When I spent an hour, earlier this week, with Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie, I found them in captivating form. The Leader, and Deputy Leader, of Scottish Labour have no particular reason to be cheerful, but in interviewing them for the Holyrood Sources podcast which I co-host, they were relaxed but focused, showing levity yet depth on meaty issues.

Their optimism belies their current position. This time last year, heading into their annual conference in Glasgow, they were rapidly closing the gap on the SNP in opinion polls, and by spring would achieve parity. In July, they decimated the nationalists in the General Election.

It was thought at the time that Labour in government at Westminster would be a trampoline to Labour in government at Holyrood. Instead, it is proving to be a sinkhole. According to recent polling, the SNP under John Swinney and Kate Forbes have steadied their ship, and are now beginning to rise again. Mr Sarwar and Ms Baillie’s opposition has dropped like a stone, and they sit closer to third place than to first.

It is clearly their view that the NHS holds at least one of their keys to their recovery, as the epitome of what they see as a two-decade record of failure. Ms Baillie knows the NHS like the back of her hand, she understands where its many pinch-points are and where the public feels particularly aggrieved, and her calm but direct style leaves us in no doubt that she’s not afraid to ruffle some feathers. Mr Sarwar, complementing his deputy, has a longer-term vision of the NHS as a modernised, digitised organisation far removed from the prehistoric monolith we have to put up with today.

Read more by Andy Maciver

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