‘Mountain still to climb’ for party

LABOUR still has a ‘mountain to climb’ if it is to win enough seats in Scotland to secure a general election victory, according to a think-tank report.

The Scottish Fabians’ research, Winning Back The First Red Wall, recommends the party focuses its efforts on the 37 per cent of SNP voters who gave it additional preference votes in the last local elections.

Katherine Sangster, of the Scottish Fabians, said: ‘I think last year that [25 seats in Scotland] would have been seen as a Herculean task for us – and we would [still] describe it as a mountain to climb. It depends on us winning a wide coalition of voters over Scotland.’

Nationalist MSP Jim Fairlie said: ‘Scottish Labour might want to fight the serious threat the Tories pose to Scotland’s public services.’