It was one of the surest things in British politics: when an election comes around, no matter the national trend, Scotland will always vote Labour. But with the SNP managing to form a minority government, winning one more seat than Labour in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, and then their shock by-election victory in Glasgow east in 2008 it seemed, to some, that the Scottish working class was switching their allegiances. The SNP could now challenge Labour in its industrial urban heartlands. We explained then, as now, that the SNP gain only because of Labour's continuing failure to present the working people of Scotland (and the whole UK) with a Socialist programme.