Race for Holyrood: Your Scottish election briefing for Thursday, April 22

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Bike for Good Glasgow South Community Hub, April 22. Picture: Press Association

Soapbox

@willie_rennie: “The SNP have learned nothing from Brexit. They should learn from these mistakes, not repeat them.”

The Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie this afternoon compared wanting to leave the UK to the Brexit campaign. Indy supporters dismissed his comments, with one insisting “fear of the challenges ahead isn’t an excuse” to stay part of the Union.

Caption This

Can you suggest a caption for this picture of the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at a bike shop today?

#FakeNews?

Is it fake news or not? We expose a political comment or claim to proper scrutiny

After Anas Sarwar launched his party’s manifesto, the SNP responded by saying Labour was “happy” to leave Scotland’s future in the hands of Boris Johnson. The party’s Depute Leader Keith Brown also claimed voting for Labour allowed the PM to “tighten” his control on Scotland, and claimed Mr Sarwar was enabling the PM.

However, Labour is quite literally campaigning to remove the PM from Westminster, and 14 years of SNP Government have not stopped Tory MPs being elected. Voting Labour does not “enable” the PM to take more control, at most it maintains the status quo.

Campaign Trail

We summarise key developments on the campaign trail from today

- Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar ruled out any “deals or coalitions” with other parties in Holyrood, despite a pledge to “work with anyone” to help Scotland recover from the Covid pandemic. Facing questions after launching his party’s manifesto, Mr Sarwar also said he would only be willing to back an SNP government budget if it was in the “national interest not the nationalist interest”.

- The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said Scotland’s councils need new powers to prevent homelessness. The rate of homeless deaths is three times higher in Scotland than in the rest of the UK, and now Mr Rennie has pledged to introduce new legislation to strengthen the duties on public bodies to tackle the problem.

- The latest exclusive poll from Savanta ComRes for The Scotsman suggests the SNP will miss out on a majority by two seats and will be reliant on the Scottish Greens to pass major legislation and the budget. It is also the lowest figures seen for the SNP during this series of polling since December.

- The Scottish Greens pledged to introduce a railcard to bring down the cost of train fares. Modelled on the Network Rail card used in the south east of England, the party say it could reduce the cost of off-peak journeys by a third.

Battleground

We look at a minority seat or constituency battleground each day. Today it is:

Dunfermline

Winning party (2016): SNP

Second place (2016): Scottish Labour

Swing to lose: 6.93 per cent

First recorded in the 11th century, the town of Dunfermline is three miles from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. Created in 2011, the constituency combines parts of the former constituencies of Dunfermline East and Dunfermline West.

Shirley-Anne Somerville won the seat in 2016 from Labour's Cara Hilton. Ms Hilton had won it in a by-election in 2013 from the then SNP candidate, Bill Walker.

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