Inside politics: Labour’s Lamont has a tough job ahead in Holyrood’s new term

Alistair Darling is in charge of the main pro-Union campaign, it is noted. The SNP knows that Labour is sensitive to the charge that Mrs Lamont is not in charge on the bridge.

With the polls at Holyrood showing the SNP still with a huge lead over Labour, Mr Salmond’s top team remains confident that, even if the independence referendum is lost, a Salmond-Lamont match up in the next elections in 2016 will go much the same way as his 2011 contest against Iain Gray. Mrs Lamont has a lot of work to do at the start of this parliamentary year.

She begins with the same huge handicap as she ended last year – compared with the well-funded SNP machine, ably supported by a civil service, Scottish Labour’s infrastructure is threadbare. Outside of her small tight-knit unit, who have helped keep up the attack over the last year, there is a stark lack of support. Too much of the Scottish Labour machine remains sub-standard. Nor does she have enough MSPs who have shown the panache to drive the political agenda.

To her credit, Mrs Lamont has not given the appearance of someone particularly prone to self-pity. She has shown a wry doggedness at her task, which may win her admiration. But the task is much bigger than simply being liked; it is about trying to turn Labour into an outfit that looks like a government in waiting.

Prior to the 2011 Holyrood election when Labour was miles ahead of the SNP in the polls, Alex Salmond could be heard calmly insisting that he would win because, unlike his main opponents, he had a plan. This is the same picture that confronts Mrs Lamont. This isn’t a normal political cycle of course; she will continue to be judged largely on how effectively she fights the independence front, with her team promising a sharper critique of the SNP in the months ahead.

But she also needs to respond to the growing question – both at Holyrood and Westminster – of how Labour proposes to run the country now that there’s no money left. Is it just to be a tribal attack against the impact of “the cuts”? Or will Mrs Lamont risk making herself a target by taking a more distinctive approach? Some signs are emerging. Writing in The Scotsman yesterday, Mr Gray’s former media adviser Simon Pia described the SNP’s council tax freeze as “a regressive policy of greater benefit to the wealthier”. Many other Labour figures agree. Then, notably, Mrs Lamont yesterday attacked the “price” of the SNP’s free university tuition policy, noting the knock-on impact it had on funding of further education colleges.

Labour fudged all these issues when it last went to the people in 2011 and promptly got hammered. It might be worth watching Mrs Lamont over the coming months to see whether she chooses a different tack.