The question that Anas Sarwar now needs to answer

The Scottish Labour party and its allies, including Paul Hutcheon of the Daily Record and Professor James Mitchell (who is increasingly dropping the pretence of being anything other than a Labour propagandist), have today been doubling down on the idea - which I don't think anyone in their heart of hearts truly believes - that Malcolm Offord's claim that Anas Sarwar approached him about a post-election deal is an outright lie.  That is very hard to square with an article in the Scotsman from only two weeks ago in which a Labour source was saying that Sarwar wanted to form a government from second place with the help of Reform MSPs.

If Sarwar wants his denial to have any credibility, particularly his pious suggestion that it is somehow unimaginable that a decent man like himself would have anything to do with a monster like Offord, it will surely now be necessary for him to explicitly rule out forming a minority government with the votes of Reform MSPs.  It's no longer good enough for him to say, as he and others have done in the past, that he cannot control how Reform MSPs vote in the election for First Minister, and that it is fine for him to simply accept the result of that vote.  He must definitively rule out serving as First Minister on that basis, because irrespective of whether there is a Labour-Reform deal written down on paper, a Labour minority government arithmetically dependent on Reform votes to sustain itself will be a Labour government beholden to the politics of Reform.

The distinction between the Labour spin machine and the Daily Record seems to have broken down again. Funny how that always seems to happen at this stage of the electoral cycle. https://t.co/e6cS1IVOl1

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 15, 2026

Professor Mitchell is getting beyond parody. What matters is whether Offord's claim is *true*. It can be as "appalling" or "illogical" as you like, but if it's "true*, the issue here is Sarwar, not the SNP or anyone else. https://t.co/M7pV0nUneQ

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 15, 2026

Reading between the lines here, what Professor Mitchell is saying is that it was totally fine for Sarwar to informally approach a far-right party for a deal, and the only problem is that others broke the "rules" by letting the public in on his secret. Just not cricket, old boy! https://t.co/apjOS2hhQX

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 15, 2026

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