I don’t suppose you caught Anas Sarwar’s speech to Scottish Labour conference on telly last weekend? I did – but only because my golf was cancelled by a waterlogged course.

I must say it fair cheered me up with some good belly laughs – not that vaudeville was their intention.

Delegates gathered in Paisley Town Hall – a suitably compact venue – 10 weeks before the Holyrood election.

If the polls are correct the get-together at least provided some of their MSPs with the chance to say cheerio before May.

To say Scottish Labour find themselves in a bit of a bind is an understatement. And who do they blame … Westminster.

Now Labour also blames Westminster

I know what you’re thinking: Don’t Labour always complain when the SNP blame Westminster for things going wrong? Of course they do, but that hypocrisy hasn’t yet dawned on them.

But fair’s fair, let’s look at some of Keir Starmer’s blunders: scrapping cold weather payments for pensioners; keeping the Tories’ two child benefit cap; ditching justice for WASPI women.

Politically toxic for sure, but here’s the thing: I can’t be the only person who thinks Sarwar himself is at least partly responsible for his predicament.

Not least because, until relatively recently, he publicly backed those horrendous policies himself. Sure, he dropped them when they became political hot potatoes but that doesn’t absolve his complicity.

And who can forget Starmer appointing Peter Mandelson as our US Ambassador?

What was Starmer thinking? Everyone knew Mandelson left the Labour Government in disgrace – not once but twice – and his best friend was Jeffrey Epstein.

And when I say everyone knew, I include Anas Sarwar. So why then did Sarwar post a social media picture shaking hands with Mandelson in Washington after he was appointed, referring to him as “my old friend”?

No matter how hard he might try, Sarwar can’t pin this blunder on anyone else. He owns it.

So back to the conference laughs that had me chortling into my afternoon cuppa. By far the best one-liner was when Sarwar said we should hold our noses to vote Labour.

Hold your noses and vote

What a ripsnorter. Admitting Labour is so honking – having stunk out Westminster so badly in less than two years in charge – that folk need to hold their noses to vote for them.

It was the political equivalent of the infamous Gerald Ratner speech saying his jewellery shops sold “cheap crap”.

It’s in the running for Scottish politics’ own goal of the year. The only other contender for the title is when Sarwar previously thundered the ball into his own net by telling the world his boss was so irredeemably bowfing that he should quit.

At the weekend, Labour also announced two new flagship policies. The first was that medical students would need to work in Scotland’s NHS or social care system for five years or face repaying the full cost of their tuition.

What Sarwar failed to mention is that he didn’t complete a full five years in the NHS himself after he qualified as a dentist. That hypocrisy will not be lost on voters.

The second policy was a promise to build 125,000 new homes. In itself, the policy is a noble ambition. But voters were immediately reminded that the last time Scottish Labour were in power at Holyrood they only managed to build a grand total of just six council houses in a whole year.

Given such a dismal record of delivery, you don’t have to be a cynic to suspect Labour’s pledge to churn out 70 houses a day, every day, for five years is just a hollow election promise.

From available evidence, Sarwar’s track record is as questionable as his boss’s.

While Starmer’s Premiership has lurched from pratfall to pratfall, Sarwar has also provided plenty of slapstick comedy gold.

Together they look like the Laurel and Hardy of politics – good for the occasional giggle but it won’t be the last fine mess they get us into.

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