John Swinney Election fight is still on in Scotland, says first minister

The election is "over and done with" in England, but in Scotland the contest between Labour and the Scottish National party is still on, says John Swinney.

- Libby Brooks

The SNP leader, a respected party veteran who stepped into the role barely two weeks before the election was called, acknowledges that the framing of the campaign around Labour's drive to kick the Tories out of Downing Street has made it "a challenge" for the nationalists to promote their own agenda.

But he insists that a recent narrowing of the gap between Labour and the SNP indicates that his argument that "Labour is going to pick up where the Tories are leaving off" is landing with voters.

"The election is essentially over and done with in England, but there's still a contest on in Scotland. Labour are beating the Tories in England two to one - here we are broadly level," he says. Polling for Savanta on Thursday found the parties level on 34 points, although Survation on the same day found Labour six points ahead, on 37.

"I understand why people want to get rid of the Tories," Swinney says. "But people are seeing through the Labour party. Think about what it means that next Friday, Tory austerity will be Labour austerity." Attacks on Labour's spending plans have been a dominant theme of the SNP's campaign, alongside the need for a cohort of SNP MPs to push the new government towards more radical decisions - for example, ending the two-child benefit cap and introducing an essentials guarantee.