When is a tax break for Glaswegians a bad thing? According to the SNP and Greens it is when it’s delivered by Westminster.
The recent cuts to National Insurance contributions, saving the average Scottish worker £340 a year which will help with the cost-of-living pressures, is a gift to the rich and wealthy we are told.
Let us not forget, also, that in SNP/Green run Scotland it is people like shop managers, police officers or nurses who are deemed to be rich and wealthy and, as a result, get hammered in additional income tax.
Strangely though, a different tax break a freeze to council tax, announced to get a cheer at his party conference by Humza Yousaf, is a good thing as it will help struggling households with their living costs. Incidentally, the SNP/Greens will raise it by 10% over the following two years irrespective of cost-of-living pressures but when the election is out of the way – funny that.
It was that council tax freeze as well as a few crumbs to Glaswegians such as not increasing bin collections to four-weekly (thanks for nothing) and a paltry £4 million or so for the city’s shameful roads and footpaths- which is a bit like buying a sponge for someone knee deep in water from flood damage.
The bigger story however, hidden away in the small print of the SNP/Green budget are lines which talk of “realising efficiency savings...over three years in education services” and to “generate additional revenue including…Transient Visitor Levy (Tourist tax), congestion charging and workplace parking levy”.
That is the real story of this appalling SNP/Green budget.
Interestingly the potential tens of millions of cuts to education services could not be found in the education section. It was, instead, hidden away in savings options to the chief executive’s office section which is usually where savings to council administration and bureaucracy are to be found.
That is how much they attempted to hide their shame.
Poor Glasgow…
When questioned about the impact of education cuts, the SNP extoled how virtuous they had been in protecting education from potential cuts for years.
The real reason however is much more stark, they didn’t cut because there was no excess to cut. Be assured, we are now cutting into vital provision, and it is their own impact assessment on these cuts that talks of the significant impact on the poorest and most vulnerable children. As a former head teacher, I know how difficult it is to recruit high quality leaders to Glasgow to address our poor attainment record under the SNP.
Well, we’ve just made that even harder and its Glasgow’s children who will pay the price.
Out city centre, still recovering from the pandemic as well as hardworking staff using their cars to get to work are to be clobbered by further taxes by this tin eared SNP/Green administration who know how to spend other people’s money rather than invest in ways to help Glaswegians generate wealth.
Poor Glasgow…
Finally, when they blame (and they will) Westminster and Tories and austerity for being behind all these cuts, please remember the hundreds of millions wasted on undelivered ferries, on the failed Deposit Return Scheme and embassies to push their independence obsession at every turn.
They have the funds for their own vanity projects but apparently not for Glasgow’s children.
As my colleague Thomas Kerr wrote last week, the Glasgow Conservatives tried to shape a budget outside of the current mindset of the SNP/Greens where we proposed looking again at for example, at Glasgow’s rush to be carbon neutral (Net Zero) an astonishing 15 years ahead of the rest of Scotland. We were unsuccessful.
Apparently cuts to Glasgow children’s education is more palatable than messing with SNP council leader and Green Party enabler, Susan Aitken’s, “legacy”.
Poor Glasgow.
