SNP bus has only one driver – and one stop

THERE is no mistaking what the SNP’s local election campaign is about.

Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon was photographed standing in front of her own face, emblazoned on a giant yellow bus next to the words ‘Vote SNP’.

The message was clear: Sturgeon is the SNP and if you are for her, then vote Nationalist on polling day.

This kind of presidential presentation is grating enough at a Holyrood election but this vote is supposed to be about local councils. The SNP has no original policies, no transformative agenda, in this area.

May’s poll will be another exercise in getting out the vote, keeping Nationalists in power then doing nothing with that power. The SNP would do anything for Scotland except govern it.

That was underscored yesterday when the Nationalist leader said she was comfortable for the local elections to be about the ‘strong and advancing’ case for independence. For this First Minister, there is nothing under the sun that is not about the case for independence.

Miss Sturgeon’s relentless focus on tired, empty constitutionalism is an insult to families struggling with the cost of living and wishing the people in power would do something to help.

Nothing Miss Sturgeon has said so far on the campaign trail indicates that she grasps the severity of the situation beyond the standard talking points.

Scottish families are feeling the strain. Self-aggrandising photo ops will do nothing to help them. Nicola Sturgeon urgently needs to rethink not only her local election campaign but her priorities.