Dr Steven Harkins
Lecturer at the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Stirling.
Scottish Election 2026
Section 2: News, media and journalism
- News consumption in Scotland (Dr Camila Montalverne)
- TikTok’s For You Page recommendations during the Scottish Parliament election (Dr Dayei Oh, Dr Chamil Rathnayake)
- From participation to consumption? Youth engagement and “parasocial media” (Dr James Dennis)
- The battle for trust in the Holyrood election (Prof Catherine Happer, Dr James Morrison, Dr Lluis de Nadal)
- Polls over policy in UK-wide TV news coverage of Elections (Dr Maxwell Modell, Dr Keighley Perkins, Prof Stephen Cushion)
- Legacy news coverage of the election – Leaders debate and press coverage (Dr Steven Harkins)
- All right, own up, who let the woman in? (Dr Fiona McKay, Dr Melody House)
- Negotiations of the constitutional question (Dr Maike Dinger)
“Today, I own six houses, five cars and six boats” Malcolm Offord said during the TV leaders’ debate. The line became one of the most memorable soundbites of the 2026 Holyrood election campaign. “In your Scotland, do you want more people like me, or fewer people like me?” he asked Ross Greer.
The Scottish Green co-leader’s blunt reply, “fewer people like you”, captured, in a single exchange, the stark ideological divide between the two parties.
These positions have clear public appeal as both parties made significant electoral gains. Reform UK returned 17 MSPs through the regional list system, while the Scottish Green Party won Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Southside and added 13 list MSPs. Reflecting on the tone of the debate, Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said “looking at this display, no wonder people are losing faith in politics. We deserve better than this, this squabbling and blame game”. Emphasising the cost-of-living crisis and pressures on the NHS, Cole-Hamilton increased his party’s representation to ten MSPs, gaining six seats but losing the Shetland constituency to the SNP.
The SNP remained the biggest party by returning 58 MSPs, down six from the previous election. Its leader, John Swinney, used the debate to highlight achievements such as free prescriptions and scrapping off-peak rail fares while deflecting criticism towards Westminster. “Scotland is an energy-rich country,” he argued, “and we don’t see the benefits… of our energy wealth because it’s siphoned off by a UK government”. An audience member countered this narrative by asking “What’s the point in the First Minister’s office, then, if you can’t do anything?”.
Labour leader Anas Sarwar appealed to the debate audience by saying that “You’ve given John Swinney 20, give me five [years]”. Labour lost four seats, finishing level with Reform UK on 17 MSPs as the joint second-largest party. The most dramatic losses were suffered by the Conservative Party, which fell by 19 seats to just 12 MSPs. Its leader, Russell Findlay, cast himself as a political outsider who had entered politics because he was “sick to death of seeing the state of our country”, and positioning his party as the only way “to stop that SNP majority that John Swinney thinks he’s got in the bag”.
This debate was an example of what academics have described as the “strategic” or “game frame”. Rather than a sustained engagement with policy details, the discussion was anchored around electoral positioning and criticism of opponents. Policy issues like rail fares, GP clinics, the economy, immigration and North Sea energy were discussed. However, these were only tackled in a superficial way as ammunition to support the relative strategic frame of each leader. One audience member critiqued this format by saying that “what I’ve heard tonight is why we shouldn’t vote… all we’re hearing is squabbling.”
Broadcast coverage of the election is regulated by Ofcom who expect programmes to adhere to guidelines around “due impartiality”. Constitutional referenda have complicated the traditional two-party binary of Labour/Conservative in UK politics because of the emergence of other binaries such as Yes/No and Leave/Remain. This makes impartial news coverage difficult for broadcasters. Furthermore, it has challenged the very nature of the two-party system as the popularity of Reform UK, the SNP and Plaid Cymru grows.
Print journalism has no such impartiality regime, and partisan support for political parties during election season is a key part of an election campaign. The Daily Express was the only newspaper endorsing a candidate on election day, featuring Russell Findlay on its front page with a quote about how another independence referendum is “the last thing Scotland needs”. The Daily Mail and the Sun opted for negative coverage of the SNP on election day. An illustration in the Sun showed a burning SNP campaign bus linking John Swinney with previous leaders Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon. The Daily Record and The Times focused on the story of an SNP councillor convicted of sexual assault. In contrast, The National urged its readers to “Vote for Independence”. Both The Herald and the Scotsman focused on election polls and undecided voters respectively, clearly reflecting the game frame. The specific details of the Scottish election were ignored by the Daily Mirror, the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian as they focussed on UK political figures such as Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer.
Press and TV coverage of UK elections still play an important role in shaping the public debate and a significant number of people still get their news from legacy platforms despite the growing popularity of social media. The leaders’ debate was framed through strategic positioning over policy, and the print media coverage that did not follow this format linked the election to each newspaper’s editorial stance on the broad constitutional debate about Scottish independence.
The exchange between Ross Greer and Malcolm Offord could have led to a more in-depth discussion about the economic policy that underpinned each position. Instead, the “game frame” soundbites diminish the media’s democratic function of informing the public about policy issues.
