Sir Prof John Curtice – How can Anas Sarwar be more popular than the PM when Scottish Labour are far less popular than even UK Labour?

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By Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS

This is an old story now – the idea than Anas Sarwar would do better in the polls if it wasn’t for Sir Keir Starmer’s policies.

It’s hard to see the sense in this when it ignores so much.

First, the people now know that, despite BBC Scotland’s attempts to shield him from scrutiny, Sarwar is on record as having publicly supported all of those same policies, including scrapping benefits, closing a Scottish refinery and genocide in Gaza.

Second, the people also know that their new local Labour MP has been loyally voting with the PM on all of those same policies and, I’ve heard, not responding to them.

Third, the opinion polls consistently show Scottish Labour to be significantly less popular, sometimes barely half as popular, as UK Labour, regardless of Starmer.

So, it’s not Starmer to blame but Sarwar and the Scottish Labour MSPs and MPs to blame for being cynical opportunists and/or spineless lackeys

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6 thoughts on “Sir Prof John Curtice – How can Anas Sarwar be more popular than the PM when Scottish Labour are far less popular than even UK Labour?”

  4. There is the other elephant in the room that will be obscuring reality.

    The Scottish press and broadcast media anti SNP propaganda campaign .

    it’s screwed the political optics so much that the many of the Scottish public are confused about black/white, up/down etc.

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  5. Sorry long comment.

    This false perception that somehow Anas Sarwar is more “popular” than Keir Starmer is akin to the other false perception once touted by the media that Ruth Davidson , when Tory leader, was somehow also supposdley more “popular” than the various UK Tory leaders.

    Media construct springs to mind for both of them via this false narrative.

    “Ruth Davidson “popular” with whom ?

    Other Tories ?

    Or in Sarwar’s case “popular” “with whom ?

    Other Labour members, but only the more right wing ones ?

    Also both of them are ‘popular’ with those who are very much compromised and blatantly partisan as a media in Scotland , and whose media PR work on behalf of pro UK parties is often seen, heard and read about in ‘the various news outlets where we are in Scotland’.

    Sarwar , like Ruth Davidson in the past, is currently being shielded ,positively promoted and so protected by the media.

    This same media that always attempt to present the Scottish party leaders of UK parties as those who are supposdley distinct from their very much, ‘unpopular’ in Scotland , UK party leaders.

    We are expected to believe that party leaders in Scotland are those who are prepared to resist and oppose some of the measures being taken by their UK party leaders.

    However resistance and opposition is futile as when it is a decision being taken by a UK party who are the UK government, so they are the ones in charge of the UK, then the party leader in Scotland of that UK party can do nowt to stop it !

    “Sarwar will stand up to Starmer” was the front page headline via the Daily Record before the last UK GE.

    So based on that headline and on behalf of Scotland, what has Anas Sarwar managed to reverse , as in stop happening in Scotland, via any new policy from Labour UK?

    Sarwar is being touted as the supposed ‘rebel’ Labour leader in Scotland, so where has he , Anas Sarwar, been successful in opposing any action taken by Keir Starmer that will no longer, as an action, effect Scotland?

    I mean WHERE THE HELL are all of these exemptions Anas Sarwar has achieved for Scotland from some of the many cruel and damaging decisions, policies etc that the new Labour UK government, led by Keir Starmer, have implemented for their UK since they came to power last year?

    Like for example the terrible decision aka betrayal on Grangemouth , the Universal cut to winter fuel allowance for pensioners, the Tory two child cap maintained and where the supposed ‘thousands of jobs for Scotland via Labour’s GB Energy company’ are apparently not going to materialise any time soon.

    However they may, as GB Energy jobs in Scotland, materialise at some point in the future , but it appears to be in the distant future, depending on how much private investment is made, but wait, it will not just be jobs in Scotland but it will be all over the UK, mainly in England I suspect, hence the title being GB Energy.

    The Chairman of GB Energy, who is based, not in the HQ office in Aberdeen ,but instead is based in Manchester, said that GB Energy HQ will have approx 200-300 jobs based there, which hardly reflects the huge fanfare we all were subjected to when Labour first introduced and then publicly announced this ‘flagship’ policy .

    Sarwar was more than happy prior to the UK GE to promote Labour UK as the party for “Change”, which most voters naively assumed meant a “Change” from the Tories as the UK government, as in “Real Change” not just literal “Change” as in a different party now taking power as the new UK government, which is literally now what has actually happened.

    We are also not supposed to notice that these same various leaders in Scotland attend their respective UK party’s annual conference, and like other members of the UK party, they too nod their heads in agreement at proposals being made by their UK party, and also clap at all of the policies that have been passed by their UK party and they also vote with the UK party on UK party future proposals and plans made at conference for the whole UK.

    Curtice is fooling no one in him seemingly lining up with all of the media here in Scotland in promoting this fake image of Sarwar as somehow being a rebel who opposes many of the Labour UK policies , so we, the public, are then supposed to think that makes Sarwar more popular in Scotland than Starmer and that somehow he is on Scotland’s side.

    Wait though did a recent poll not show Sarwar to be minus 17 as a net approval as a leader, hardly a ringing endorsement is it .

    Surely actions speak louder than words, and where are all of the actions from Sarwar.

    Many of us heard that same so called ‘rebel’ Anas Sarwar parrot the same excuses as Starmer, when the majority of of the UK Labour GE pledges fell away very quickly after they were elected as the new UK government, as they were then replaced with the weak ‘financial black hole’ excuse.

    Sarwar berates the SNP for ‘always blaming others’ yet he mimicked Labour UK in him also ‘blaming the Tories’.

    This is classic Sarwar behaviour and a great example of how he adopts the ‘Do as I say not as I do’ strategy.

    Sarwar has now dropped ‘Real Change with Labour’ as his party slogan for 2026 , for obvious reasons, and now he is stating that with his party in Scotland he will offer a ‘New Direction’ which seems to be , as a direction , one that is based upon Labour in Scotland promising to keep , as in standing by, many of the policies instigated and implemented by their main opponents here, the SNP, if we vote for Labour in the Scottish elections in 2026.

    Same SNP that Sarwar and his Labour colleagues at Holyrood oppose, so one assumes that opposition is also based upon the SNP policies, as well as teh SNP’s position on independence, No ?

    Actually this tells you that Sarwar knows the SNP policies are popular and also good.

    It also tells you that Sarwar is unable to pledge anything new or innovative for Scotland as he needs to get Keir Starmer’s permission and also his, Starmer’s, direction (plans) for Scotland.

    So now we see that Sarwar is currently choosing to do what ?

    Steal ? Borrow (temporarily) ? or plagiarise the SNP’s policies and try to make them appear to be really Labour in Scotland’s policies .

    Sarwar knows that he can rely upon the media to help him do this , in both him and the media , yet again trying to con the public in Scotland in yet another election.

    However if he, Sarwar, were to be the next FM, God forbid, then how long will he keep all of these existing SNP policies in force ?

    My crystal ball tells me it will be a case of Sarwar stating ‘the financial black hole and mess left by the previous SNP government prevents me from keeping many of the policies I intended to keep, so we will need to make (like Labour UK) difficult decisions in our first Scottish budget”

    Come on you just know that will happen, as Keir Starmer will not allow Scotland to be distinct from his England, in him as UK PM ever allowing Sarwar to keep SNP instigated and implemented policies in force here in Scotland, also for obvious reasons.

    Vote SNP to still be the Scottish government in 2026, FGS surely by now we all know, via a majority, that and only that makes any sense in what is now a UK that has abandoned all sense (of decency, morality etc etc)

    Liz S

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