John Daly: 'Residents are being asked to pay more for less'
The current SNP-Green administration – while they might officially not be a coalition anymore – the Green tail is very much still wagging the SNP dog – used the event to blame everyone but themselves, while shifting the burden for their failures onto taxpayers.
Just as we have had an SNP government at Holyrood for 18 years with a woeful record and trigger-happy, tax-raising figures, Glaswegians are also suffering after eight years of the SNP running the council and presiding over a city that is looking tired, dirty, and unloved.
My inbox continues to reflect the frustration of Glaswegians about the state of their city.
Birmingham may be grabbing the headlines at the moment as a result of strike action, but Glasgow has a waste and vermin problem which many residents now see as endemic.
At the same time, other council services, including roads, maintenance and most significantly perhaps, education, have seen significant cuts too.
All this at a time when council taxpayers across Scotland continue to be hit by big increases; residents are asking, quite rightly, why am I paying more for less?
Step forward the SNP government, which has emasculated much of local government by hoarding money for their own pet projects at the expense of the vital cash it sends to local councils.
The totality of the Scottish Government's proportion of its block grant sent to local authorities has fallen by 9 per cent since 2010.
That means this is not a problem created by big bad Westminster (the SNP's forever villain) but made here, in Scotland, by the financial incompetence of them and their friends in the Greens.
That's why residents of Glasgow saw a huge 7.5 per cent increase in their council tax bills this year.
The SNP city council has to fill the gap left by the SNP government.
In addition to that you, the hard-pressed council tax payer, already hit by higher income tax rates in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, are further hit, locally, to help make their sums add up.
The SNP justified the increase with an appeal to Glaswegians to trust them and that 2.5 per cent of the increase would go towards creating new cleansing teams to give the city the "deep clean" that it needs.
Glaswegians are being asked to pay over and above, just to keep the city at the bare minimum of cleanliness.
Let's not forget that Susan Aitken, the SNP council leader, alleged that all that Glasgow needed was, and I quote, "a wee spruce up."
Well, Susan, that spruce up is costing Glaswegians dearly.
At a time when the cost of the daily basics like food and electricity have soared, local people are being made to pay more for basic services from an administration that refuses to believe that there is anything much wrong with the state of our city anyway.
At a recent committee meeting, SNP deputy councillor leader and mastermind of this council tax raid on citizens, Ricky Bell, assured me personally that this additional council tax increase would result in a "noticeable and tangible difference" to communities.
We all are aware of the worth of SNP promises so I promise Glasgow Times readers that myself and the other Scottish Conservative elected representatives Annie Wells and Sandesh Gulhane, plan to hold him and the city council to account as this pledge is rolled out.
Don't hold your breath...
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
13 minutes ago
- The Guardian
No fear or favours: how Corbyn and Sultana's party could blow up British politics
New political parties have a patchy record in British politics. Take Change UK, which launched amid much fanfare in the spring of 2019 and had disbanded by the end of the same year. So can Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana fare any better? In part it depends on the question you ask. The new and as-yet unnamed leftwing party formally announced by Corbyn and his fellow ex-Labour MP on Thursday, has one major advantage at its disposal: the former Labour leader's very strong public profile. According to a rolling YouGov poll of politicians' name recognition, Corbyn is known by 98% of voters, more than Keir Starmer or Nigel Farage. 'Everyone knows who Jeremy Corbyn is, everyone knows who he stands for. And with any new party, that is not even half the battle. It's three-quarters of the battle,' said Robert Ford, a professor of political science at Manchester University. 'A lot of people don't like what he stands for, but that doesn't matter, because he's not aiming for everyone.' That is the second likely advantage for the organisation, launched under the interim title of 'Your Party'. Unlike Change UK, a collection of centrist MPs who defected from Labour and the Conservatives, or indeed unlike Corbyn's task when he led Labour, there is no need to temper opinions to court the middle ground. Co-led by Corbyn and Sultana, the party is explicitly aiming itself at left-leaning voters who until now are likely to have backed Labour, the Greens or the collection of Gaza-focused independents who saw off Labour candidates in four constituencies in last year's election. 'With the best will in the world, not even Zarah Sultana, I suspect, is expecting Jeremy Corbyn to be the next prime minister,' Ford said. 'That's not the purpose of it. The purpose of it is to offer an outlet for those who think Labour have driven too far to the right. So he doesn't have the same problem that he and his advisers had a few years ago.' Polling before the party launched suggested it could gather as much as 10% of the vote nationally. However, new parties traditionally struggle to maintain momentum, and turning polls into votes relies on building an effective campaign machine, which is tricky to do from scratch. All this could make for a complex picture at a constituency level, with Ford noting that it could variously make electoral life harder or easier for Labour MPs, depending on the location and context. For example, even a 5% haul for a Corbyn-Sultana candidate could mean the difference between Labour win or a loss to the Conservatives or Reform UK. The new venture could also scupper the Greens in their hopes of taking seats from Labour in the 40 areas where they finished second in 2024, given its likely appeal to some Green voters. The Greens have dismissed the opening statement from the new party for making 'only a passing glance to the climate crisis', saying this left them stuck in the past, and it is possible that Corbyn's main electoral hunting ground will be voters sympathetic to the Gaza-focused independents. The only Labour response has been a brief and scathing party source quote about the electorate having 'twice given its verdict on a Jeremy Corbyn-led party', in the 2017 and 2019 elections. But the new party is different in its aims, and, politically, 2025 is not 2019. An ostensibly new party, Reform UK, is leading the polls, even if it is Nigel Farage's third incarnation of Ukip, which can trace its history back more than 30 years. And voter loyalties, which were once relatively fixed, are more fluid than ever. One thing, however, is constant: the identity of the co-protagonist. Corbyn has a name, but also political baggage, and a reputation for occasional prickliness and falling out with people. The launch of the new party has been slightly stumbling, with allies of Corbyn making plain their annoyance when Sultana announced herself as co-leader of a new group in June. It is also unusual to launch a new party without having agreed on a name. Can Corbyn and Sultana confound the historical odds? To an extent it doesn't entirely matter. In the currently fragmented multiparty world, even moderate success could have a disproportionate impact.
