This text is an on-site version of our Inside Politics newsletter. Subscribers can enroll here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. In case you’re not a subscriber, you possibly can still receive the newsletter free for 30 days
Good morning. I’m standing in for Stephen, who’s attending a marriage in Sri Lanka this week. Donald Trump has suggested that Britain could avoid damaging US tariffs.
The US president suggested trade issues with “out of line” Britain might be “worked out”, adding that his real concern is with the EU’s position, which he described as “an atrocity.” His comments got here after he had imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.
Trump’s position must also offer hope to Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, who has in conversations invoked the president’s familial and business ties to Scotland in a bid to avoid tariffs that might inflict harm on exports, especially Scotch whisky.
It’s one other positive sign for Swinney, who has been basking within the glow of a successful budget negotiation and favourable polling. More on that in today’s newsletter.
Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Read the previous edition of the newsletter here. Please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.com
Show, not tell
Five months ago, Swinney convened his Scottish National party conference within the aftermath of his comprehensive general election defeat to Labour, pledging to re-engage with the “people’s priorities”.
From set-piece speeches to the contours of the budget, he’s woven the threads of the economy, tackling child poverty and public services into every little thing he does.
And while avoiding lingering on the constitutional query, support for independence is ticking up alongside the SNP’s opinion poll numbers, as his government seeks to divert from the era of former leaders Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf by prioritising delivery over dogma.
The draft budget splurged on the NHS and housing, while also tripling investment within the country’s net zero industrial future, bolstered by his deputy Kate Forbes’ pro-business message.
Swinney, who has long experience in achieving cross-chamber consensus, last week sealed agreements with the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and nationalist offshoot Alba, all of which could claim concessions for pushing the budget through in time for the brand new financial yr in April.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar had earlier, somewhat inexplicably, said he would abstain on the budget, which should deliver a £2bn funding boost to the health service because of UK chancellor Rachel Reeves’ record financial settlement for Scotland.
“The entire mood has lifted — Sarwar asked for nothing. Now he has got nothing and is on the naughty step with the Tories,” said one SNP insider.
The Swinney-Forbes reset and Labour’s troubled start at Westminster has eaten away on the lead enjoyed by Sarwar within the exuberance of the final election victory.
Because the long campaign ahead of the May 2026 Holyrood election begins, an opinion poll over the weekend for the Herald newspaper showed the SNP on target to stay in power as the most important party after May 2026 Holyrood elections with 51 seats, down from 62 on this parliament.
Polling guru John Curtice told the Herald: “The SNP finds itself where they’re mainly because Labour support has imploded.”
The poll forecast the opposition making up the rest of an atomised Scottish parliament, with Labour on 16 seats and the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens each on 15 seats; the insurgent right-wing Reform party would debut with nine and Alba would take eight.
In last week’s scratchy First Minister’s Questions, Swinney characterised Sarwar as “high on rhetoric and low on delivery”.
The guffaws within the chamber — from Swinney’s opponents who launch weekly attacks claiming government incompetence — could echo with the general public.
Can Scotland ‘do higher’?
Labour figures still think that the inauspicious begin to Keir Starmer’s premiership might be offset by relentlessly probing the record of an SNP government that could have been in power for 19 years by the point of the following election.
Alongside the police investigation into the SNP’s funds, this disenchantment looms over Swinney given his central role in nationalist administrations spanning right back to 2007.
“The competition might be about one other five years of an SNP government,” said one Labour adviser. “Scotland can do higher — their record is poor.”
Despite five NHS recovery plans launched for the reason that coronavirus pandemic, hospital performance in Scotland has lagged behind England.
The SNP’s latest NHS plan, unveiled last week, envisions 150,000 extra appointments and procedures, while also reducing the radiology backlog throughout the next financial yr. Measures to realize this include expanding capability at national treatment centres and diverting frail patients from accident and emergency wards to specialist services.
“It’s not concerning the quality, because experience of the NHS is commonly good,” said the SNP strategist. “It’s about access through lowering waiting times.”
Every week, the opposition rails against the federal government’s handling of the NHS, just for the SNP to counter with its own data about improvements or similar problems elsewhere within the UK.
Come next yr, Swinney could have self-imposed targets that the electorate can use to guage whether delivery has surpassed rhetoric.
Now do that
Bristol’s shape-shifting Home Counties last week crammed the stage above Sneaky Pete’s tiny dance floor on Edinburgh’s dungy Cowgate. The gang lapped up the band’s funky, angular post-punk — no more so than their satirical tackle tax, indie-disco banger “Back to the 70s”. They appear destined for larger venues: every time a poppier track underwhelmed me, my teenage son declared it “one of the best song yet”.
Top stories today
Starmer steps up EU engagement | EU governments are exploring ways to incorporate the UK and Norway in a “coalition of the willing” dedicated to expanding the continent’s defences, while circumventing militarily neutral and Russia-friendly capitals. Keir Starmer and Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte will join EU leaders in Brussels today to deliberate tips on how to share the vast costs of rearmament and of accelerating military capabilities.
‘Serious tooth removal’ required | The prime minister is resisting pressure from business and a few inside his own party to tear up a brand new staff’ rights bill, at the same time as government officials conceded that details of the policy were still up for grabs.
Ofsted latest regime dismissed | Moves to overhaul the way in which schools are inspected in England have been criticised by headteachers and teaching unions as “demoralising” and worse than the system they’re aiming to switch, the Guardian reports.
