As the Labour Government increases taxes and spending again, against the wishes of voters, they have driven the final nail into the coffin of Scottish Labour’s chances at Holyrood. Andy Maciver argues that the only way out for Anas Sarwar is to break away from the party which is holding him back.

“It’s a disaster. We’re on the wrong side of every statistic and public opinion.”

That was the view expressed by an exasperated Labour MP on Wednesday, after Rachel Reeves delivered the Budget 2025. He or she is a Labour MPs who has switched their brain on, and who understands the predicament the party finds itself in after 18 months of masochistic government.

This is a Potemkin Budget, really. It is a Budget which pretends the economic realities are imaginary, but in fact it is the Budget itself which is mythical. As night follows day, the facade will fall and reveal our dilapidation.

It is hardly the first Budget in recent years which ignores reality, but it may be the first one, as our angry MP has identified, that is both unrealistic and unpopular with the public at the same time. When I say the ‘public’, I'm really talking about the working class, who are experiencing the most extraordinary disconnection with a Labour Party which was invented to represent them. The government has, again, taken more money out of the pockets of people who work and put it into the pockets of people who do not, and pretending that it is entirely inconsequential.

The working family’s tolerance of this goes only as far as the point where they have to wait until pay day before they can........

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