This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

The SNP finds itself on very tricky ground right now, trying to attack the new Labour government for ‘disrespecting’ devolution.

The matter centres on plans to tinker with legislation, allowing the Scotland Office to bypass Holyrood and directly fund anti-poverty schemes.

The Scottish Secretary Ian Murray may be allocated £150 million by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to finance projects with local authorities to help deprived areas of Scotland.

Does this undermine devolution? Well, in principal, yes of course it does. Such spending should be a matter for the Scottish Government.

However, the bigger question is this: will anyone apart from the SNP care?

Will ordinary voters give a damn about claims that Westminster spending money in Scotland to combat poverty assaults devolution?

It’s going to be a hard sell for the SNP to argue that lifting children out of poverty by any means necessary isn’t fundamentally a good thing.

Now, clearly, the UK government is playing politics here too. Showering some gold on good causes is likely to be a matter Labour MSPs will remind voters about very loudly come the Holyrood election in 2026.

Equally treacherous for the SNP is that the party risks opening itself to allegations that it has badly damaged devolution through its own prolonged inadequacy in government.

Unspun | Holyrood 2026 battle-lines: who’s to blame for harming Scotland most, SNP or Labour?

The Labour Party is fully within its rights to say: ‘yeah, ok, we maybe have rode a little rough-shod over devolution in this case, but that’s because........

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