Alexander on winning, losing and why he doesn't want the top job

The SNP's "terrible" record in government should help Labour at next year's Holyrood elections, according to Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander. But he admits his party has yet to convince people it should be elected to govern Scotland.

- by Ian Swanson

Mr Alexander, who is co-chair of Labour's campaign for the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, pointed to the parties' relative performances at last year's general election. “Scottish Labour got the highest vote share of any part of Great Britain in July 2024-we got 35 per cent of the vote,” he said. “The SNP have the support of about 30 per cent of the Scottish population and have had for 40 years.”

But he acknowledged that since the election Labour had lost votes to Reform and others. And he said the party's core strategic challenge was to recreate the coalition of voters which produced a higher vote share than the SNP's.

“I don't underestimate the scale of the challenge but they have a terrible record of government in Scotland. After 20 years it's hard to think of a single area of public life that has got better,” he added.

“They can rely on 30 per cent of the population who see politics through the lens of identity not delivery, so for them it's about 'I'm Scottish therefore I'm going to vote SNP' regardless of whether they can build a ferry, improve standards in schools or get [hospital] waiting lists down.

“So you've got 30 per cent pretty impervious to failure and you've got 70 per cent who are acutely aware Scotland's government has let down Scotland's people over the last 20 years-and we are fishing in that pool of the majority of voters. That pool have decided the SNP are bad enough they deserve to lose, they haven't yet decided we're good enough we deserve to win - and that's the challenge of the next seven months.”