As the Prime Minister remains in office – and Anas Sarwar sets out new policies for the coming Holyrood election – Herald writer Brian Taylor asks what has changed.  Answer?  Everything and nothing. 

Two questions.  Can Sir Keir Starmer survive as Prime Minister?  Can Anas Sarwar recover from this tumultuous week to mount a credible election campaign? 

Talk to Labour insiders, as I have done, and many still seem faintly stunned by their Scottish leader’s challenge to the PM, his act of calculated desperation. 

One summed up the situation to me by saying: “Can you imagine Jack McConnell calling on Tony Blair to resign?  Impossible.” 

I could not envisage such a scenario for a range of reasons, including the disparate stature of Blair and Starmer.  Although I suspect that Jack McConnell wishes he had picked a few more fights with Downing Street to establish his own autonomous credentials. 

Starmer is finished but when does Scottish Labour need him gone?

What is left of the Parliament Jim Wallace helped create?

Just how do we cope with President Trump’s self-obsessed world view?

As Reform rises and parties feud, Scotland heads for a radically altered parliament

To be clear, that is not to say that Anas Sarwar is, right now, in a stronger position than he was.  This week has been grim for Labour’s prospects in May. 

Voters tend to shun divided parties.  And Labour is now palpably divided.  Tense uncertainty over the future of their UK leader has been piled upon existing disquiet over taxation, benefits and political vacillation. 

Plus, of course, Lord Mandelson’s links with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.  I took part in a wireless phone-in this week – and successive callers chided us........

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