Time running out for Labour as Anas Sarwar facing questions over what he will do in defeat rather than victory

The Scottish Labour leader thinks the national polls, that puts his party way behind the SNP, do not tell the full story and that in around 40 constituencies, mostly in the Central Belt, his party can edge out the nationalists.

But with just a week to go until voters, many utterly unenthused with what’s on offer from Scotland’s political parties, decide who to back - it is clear that Labour’s campaign has not done enough to engage with the public on the level Mr Sarwar and his inner circle will have hoped.

Mr Sarwar launched the key policies a government under him would introduce in the first 100 days of forming a new Scottish government, but the set-piece illustrated the optics of Labour chasing the SNP.

READ MORE: Will Anas Sarwar's Labour manifesto of ambition and wishful thinking sway voters

Journalists were told to meet outside the Scottish Parliament, but Labour staffers had to break it to reporters that they are not allowed to film on the Holyrood estate and a change of venue was being forced upon Mr Sarwar.

“I thought this was meant to be an end to the incompetence”, one journalist joked.

READ MORE: Anas Sarwar insists he can defy polling by using 'sophisticated' campaign to target knife-edge seats

Mr Sarwar’s first 100 days pitch includes getting to work on cutting NHS waiting lists - with a focus on sending patients to other health boards to get things moving.

But Mr Sarwar has struggled to get his key offers of change across in a toxic campaign overshadowed by a very public and vocal shouting match with Reform’s Malcolm Offord and more chaos facing Labour at Westminster.

Just a week away from polling day, Mr Sarwar is instead facing a raft of questions from journalists over what he will do if he loses, rather than if he wins. There will be no peerage accepted, he insists.

Scottish Labour are by no means out of the race to form the next Scottish government, but it will take some doing.

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But any slim chance of a Scottish Labour government will require Mr Sarwar to work with his opponents. Judging by the pretty hostile campaign so far, that prospect looks far less likely than Mr Sarwar leading Scottish Labour into his second straight futile Holyrood election.