Keir Scrounger has lost Scotland as his greed plays into SNP hands

The old adage that ‘sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never harm you’ is only partly true.

Certainly a quick swipe to the head with a cricket bat or a brick will definitely put you in hospital – if not the morgue. However, for a leader, a well placed insult can be politically fatal, as Keir Starmer, and his wife Victoria, are finding out.

Jibes like ‘Sir Keir Scrounger’, and 'Lady Victoria Sponger’ (which is rather brilliant), stick for life. ‘Thatcher Milk-Snatcher’ is still remembered. ‘Crooked Hillary’ helped Trump into the White House – along with the Russians, of course. I have to confess my favourite dig at Starmer is ‘Johnny Free-Trousers’. It’s just perfect – both comic and devastating.

Starmer is a millionaire who got a multi-millionaire – and a Labour donor, of course, in receipt of a Downing Street pass – to buy clothes for him and his wife.

There’s something so disgustingly venal about this that it’s hard to see how Starmer's reputation ever recovers. Starmer took more than £100,000 in freebies over the life of the last parliament. Apparently, going to Taylor Swift’s concert was “part of the job” – so said one of Starmer’s pitiful cabinet ministers sent out to defend him.

Read more:

Unspun | Neil Mackay: Scottish spymaster at heart of Ulster dirty war may be put in spotlight

Starmer has the brass neck to defend his free box at Arsenal on security grounds. Clearly, the notion of just not going hasn’t even crossed his mind. Let’s see how that plays out in the debate over the introduction of a football regulator. Lobbying much?

And this all comes against the backdrop of our Grim Reaper-inspired Chancellor squeezing poor pensioners this winter. It’s a bloody awful look. That Labour can’t see how awful it is shows just how ruined – how irredeemable – politics at Westminster has become.

This isn’t a matter of whether the rules have been followed. It’s a matter of perception in a country where millions use food banks. Just because rules allow for X, doesn’t mean you should do X. Weren’t we meant to be ‘all in it together’?

'Let’s see how that plays out in the debate over the introduction of a football regulator. Lobbying much?' (Image: PA)It cheered the hearts of millions on Thursday night when the former LibDem leader Tim Farron stated that he simply took no gifts whatsoever. “My default position,” he said, “has been for 19 years, if somebody on Kendal Market asked me what I did this week and I felt any sense of shame about telling them – don’t do it in the first place.”

When Farron goes to a football match, he pays for his own ticket. The LibDems are evidently hoping to pick up the large number of Labour voters now peeling away from the party in disgust. The twin vectors of bashing the worst off in society, whilst swanning around in free glad-rags is having an immediate effect.

Matters look bad for Labour in Scotland. The honeymoon is well and truly over. Labour in Scotland made hay at the last election at the expense of the SNP – stealing back left-of-centre voters who’d turned away from Labour at previous elections but were now dissatisfied with the SNP and willing to give Starmer a chance thanks to his promise of ‘change’.

It turns out the only change Starmer really cares about is the change in the pockets of favoured donor Lord Alli. Voter disgust is apparent in polls – and hasn’t been helped by Starmer cosying up to Italy’s far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, a figure of hate for those on the left; or Labour taking £4 million from a hedge fund based in the tax-haven Cayman Islands.

Read more:

Unspun | Neil Mackay: Scotland faces the prospect of ungovernable political chaos

In Scotland, in the run-up to the General Election, Labour was powering along, often ahead of the SNP. In polling for the Holyrood constituency vote in May, Labour was on 35% and the SNP on 33%; in June, Labour got to 37%, to the SNP on 33%.

The regional list was just as good. In May, Labour got 33% to the SNP’s 27%; and in June Labour hit 34% to the SNP’s 30%.

That’s all changed. The latest poll – for the constituency vote at Holyrood – has the SNP on 32%, but Labour on 25%. For the regional list, it’s SNP on 30% and Labour on 25%.

The Starmer administration has only begun, and with the Holyrood election set for May 2026 the trajectory already looks bleak for Anas Sarwar. Just a few weeks ago, it seemed all but guaranteed Sarwar would be the next First Minister.

Labour has long believed that the road to Westminster for the party lies through Scotland, well the road to Holyrood for Labour hangs on what the big boss does in London. Sarwar will pay the price for voter disgust at Starmer.

Now clearly, the SNP hierarchy must be getting down on their knees like Holy Willie and praying their thanks to whatever sprites they believe in, at the good luck which has come their way.

This is a government so far past its sell-by date that its stinking up the shelves. But it seems there’s enough left-liberal swing voters out there that nationalists could still hold on to Holyrood in 2026.

All John Swinney has to do is to try and run an even halfway competent government, free of scandal, for the next year or so, and he might stay in power. Now, that’s easier said than done given the SNP can’t build a ferry and who knows what calumny will drop on them next.

But if Swinney can maintain a steady course, he has a chance. Indeed, his policy of trying to act like the conscience Labour left behind could seal the deal.

Read Neil Mackay every Friday in the Unspun newsletter.

The Scottish Government is promising that all devolved benefits, for instance, will rise in line with inflation. The party is also talking of a ‘social tariff’ on energy companies to bring bills down for folk on low incomes.

These are smart moves – and given the perceived cruelty of Starmer’s social policies, they will get traction with voters. Crucially, though, the SNP has to actually walk the walk this time, not just talk the talk. The endless kind words and no action from nationalists has worn thin for everyone, even the party faithful.

What’s remarkable, though, is just how volatile the Scottish electorate has now become. Just weeks ago, it seemed the SNP were done. Thanks to Johnny Free-Trousers, fate appears to have thrown nationalists a final life-line. The question is: can they grab it and hold on to it?

Neil Mackay is The Herald’s Writer-at-Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs and foreign and domestic politics.