As the first full week of general election campaigning got underway, John Swinney set out how he intends to persuade the Scottish public to back the SNP on the 4th of July.
At an event in Glenrothes at the weekend, he told the assembled activists that it is time to get back to basics.
The SNP’s message, he said, is “as simple as ABC: austerity, Brexit and the cost of living”.
John Swinney said he was offering to “unite the country” on an agenda to tackle that trio of harms.
It comes after a less than ideal start to the general election campaign for the brand new SNP leader and First Minister, after he was criticised for challenging the sanction handed down to Michael Matheson for his actions over the data-roaming charges row.
It’s a tall order to ask a new leader to head-up a general election campaign after less than a month in the job.
It seems John Swinney has three big hurdles to jump to help his party avoid losing seats, as predicted in recent polling.
TV debates
Firstly, he needs to introduce himself to the Scottish public.
John Swinney has been a key player in Scottish politics for well over a decade, but in this campaign, he has to build a connection with voters in record time.
His involvement in TV debates will be crucial to this.
As the third largest party in Westminster, the SNP will push to have their man included in any prime-time line-up that hosts the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition.
His appearance in those debates, as well as the Scottish-specific ones, will be an opportunity to show voters who he is, as a man and a politician.
Morale within the SNP will also be an issue Mr Swinney will be particularly mindful of in the weeks ahead.
He was crowned uncontested as SNP leader after promising to do everything in his power to reunite the warring factions and bring the party back together.
The fact that nobody else put themselves forward to become SNP leader should tell us all we need to know about how tough a job that will be.
And finally, the SNP campaign has to tackle a threat that it hasn’t had for quite some time: the highly likely prospect of a Labour leader becoming the next prime minister.
SNP strategy
Early indications show the party’s strategy will be to ask Scotland to return as many SNP MPs as possible as a way to ‘keep Labour honest.’
They point to Sir Keir Starmer’s acceptance of Brexit and his refusal to reverse some of the most pernicious Tory policies, such as the two-child cap on benefits, as a reason why Labour can’t be trusted to push forward a progressive policy agenda on their own.
For a new party leader, that’s quite a lot to achieve in six short weeks.
This long-awaited general election campaign is going to be gruelling for all parties. Despite winning every election in Scotland since 2014, the SNP go into this race knowing that they are going to have to fight tooth and nail to maintain their position as Scotland’s largest party at Westminster.
John Swinney seems to have already taken a more collaborative approach to leadership than his two recent predecessors.
He doesn’t seem like a politician who wants to be the biggest personality in the room, or who is wary of being outshone.
‘Plucky underdogs’
Taking that into consideration, he should make use of the SNP’s star performers during the campaign period.
Most notably, the party’s extremely likeable and effective Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn.
The SNP begin this election campaign looking like the plucky underdogs.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing if John Swinney can utilise that status to breathe fresh life and energy into his weary party.
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