Telegraph
13 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Alex Salmond cleared of historical sexual assault claim
An allegation of historical sexual assault against the late Alex Salmond has been dismissed after a police investigation. Police Scotland said no further action will be taken following a complaint made last year in the wake of the former first minister's death, aged 69. Mr Salmond, who left the SNP in 2018 and later established the pro-independence Alba Party, suffered a heart attack and died while attending a conference in North Macedonia in October 2024. One month later, the national force said it had received a report of a 'non-recent sexual assault'. It is understood that the case has been closed owing to insufficient evidence. A report was not submitted to the Crown Office. Mr Salmond served as first minister under the SNP from 2007 to 2014 and led the party through the independence referendum. He resigned from the party in 2018 when allegations of sexual misconduct emerged and ultimately set up the Alba Party in 2021. His latter years were, however, dominated by claims and counter claims about his conduct. In 2019, Mr Salmond successfully sued the Scottish government, led by his former protégé Nicola Sturgeon, for its handling of an investigation into complaints of sexual harassment made against him. 'Tainted with bias' He was awarded £500,000 after the inquiry was ruled to be 'tainted with apparent bias'. The former first minister was subsequently charged with 13 sexual offences, including attempted rape, but was acquitted on all counts after the 2020 trial. During his evidence to the court, Mr Salmond said he had a 'sleepy cuddle' with one complainer in his official residence. However, he described the claims made about his alleged conduct as 'deliberate fabrications for a political purpose' or 'exaggerations'. Mr Salmond's lawyer told the court the former first minister 'could certainly have been a better man' but had not committed any crimes. He said that his client had sometimes behaved badly, calling him 'touchy-feely'. A Holyrood inquiry into the government's handling of complaints against Mr Salmond found Ms Sturgeon had misled MSPs over a meeting with her predecessor in her home in 2018, but cleared her of breaching the ministerial code. Following the trial, Mr Salmond repeatedly claimed that many in his former party had colluded against him in an effort to block his return to frontline politics. On Thursday, a Police Scotland spokesperson said: 'Following a report of a non-recent sexual assault, enquiries were carried out and no further action will be taken.'
South Wales Guardian
19 minutes ago
- South Wales Guardian
Council recognising their town's link with Gaza is ‘important' says Jewish group
Last week, Hastings Borough Council, in east Sussex, passed a motion to back an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to all arms sales to Israel and to support the town's friendship links with the people of Al-Mawasi – a section of the Gaza strip. The decision comes after multiple attempts over the past 21 months to bring a ceasefire motion prior to the recent local elections, which changed the make-up of the council. The motion was carried by a majority of 14 Green and Hastings Independent Group MPs, with three voting against and 11 abstentions, mostly from Labour councillors. Hastings Jews for Justice have welcomed the decision, they said: 'We stand with the Palestinians in Gaza who are being slaughtered and starved right now and we demand immediate action of our politicians. 'We applaud all the councillors who chose to stand on the right side of history and used their voice and their vote to fight these crimes against humanity. 'And we reject the idea, shared by several Labour councillors during the debate, that standing up for a people facing genocide is an attack on Jewish people in our community or 'divisive'.' Proposing the motion, Green Party councillor Yunis Smith said: 'We must ask ourselves, when the dust settles, will we have done enough? Will we be able to say that we stood up even when it was difficult? 'Or will we, like generations before us, say that we saw the signs and still we did nothing?' In December 2023, Al-Mawasi was designated a safe zone by the IDF and Palestinians were urged repeatedly to relocate to the area. Since then, the area has been repeatedly attacked, one of the most deadly was July 13 2024, where Israeli jets bombed Al-Mawasi, killing 90 people and injuring 300 displaced Palestinians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. Hastings Friends of Al-Mawasi group has been building a friendship and language exchange with the Palestinian area over the past few years. Mr Smith said: 'From one coastal town to another, we've shown that solidarity, dignity and human connection shine brighter than cruelty, 'Al-Mawasi, like Hastings, is defined not just by its land but by the resilience of its people. They survive, endure and beckon us to witness their struggle and their strength.' Hastings has become the most recent in a line of UK councils to pass a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Hastings Jews for Justice added: 'This is an important act of solidarity with a people who are being made to suffer in the most horrific ways imaginable and we are determined to show that as British Jews it is not in our names.' The Green leader of the council, Councillor Glen Haffenden, has reportedly received more emails on this subject from his residents than on any other subject since becoming a councillor. Hastings campaign group Friends of Al-Mawasi says there has been a 'marked escalation of threatening and abusive behaviour' towards anyone in the town showing sympathy or support for Palestine over the past few weeks. Sussex Police have confirmed that an investigation is ongoing after a woman was allegedly assaulted while wearing a Keffiyah at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill.
