(left to right) Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney at the CBI Scotland Joint Business Hustings, Edinburgh, April 2, 2026
WITH the leaders of Scotland’s main political parties due to take part in tonight’s first TV debate prior to the Holyrood elections on May 7, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on the First Minister to apologise for the Scottish government’s handling of the NHS.
Mr Sarwar said: “Right at start of the debate, John Swinney should apologise to every single patient who has suffered because the SNP could not get the basics right.”
But SNP candidate for Rutherglen Clare Haughey said: “While Anas Sarwar talks our NHS down, under our plan operations are up, waiting lists continue to fall, we have more GPs per head than England and our GP walk-in centres are springing up across Scotland.”
Polls are showing that the SNP are looking likely to stay in office, with the first YouGov MRP survey of the election season suggesting they are set to win 67 seats, Reform UK will win 20, with Labour estimated to win no constituency seats at all, picking up just 15 seats from the regional lists.
The Greens are projected to win 11 seats and the Lib Dems are set to win nine, while the Conservatives could be looking at a sixth-place finish and just seven seats.
Having endured 14 years of Tory austerity followed by Starmerite cuts, young voters are desperate for change — but Anas Sarwar’s refusal to differentiate from Westminster means Scottish Labour risks electoral catastrophe, writes LAUREN HARPER
COLL McCAIL rejects the Scottish Establishment’s attempt at an ‘elite lockout’ of Reform UK and says the unions should be wary of co-option by their class enemies in Holyrood just to keep one set of austerity-mongers in power instead of Reform UK
