Andrew Whitaker: Labour's performance at Holyrood does not always match its success at the polls in Scotland

DELEGATES to Scottish Labour's conference in Oban this weekend will doubtless be in buoyant mood after the party's strong performance in this year's general election when it increased its vote north of the Border.

But despite the electoral success in Scotland, which some observers suggest may have been at least in part due to former Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy taking charge of the campaign, the picture is not as rosy for the party as it perhaps appears.

True, Scottish Labour consistently outperforms the SNP in opinion polls among voters, with a core level of support showing no sign of evaporating.

However, Labour at Holyrood does not always look like a Scottish Government in waiting, and during the last three and a half years it's often been hard to describe the party's performance as anything other than weak.

The party's handling of the response to Kenny MacAskill's decision to release the convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was widely considered questionable.

An often-repeated criticism is the relative anonymity among voters of Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray compared with First Minister Alex Salmond.

But it's also worth pointing out that the SNP Cabinet's big political beasts such as John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon and Michael Russell are widely viewed as being more than a match for Labour's frontbench team.

While Labour's finance spokesman at Holyrood Andy Kerr is rightly regarded as a political heavyweight, some may find it hard to imagine the party's education and health shadow ministers Des McNulty and Jackie Baillie being part of a dynamic Cabinet.

Many Labour members will also find it hard to understand why one of the party's top performers at Holyrood, John Park has not been elevated to one of the key frontbench posts and is left as the shadow Cabinet secretary without portfolio, albeit with an election and campaigns brief.

Then there is the key question of policy. One of the party's flagship policies under Iain Gray has been that of "carry a knife and go to jail". No-one would take issue with the need to tackle knife crime but Labour's stance has been criticised as opportunistic and headline-grabbing by opponents.

The party has also arguably boxed itself into a corner by opposing the SNP's free prescriptions policy – a move hugely popular with Labour voters. There is also the steadfast defence of council tax, which was after all a tax imposed by the Tories in the early 1990s to get the government of the day out of the mess surrounding the poll tax.

However, whatever perceived weakness there is in the party at Holyrood, Labour remains a huge brand in Scotland and is still in a strong position to return to power next May. But with Labour now out of power at Westminster, some Scots will view the party as returning to its natural status of opposition and be more likely to vote for it as an anti-Tory protest.