Tuesday July 30th 2024
Christine Grahame MSP writes her monthly column for Midlothian View
Well Labour has a whopping majority on 34% of the UK vote on a 60% turnout. Indeed in Scotland with 37% of the vote it took 37 seats while the SNP with 30% of the vote took 9. Is this democracy? This is no colossal endorsement of Labour.
Now it has shown its true blue colours. Sticking as it promised to Tory austerity it has gone for the most vulnerable. First the families on Universal Credit with more than two children. No help with any other children that is unless you can establish that was as a result of rape. Next the pensioners with not a cheep about removing the £200 Winter Fuel Payment unless you are on Pension credit or other benefits pre election. Now there is an argument that it should not have been universal (though some will just be above the cut off) but the Labour government is well aware that across the UK 40% of pensioners entitled to that credit don’t claim it. In Midlothian alone there are according to the latest figures 92 households which do not claim pension credit but could and therefore will also lose out that £200.
We are being told that this is all because Labour has discovered a £22 billion black hole in funds in the Treasury. It came, they claim as a complete surprise. But wait a wee moment. During the election the Office of Budget Responsibility, the OBR warned that there was an £18 billion funding gap, whoever won. The SNP warned and warned about this but it was denied by both Labour and the Tories. So we were treated to the usual guff when a new government takes over.
Why when they opened the books what a surprise! Remember when the Tories took over from Labour in 2010 and claimed there was a note left saying there was no money.
The beginning of the attack on the vulnerable in society has just started. Next will come tax hikes. despite promises not to increase taxes on “working people.” Is that all people who work?
What they could do is reduce the tax-free allowance on pay-packets and raise more tax. Raise inheritance tax and you don’t have to be rich to have to pay that already. Motor Vehicle Duty? Excise duty? All those “stealth taxes” we are lumbered with day in day out.
Watch this space. The reality is we do not have a Labour government we have at best Tory-lite. Not one of the 37 Scottish Labour MPs voted to get rid of the Two Child Benefit cap. Those 7 principled souls who did have been cast out of the party for 6 months. For defending the vulnerable and poor!
Yet Labour used to call itself socialist. Mind you that word doesn’t cross Sir Keir Starmer lips. As for Labour in the Scottish Parliament just as predicted, they will acquiesce to the benefit cap, to the removal of the Winter Fuel Payment because they are after all, just a branch office, genuflecting to a knight of the realm.
Tweet Share on Facebook
