Scottish Labour must prove it is ready to win and ready to govern
There is no shortcut back to trust and we will not recover because voters decide it is our turn, or because the SNP have run out of road.
Angry voters do not automatically become our support.
Disappointment does not automatically become belief.
If we want people to trust Labour again, we have to earn it.
That means showing Scotland that we are serious about winning and serious about governing.
The next local government elections are not far away. The next general election will follow. We cannot drift towards either and hope the political weather changes in our favour. We need to get serious now about the organisation, message and programme required to win.
That does not mean another internal conversation about ourselves. It means building a party that is visible in communities, rooted in workplaces, confident on the doorstep and clear about what Labour would do with power.
For me, the test is simple. Do people have more money in their pockets? Are public services there when they need them? Can they find decent work, afford a home and build a life in the place they come from?
If Labour cannot answer those questions clearly, we should not be surprised when voters look elsewhere.
Scotland is a country of enormous strength, talent and potential. But too many people feel the basics of a decent life are getting harder. Wages do not stretch far enough. Housing is too expensive or simply unavailable. The bus does not come. The care package is delayed. The town centre has lost the bank, the shops and the confidence it once had. Parents worry their children will have to leave to find opportunity.
These are the daily tests by which people judge whether politics is working.
That is why the local elections matter so much. Councils are not a second-order part of Labour’s mission. They are where Labour can prove again that we know how to deliver.
Local government builds homes, supports care, maintains roads, keeps schools running, shapes town centres, works with local businesses and holds communities together. If Scottish Labour wants to be trusted nationally, we must first show that Labour in power locally can make people’s lives better.
As leader of South Lanarkshire Council, I learned that politics is not a seminar. It is decisions. It is budgets. It is whether services work on Monday morning.
We made swimming free for under-16s, helped families with household costs and improved pay for home-care workers. We worked with trade unions, managed difficult finances and kept services running. That is not glamorous politics, but it is real politics. It is how Labour proves it is on people’s side.
Scotland now needs that seriousness at every level.
We need an economy built around work. Labour should be the party of workers and wealth builders: people who make things, build things, care for people, run businesses, create jobs and keep Scotland moving. We should back good businesses that invest in their workforce and communities, and be clear that economic growth and workers’ rights belong together.
That means a serious industrial strategy for Scotland. Not a document that sits on a shelf, but a plan that connects skills, transport, housing, energy, procurement and local supply chains. Public money should do more to create good jobs, apprenticeships and long-term capacity in Scotland.
We also need public services that prevent problems instead of only responding to crisis. Reform cannot be a polite word for cuts. It should mean backing the workforce, shifting resources towards early intervention and giving local services the freedom to solve problems before they become more expensive and more painful.
The NHS cannot recover if social care is ignored. Schools cannot close the attainment gap if family poverty is left untouched. Councils cannot deliver national ambitions if they are treated as an afterthought.
A serious Labour government would understand that services are connected.
And we need to put more power and wealth into the hands of communities. Community wealth building is a practical way of using public power to support local jobs, local firms, co-operatives, social enterprises and stronger supply chains.
This is how Labour can speak to both fairness and growth. We should want successful Scottish businesses, stronger public services and communities that keep more of the wealth they create. That is pro-worker, pro-business, pro-place politics.
The same approach should shape Scotland’s energy future. Oil and gas workers cannot be treated as a problem to be managed. They are highly skilled workers in a world-class industry. The transition to offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture, ports and manufacturing will only succeed if it is built with them, not done to them.
The new jobs must exist before the old ones disappear. That is what a just transition means.
This is the argument I want Scottish Labour to make between now and the local elections, and beyond them to the next general election.
Serious about winning. Serious about government. Plain in language. Ambitious for Scotland. Rooted in the everyday concerns of working people.
We do not need to choose between principle and competence. Labour wins when we bring them together. Values matter, but they have to be made real through budgets, services, jobs, homes and institutions that work.
Scotland does not need Labour to offer a tidier version of the same politics.
It needs a Labour Party ready to win, ready to govern and ready to deliver.
That is the leadership I am offering.
This is the first of a series, Progress have approached all leadership hopefuls for comment.
