In the latest opinion polling from Scotland, the Labour party is on just 16% (-2) of the vote in the constituency section and 18% (-) in the regional list. According to Savanta ComRes for The Scotsman the Conservatives are on 23% (+4) and 21% (+5), presumably boosted by the early vaccines effect. It is more difficult for the SNP to say that Britain is irredeemably useless, and only worth leaving, now that Kate Bingham and the UK vaccines taskforce have done their work. The British Army is helping with vaccinations across the UK. The NHS, separately run in Scotland and England, is cooperating frutifully cross-border. To the grievance-inclined question “what has the UK ever done for us?” Unionists now have an even clearer answer. Look at early vaccinations and the power of combined borrowing clout. Look what we can achieve together as the UK.
While the vindication of shared national endeavour is encouraging from a pro-UK perspective, what the Union forces desperately need this spring is a revival in the fortunes of the Scottish Labour party, combined with a low turnout in the Holyrood elections due in May.
