After 14 years of Conservative government, is your life better?
Simply put, that was the question Labour asked voters in this general election campaign.
Needless to say, it worked.
Now the party is already talking about repeating the feat in the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, by asking: “After 19 years of an SNP government, is your life better?”
“This is part one,” Chancellor Sir Keir Starmer said in Edinburgh on Sunday, adding that “part two will start in 2026.”
But the First Minister’s main reason for visiting Scotland so soon after taking office was not to boost the party ahead of the Holyrood election campaign.
The Prime Minister has stressed that she wants to rebuild relationships with governments across the UK, which is why she decided to make quick visits to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to meet English mayors within days of taking office.
Sir Keir seeks to present himself as the wise leader of a mature government, one based on moderation and cooperation.
The intended contrast is not only with politicians on the right, but also with those on the left, particularly his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, who returned to Parliament as an Independent.
It is worth noting that Sir Keir’s victory came on the back of 33.7% of the vote, the second lowest turnout since the Second World War, whereas Corbyn won 40% of the vote in his 2017 defeat to Theresa May.
In other words, the new prime minister’s support base may be shallower than the 174-vote majority that Tony Blair won in 1997.
In fact, Scotland was the only region in the UK where Labour’s vote share increased sharply in this election, with the party taking 36 seats from the SNP and increasing its vote share by 17 percentage points.
Sir Keir repeated the familiar phrase in a speech to Scotland’s new MPs and other supporters at a hotel overlooking Edinburgh Castle.
“We won because we campaigned as a Changed Labour Party,” he said, adding, “And we will govern as a Changed Labour Party.”
This was an apparent reference to Sir Tony, who 27 years ago walked into Downing Street with the words: “We stood for election as New Labour. We will govern as New Labour”.
Starmer inherited a stagnant economy with low growth, low productivity and high inequality.
He is grappling with the impact of Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and the Conservative government’s response to the 2007-2008 financial crisis through cuts in public spending – known as austerity.
Winning control of the Scottish government from the Scottish National Party (SNP) at Holyrood in 2026 may depend on Labour delivering the reforms it promised to voters as quickly as possible.
This will be a major challenge as the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader and Scottish First Minister John Swinney has repeatedly promised during the election campaign that his party will stick to the Conservative spending plans.
Mr Swinney told the broadcaster that “working with the UK Government will give us common ground” on ending child poverty, improving public services and tackling climate change.
Sir Keir also struck a positive note, focusing on Scotland’s only oil refinery, at Grangemouth, where hundreds of jobs are under threat.
“We’ve discussed the economy. We’ve discussed energy. And of course we’ve discussed Grangemouth,” he said, promising that “our government will work with us on that issue immediately.”
More generally, the way to reinvigorate the economy is growth linked to an industrial strategy, including a new public green energy company based in Scotland, says new Finance Minister Rachel Reeves.
But confusion remains over whether the proposed “Great British Energy” would be run as an actual energy generating company, as Labour originally promised, or as an “investment vehicle”, as Sir Keir later told BBC Radio Scotland.
In any case, trade unions, which have traditionally supported Labour, are concerned about how an accelerating transition to renewable energy will affect jobs in the North Sea.
Their concerns don’t end there.
“We don’t have time to wait for growth,” Unity’s executive director Sharon Graham told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
“People are literally suffering. We have to borrow to invest. And our crumbling public services need money.”
The other big economic issue hanging over Sir Keir’s arrival in office is his decision to end Britain’s free trade agreement with the European Union, its largest market, against Scotland’s wishes.
Speaking to reporters on a terrace overlooking Edinburgh Castle on Sunday, the prime minister was asked if there was any practical talk about how to deal with the impact of Britain’s departure from the EU. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that Britain’s productivity – the amount of output per worker – will fall by 4% in the long term.
“Yes,” he replied. “We are going to improve our relationship with the EU, and that means having a closer trading relationship with the EU.”
“This means a closer relationship on research and development and a closer relationship on defence and security.”
“I believe we can get a much better deal than the failed deal that Boris Johnson has forced upon the UK,” Sir Keir added.
Would that mean a return to some form of free trade agreement with the EU?
“I think we will get a much better deal than we have now. It depends on respectful relationships, on discussions with EU leaders, but of course that work has already started,” he said.
There are plenty of other challenges ahead for Sir Keir.
He arrived at and left the meeting with Mr Swinney at Downing Street in Edinburgh via a back entrance, amid noisy pro-Gaza protests outside the building.
The two could clearly hear the chanting as they chatted inside the building.
Outside, one protester, who did not want to be named to avoid trouble with his employer, told me they were unhappy with the decision not to let the prime minister enter through the building’s main entrance.
“I think it’s absurd and laughable at the same time,” she said, adding: “Backdoor Starmer. He can’t deal with the people. He’s a Labour member, he’s supposed to be one of the people but he can’t deal with us.”
Downing Street said it would not comment on the prime minister’s logistics.
Sir Keir will be hoping that the rest of his journey around the UK, and the rest of his time as Prime Minister, goes a little more smoothly.
