SNP Transport minister Keith Brown accused of having “perverse set of priorities” as money is pumped into Alex Salmond heartlands, poor government!

Dear All

The Scottish Government really has got the wrong priorities in so many areas; they are going to end up a laughing stock.

In the first term of the Parliament the SNP used a consensus approach were they incorporated some of the ideas from other parties to their benefit.

After the landslide of 2011 we have seen a new style SNP Government, ineffectual, clumsy, ham fisted, wrong headed, dim, un-invented and generally pish!

If it is a simple choice between doing the right thing or fucking it all up at every level, the latter seems to be the preferred option.

Like a child, this government needs others to do their thinking for them, and wipe their political arse, Westminster is charged at present with the task.

The latest and in writing this post I am mindful something else could happen at any moment, the Scottish Government has been accused in a report of having a “perverse set of priorities” in relation to green transport.

Specifically, Keith Brown is accused by Transform Scotland of subsidising more road use while backing away from green initiatives.

As I see SNP, I think that the problem is that the priorities are to give everything to the East Coast and leave the West coast with scraps.

Many commentators particularly Labour run with a campaign of the SNP ripping off Glasgow. An effective campaign which saw the SNP lost the council election in Glasgow in the most humiliating fashion.

When quizzed what has the SNP done for Glasgow, then SNP leader Allison Hunter blurted out the New Southern General and then stalled, repeating a road building project which incidentally the Labour council played a role in.

Transform Scotland, which campaigns for more sustainable transport, accused the SNP administration of accelerating work to dual the A9 road from Perth to Inverness.

The A9 is a dangerous road, but perhaps the fact the SNP leader lives in the North East Coast of Scotland may help in focussing minds to where money is spent.

The loser in spending appears to be the savage cuts to electrify the rail network in central Scotland.

Its report said:

“It is clear that the path towards a sustainable transport system in Scotland remains long and challenging. Most damagingly, the Scottish Government’s own investment agenda has decisively moved to subsidising increased road use and away from investing in sustainable transport. Its announcements over summer 2012 - an acceleration of plans for dualling of the A9 while savagely cutting back the scope of rail electrification in the Central Belt - demonstrate a perverse set of priorities, suited neither to tackle the environmental crisis nor the need for development of sustainable economic growth.”

Transform Scotland researcher Sandra Wechner, one of the report’s co-authors, said that while there were some “hopeful signs” on transport policy, “the overall picture is fairly bleak, with increases in greenhouse emissions from transport and serious public health problems from air pollution”.

Alex Salmond has said he had a 'wealth of talent' and not enough Cabinet positions recently, the reality is that he is poverty stricken policy wise with the wrong approach to government.

Good news?

Yes, if you are a member of the opposition, this looks like a government increasingly on the slow road to defeat.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University