.

On Thursday night, he won it for the second time after a thumping victory at the general election.

Anas Sarwar with Catherine Salmond, Editor of The Herald (Image: Gordon Terris/Newsquest) The party won 37 seats - a gain of 36. They saw their vote jump 17 points to 35%. And their great rivals, the SNP, reduced to just nine MPs.

“I've been in elected politics now, including my year out, for what, just over 14 years? I've been involved in politics, as long as I can remember.

“And honestly, in that time, I could have been in the doom loop and despair loop of it's done and just went and done something else.

“But to be honest, a lot of these things, you've got to you've got to push in a positivity.”

He says the country has changed in the last few years. It was notable at the 2021 Holyrood election that people stopped shouting at Labour.

“And then in by-elections, it's forget about shouting at us, they like us. And then in the general election, it's forget liking us, loads of people say they're going to vote for us.”

“I don't think our body politic or political class or chattering class has yet caught up with the shift of how much has changed in politics. I think there's more of that to shake out in the next 18 months,” he adds.

Mr Sarwar has some sympathy for those SNP MPs defeated in July. It’s a sympathy that comes from having been one of the losers in the 2015 general election when Labour lost 40 of their 41 Scottish seats.

“The first time you’re rejected by the public you do take it personally, regardless of what you might think about national swings and all the rest of it.

“And I imagine there are lots of former SNP MPs who feel the exact same way. And actually, for most if not all of them, it was because of what was happening nationally rather than what was happening locally that they lost their seat. They should take comfort from that.”

Mr Sarwar says losing Glasgow Central to the SNP’s Alison Thewliss was one of the “best things that happened" to him.

Kate Forbes and Anas Sarwar (Image: Gordon Terris/Herald)

So too, he adds, was his defeat to Richard Leonard in 2017’s bruising leadership contest.

It was a “sore one,” he admits.

“Less because I didn't win more because it's the first time it felt like I was having a real face-to-face battle with people that I thought were my friends and my colleagues.

“And those were really, really painful experiences. But I look back, and I honestly think those two defeats were the best things that happened to me.

“I've learned more in my defeats than I've learned in victories, including the general election we just had, including my leadership election.

“And I think I'm a better human being for it. I think I'm a better politician for it. I think I'm a better father for it, and I hope those lessons help shape the kind of leader I am and the kind of first minister I'm going to be.”

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Mr Sarwar has a huge amount of work ahead for the country to find out exactly what kind of first minister he’ll be.

“We need to more than double our parliamentary group if we're to form a government,” he says. That means finding candidates, something that had, until quite recently, proved tricky for Scottish Labour.

There are, he says, some "big talents" who would have stood for Labour but looked at where the party was and thought "politics is not for me" and why would "I sacrifice my adult life on a project that doesn't look like it's going to be successful?"

"And for some younger people that are interested in politics, they would have been driven to other political parties because for those that are really, really ambitious, they would have thought I want to be in a position where I'm doing something for Scotland, I'll never get a chance to do that with a Labour Party that can't win so I'm going to go somewhere else.

“I think there is a shift in that dial. But have we lost a generation of talent?

"Some of that generation of talent, I think, is coming back because they have worked in business, they have worked in the voluntary sector, they have worked in the public services, and are thinking, 'actually, now that I've done that, I do want to do something about delivering something for my country'."

Mr Sarwar has, he says, “a strong personal relationship” with Sir Keir Starmer as well as a “strong political relationship.”

“We both respect each other, we both understand each other's mandates. We both are desperate for each other to win,” he says.

But Mr Sarwar’s chances at winning aren’t necessarily being helped by Sir Keir and some of the decisions taken by the Prime Minister and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, particularly the means testing of the winter fuel payment.

The UK Government changed the rules so that only those who are eligible for Pension Credit get the annual payout.

The Scottish Government, which had been due to introduce a replacement benefit north of the border, said the move left them £150m short and with no choice but to follow suit. 

Some 900,000 pensioners will now miss out.

While Scottish Labour MPs backed the cut when it was put to a vote in the Commons, it is proving uncomfortable for the party.

Herald political editor Andrew Learmonth with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar (Image: Gordon Terris) Polling by Survation on behalf of the pro-independence think tank Progress Scotland, released earlier this week, showed support for Labour had fallen by four points in Holyrood constituencies and one point on the regional list since September.

At the same time, support for the SNP remained largely static.

Projections of the poll, by Professor Sir John Curtice, said this would leave the SNP on 42 MSPs, with Labour on 34, the Tories 18, Reform 14, the Lib Dems 11 and the Greens 10.

While this would leave the SNP and Greens 13 seats short of a pro-independence majority, it would leave a potential coalition of Labour and the Lib Dems 20 short.

Last Tuesday, Mr Sarwar announced that he would create a devolved winter payment if he won the keys to Bute House in 2026.

The SNP described this a u-turn and accused Labour of "Orwellian double-think,"  but Mr Sarwar says it’s “devolution in action."

“The Scottish Labour MPs, from all those people that are at Westminster, are the ones that only truly believe in devolution.

“The Nats don't believe in devolution. They want to end devolution. The Tories have never believed in devolution. They wish it never happened.

“Whereas our Scottish Labour MPs believe in devolution, and this is devolution in action.

“We have a different view on a whole host of issues in terms of the UK Labour Party, and the Scottish Labor Party, that doesn't mean we fall out. That doesn't mean we disagree.

“That means we respect the democratic structures that exist and the fact that we have a devolved Parliament here in Scotland that has the ability to make Scottish decisions and Scottish solutions for Scottish politics. That's grown up politics.”