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...
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