Strategy and risk sees John Swinney seal Budget success

SNP strategy forced them into that position because ministers included Scottish Labour policies in their draft budget – partly reinstating winter fuel payments for pensioners and paving the way to ending the two-child cap on benefits.

If Labour had voted against a budget including these policies, the SNP would have exploited that mercilessly.

Labour caved in an attempt to neutralise these issues. They even offered to back the budget if the SNP speeded up the policy to end the two-child cap in Scotland which UK ministers are keeping in place elsewhere.

In the moment that appeared to shift a little pressure back onto the SNP.

Officials in the Scottish and UK governments are still talking about how to make that possible.

Rapid progress seems unlikely and political sources in both administrations suggest any hold up is with the other side.

So, the SNP gets its budget through. Labour does not stand in the way without having won any new concessions.

The Greens and Lib Dems can champion the spending they’ve secured and the Conservatives can stand apart, condemning the others collectively as a “cosy left-wing consensus” that they seek to break.

That’s the politics of budget 2025 and a taster of the election campaign to come next year.