The process of electing a leader of the Scottish Labour Party is now in full swing, with all three candidates having launched their campaigns. Ken Macintosh, the MSP for Eastwood, had been touted in the media as the frontrunner. However, as the contest progresses, Johann Lamont, MSP for Glasgow Pollok, appears to be pulling narrowly …

Let the Scottish people decide, says Judith Fisher

So, disaster. We can dress it up, yes, our share of the vote actually held pretty steady, and, in seats like Aberdeen Central, went up by nine per cent, but the outcome is a thumping defeat whichever way you look at it. By highlighting the dangers of the ConDem coalition cuts and asking voters to vote based on which party was better placed to stand up for Scotland, we discovered that the voters felt the SNP were either better placed, or more disposed, to do this effectively.    

Yesterday the SNP finally published their manifesto after a last-minute rewrite. It is understandable that they would be nervous. Their infamous 2007 manifesto, which features over 100 now broken promises, has come back to haunt them again and again as they have failed to keep their word over the past four years on schools, on housing, on transport.

This week, to mark 100 years of International Women's Day, the Scottish Labour party launched their dedicated ‘Women's Manifesto' for the forthcoming Scottish parliament elections.

Civil partnerships made it possible for same-sex couples to access most rights available to married couples. Now support is building for equalisation of both marriage and civil partnerships - perhaps in Scotland before the rest of the UK.

Last week the SNP government published their budget plans for the next four years. John Swinney, the finance secretary, agreed to publish extended spending forecasts after being challenged by Labour and the other opposition parties immediately after announcing a draft budget in November when he limited his plans to the current financial year.

So we had some snow, then some more, and now we're getting just a bit more. The hapless SNP are in charge, so everything naturally ground to a halt. With the resignation of transport minister, Stewart Stevenson, it's time to refocus on this month's best example of the SNP's failure to govern.