Analysis: Only difference between Alba and the SNP is on attitude

The devil is always in the detail when it comes to election pledges.

While parties like to compete in their offer of big ticket items – more houses, more nurses, more teachers – it’s always the small print around the timing where the real differences lie.

However, the justlaunched Alba party manifesto makes no such great claims – it puts very few numbers on how to create “the Scotland we seek” as the blurb has it.

Yes, there are sections on education (the old “rocks will melt with the sun” when it comes to imposing tuition fees makes it in) and health, but it’s all broadbrush and similar in tone to much of what other parties are saying about recovering from Covid, but with an added push for more economic powers to Holyrood.

On tax, there’s a swipe at the SNP and “virtue signalling” through “tinkering” with the current system and a promise to “push for what makes a difference and not what makes us look good”.

The manifesto pledges a drive for more capital investment in what the party describes as its “investment opportunities”, including new houses, new care homes and more renewable energy.

Similarly, it’s not keen on Nicola Sturgeon’s call for a four-nations approach to a public inquiry into the handling of the Covid pandemic, nor does it think abolishing NHS dentist charges is the solution to a dental health crisis, rather it’s the availability of provision.

But Alba’s stated aim is not to make it to government, but to be a thorn in the side of Ms Sturgeon when it comes to independence.

Mr Salmond has criticised his former protegee relentlessly in the past few weeks as dragging her feet on securing a referendum. How can it be that with a pro-independence majority of MSPS in Holyrood for the last five years, nothing has happened, he asks?

For those who have been desperate for a “plan B” on independence, should the UK Government continue to refuse a section 30 order, all of this will be music to their ears.

For those who’d rather not see another referendum, let alone independence, it will be another reason not to flirt with any pro-indy parties on May 6, no matter if there are other policies they might like.