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Everything was going so well for Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. After the unexpected resignation of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the departure, a year later, of her successor, Humza Yousaf, the SNP was in turmoil.
The party no longer seemed to know what it was in government for, following the quashing of its hopes for a second independence referendum and the vetoing of its controversial gender reforms.
The stage was set for Scottish Labour’s dramatic return to power.
By the start of last year, Bute House seemed almost within touching distance for the Scottish Labour leader.
And then Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, and Mr Sarwar watched as his dream of power slowly faded.
Unlike the SNP, Labour in Scotland thrives or dies on the reputation of UK Labour. And since July last year, when the country voted reluctantly for a Labour government, its popularity has suffered as a consequence of the Westminster government’s various mistakes, pratfalls and unforced errors.
Mr Sarwar must be given credit for reining in his temper and for not publicly blaming the resident of No 10 for Scottish Labour’s disastrous poll ratings, which show his party has little chance of replacing the SNP in government.
But he must know it to be true. There was little enthusiasm for Labour at last year’s general election; the party won just a third of the vote on a historically low turnout, a fact camouflaged by a near 170-seat majority in the Commons.
Since then, scandal after scandal, misjudgment after misjudgment, reverse after reverse has reduced Labour support to a fraction of what it used to enjoy.
The reasons are not hard to discern. There was public outrage when it emerged that numerous ministers, including the Prime Minister, had accepted thousands of pounds in clothes and hospitality from a wealthy Labour donor who was also a Lord with a pass to Downing Street.
Then came the policy disasters: the scrapping of the Winter Fuel Payments for richer pensioners (then a partial U-turn on the policy).
The refusal to scrap the two-child limit for claiming benefits, and the abandonment of welfare reforms, having marched his troops – and his Work and Pensions Secretary – to the top of the hill and back down again with nothing to show for it.
Labour at Westminster, within a few short months, looked as aimless and bewildered as the SNP had looked following Ms Sturgeon’s departure. And the voters took note.
Suddenly Bute House looked as unattainable to Mr Sarwar as the Scottish Premiership looked to Rangers. Even the slow, steady rise of Reform UK in Scotland looked to threaten his election hopes, with it displacing Labour as the main opposition in one poll.
After 18 years in office, the SNP under John Swinney – unbelievably – looks set to win yet another term. And the First Minister, like his Scottish Labour counterpart, has Keir Starmer to thank.
Yet Mr Sarwar is still capable of pulling off a surprise next May, just as he did in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election in June, held following the death of incumbent Nationalist MSP Christina McKelvie.
Scottish Labour had been all but written off in the contest that followed, but it came through the middle to win, leaving the SNP and Reform vying for second place. It represented a high point for Mr Sarwar’s leadership and proved that he could still be in with a chance of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
But he needs to pick his battles. The SNP has pivoted to the issue of independence in the run-up to May’s Holyrood elections, an issue it is comfortable discussing – unlike more important but more difficult issues such as NHS waiting lists or slipping school standards.
Mr Sarwar and his campaign team are determined not to play the First Minister on the SNP’s home turf of constitutional change and will seek instead to hold his party to account for its actual record in government in the past 18 years.
There are certainly votes to be won in the areas of health, schools and housing – all of which are in a state of crisis to one degree or another.
The question is how and whether Scottish Labour can benefit from voter anger over the reduction in the quality of local services, or whether the electorate will cast a curse on all their houses, condemning the parties as ‘all the same’.
That is Mr Sarwar’s real concern, that voter belligerence and disillusionment – particularly over immigration – will help boost Reform rather than Scottish Labour. One newly elected Scottish Labour MP warned darkly about the public mood, particularly in traditional working class housing estates: ‘You can feel the tension there, there’s a real anger.
‘And yes, I think that means a lot of support for Reform.’
That anger can only be exacerbated by the Starmer government’s continuing failure to deal effectively with the daily arrival of small boats on Britain’s south coast.
A number of that MP’s parliamentary colleagues have helped boost Mr Sarwar’s election prospects by publicly rebuking the SNP administration over its failures in asylum policy and the related homelessness emergency in Scotland.
Zubir Ahmed, the Health Minister and MP for Glasgow South West, said on Twitter: ‘I deal with the most asylum casework in Scotland. The SNP homeless policy kettles asylum seekers to the poorest parts of Glasgow, looks the other way and leaves communities in the lurch.’
This represents a direct challenge to SNP ministers who have sought to politicise the issue while at the same time seeking to avoid any suggestion that the influx of asylum seekers into Scotland’s biggest city is in any way responsible for the growing tide of homelessness there.
But whatever campaigning efforts are made in Scotland to loosen the Nationalists’ grip on power, it could all come crashing down – again – next month if Rachel Reeves’s next Budget delivers more bad news for hard-pressed Scottish taxpayers and local service users.
The omens are not good: the UK Government is determined to get spending and borrowing under control, while at the same time ministers are conscious of their pre-election promise not to raise any taxes on ‘working people’.
Once again, Mr Sarwar is at the mercy of decisions made by his party hundreds of miles away. Another unpopular Budget could blow a hole in Scottish Labour’s efforts to convince Scots that they can be trusted with government in Edinburgh.
The idea that John Swinney could lead his party to its fifth consecutive election victory at Holyrood is itself a peculiar one: Mr Swinney is a retread leader, having led his party for a short period at the start of the century and having resigned after some calamitous election results.
But politics is about available options. If, in May, Mr Swinney is considered by Scots to be the least worst option, then he might yet secure the victory that was once denied him. It is up to Mr Sarwar to convince voters that he, not Mr Swinney, has enough fresh ideas to reinvigorate Scotland and the devolution project.
If he can do that with Keir Starmer weighing down his campaign like a millstone, he will have proved himself to be an impressive politician – and worthy of taking his place in Bute House.
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