The Battle for Scotland: red faced unpopular Nicola Sturgeon faces the possibility of Court action as SNP Government excludes four Labour Councils from talks on funding, the slum she represents is collapsing as squalor, filth and sex crime run rampant in her constituency, Sturgeon wouldn’t venture in without her armed police escort!

Dear All

The SNP like to pretend that they are stronger for Scotland, the evidence however points to something else, yes; if you had a guess it is incompetence.

When spending cuts come down the line; the SNP Government like to pass as much as possible on to Councils while at the same time tying their hands financially.

 Glasgow has suffered a ridiculous £130 million pound cut to the Council budget, in order to keep services at the same level, the council has had to dip into its reverses of which 40% had to be committed to keep spend at present levels.

I have to say that many liked the council tax freeze however the downside was that cuts to services had to be made and also staff didn’t get replaced; putting a strain on the existing staff. What should have happened was the SNP Government should have allowed councils flexible to increase council tax by around 3% and bank the money into its reserves.

It is dangerous to allow council reserves to be depleted so much for ‘general spend’ when the purpose is for emergencies.

After all, it’s not a piggy bank!

I have said in the past councils need to be reformed, so what does reform mean?

I mean that councils have to generate more income by encouraging use and uptake of council services marketed to make a profit while at the same time keeping the public services ethos.      

Councils can just be seen as financial black holes were money goes in from government and commercial activities are an ‘add on’. If private companies can make profits so can a council, but it will come down to business expertise, getting the right people in place and being pro-active.

It seems that the SNP Government have done something which the SNP is famous for, pass the buck on to someone else to fix their problems; councils have been used as a scapegoat to prop up Sturgeon’s failing government.

The SNP have no vision, and the tat they come out with is at best meagre, it’s all about trying to do things on the cheap under the pretend of helping to achieve quality of life. Here is a story, my friend’s mum is 70 plus, heart and lung problems, and had a spiral facture to her femur after a bad fall. She had to wait two years for a stair lift to allow her to get up the stairs to be allowed to sleep in her own bedroom.

Two years!

Where was her quality of life being forced to sleep downstairs trapped in the living room? Her case was taken up by her son and what a bloody fight he had with the ‘josbworth’ in the council who failed to address the needs of this disabled woman. She was completely failed by the system, and I doubt she isn’t the only one, when you cuts budgets people in genuine need suffer.

Two years of her life taken away from her by a system in need of overhaul not just in the sense of getting enough for the budget but the application of support on the ground. I use this case to show that a council which is starved of funds has to string people out by making them jump through hoops when they should be processing their claim to get the equipment they need.      

Things seem to be coming to ahead as some Scotland’s biggest councils have issued First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with threats of court action over claims of imposed multi-million pound cuts.

So, what happens if the SNP Government gets served with a judicial writ over its position on excluding the rebel councils from formal talks on the financing local Government, we could see a nasty and protracted court case; fights over money are rarely civil.

Recently an independence supporter remarked to me that ‘no one’ was standing up for Glasgow in the SNP Cabinet, I am not surprised as I said before Nicola Sturgeon isn’t interested in Glasgow and its people, and I also previously remarked on the lack of ‘born and bred’ Glaswegians in the SNP elected ranks in the city.

Glasgow, Aberdeen, South Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire left Cosla, Scotland’s main local government body, over funding from Holyrood, I am not sure of the ins and outs of whether that was a good move however, they thought that Cosla wasn’t working properly and provided them with little benefit.

The SNP Government have said that while it is required by law to have dialogue with councils it will only negotiate with Cosla on council funding.

In what will be a very heated election years coming up with council elections, you have to wonder what the ‘wisdom’ is by the SNP Government in having this fight, is there is a law that says the SNP Government can only negotiate with Cosla on council funding?

If there isn’t; you have to wonder what legal basis the SNP Government is banking on as a ‘defence’?

Since the SNP don’t do Law well or government, maybe they should do the right once someone external tell them what the right thing is, clearly they are grandstanding.

Mark Macmillan, leader of Renfrewshire Council, said:

“The Government’s talks on the next funding settlement have already begun without us and in these we expect some of the biggest budget cuts ever seen. If she maintains her current plan to pass down these cuts without one single meaningful conversation, she is effectively turning her back on 25 per cent of the population, including those in her own constituency.

“This is why we have sought independent legal advice and after careful consideration we have grounds to serve the First Minister and her Government with a judicial review writ at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.”

The lie that Nicola Sturgeon standing up for Glasgow exposed again!

Finally in local news from the Govanhill ‘ghetto’ which Nicola Sturgeon’s represents, the slum has been outed for its squalor, filth and sex crime in the constituency which has been branded the ‘shame of Scotland’.

The area is a haven for illegal immigration and organised crime where women cannot walk the streets without fear of being robbed or raped. Sturgeon only visits with armed police officers in tow because presumably she fears for her safety when visiting in daylight hours. One wonders if according to locals why it takes more than a week for Ms Sturgeon to respond to requests for help.

Could it be she doesn’t care?

Yours sincerely

George Laird 

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University