Dear Rachel Reeves: What Shona Robison should really say about cuts

Real polite.

Maybe too polite.

Sometimes words of one syllable are needed to rebut prize-winning hypocrisy.

Now I don’t agree with every word of your cuts statement. But the crass double standards from opposition politicians on radio the next morning made me spit bricks. Evidently, politicians cannae dae that. So, here’s a letter on your behalf to Rachel Reeves who thinks she can stick the boot in whilst preparing to enact epic public spending cuts.

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Dear Rachel,

I start with an apology.

I assumed Labour meant what it said during a General Election campaign when you all insisted there would be no spending cuts. I did read Anas Sarwar’s lips and despite grave misgivings, kinda believed him because I wanted to. Silly, silly, silly me.

I assumed a new responsible Labour government would accept and fully fund the pay awards recommended by statutory pay award bodies after years of “talk to the hand” by the Tories.

Aye, what a daftie.

You’ve cut and run.

I also assumed there would be no Winter Fuel Payment cuts because that was not mentioned in your manifesto. Of course, I now realise getting a mandate to hammer pensioners is a nicety for you – an old-fashioned convention we observe but you don’t. I also assumed we all agreed that the Scottish Parliament should reflect the needs and desires of Scots, not Westminster. So, let’s see. Almost 70 years voting Labour or SNP kinda proves that Scots believe in progressive taxation – higher taxes for the rich.

So, we’re doing what our voters want – raising taxes on top earners to help fund public services. According to the BBC even, that’s produced an extra £1.5billion for us to spend on services.

Meanwhile, since the “powerful” Scottish Parliament cannot borrow a bawbee, we can only use the levers Labour gave us – raising taxes and/or cutting spending because we must produce a balanced budget. You should try it sometime.

And if your “socialist” party (stop tittering) had any gumption, you’d have sorted your own spending black hole by taxing the wealthy too.

Yet your guys have the nerve to insist we should be following your feart taxation models – my arse.

Mind you, thanks for the GB Energy HQ in Aberdeen. Not much of an exchange though, for our wind energy you are horsing south – thanks to the English renewables’ deficit caused by the petrolheid Tories ludicrous wind farm ban.

I’m sure you’d (secretly) like to congratulate Alex Salmond (below) and subsequent SNP governments for ignoring the constraints of devolution, which gives Westminster total control over energy, and using planning instead to approve wind farms.

(Image: Colin Mearns)

Because if we had followed Westminster, or had no Scottish Parliament, a complaint by one single local objector would have meant no wind energy anywhere in Britain for ten years.

You’re welcome.

And on those higher pay settlements Labour has the audacity to criticise, maybe you remember the regional economic strategies embraced by Labour prime ministers like Harold Wilson?

They still operate elsewhere to counteract the inevitable flow of jobs, people and investment to the most populous, highly paid parts of a country – in our case, the south of England. Scotland has to fight for its right to hire and retain nurses, teachers and doctors – so you bet we pay top dollar where possible, because as you guys fiddle about half-heartedly with 'levelling up', we must

We've also created a consensual pay bargaining process that stands in progressive contrast to the posturing Big Man crap from Boris Johnson who boldly confronted the unions no matter the disruption, cancelled operations, stranded commuters and billions of pounds lost through strikes with workers he’d have been forced to settle with if he hadn’t been chibbed out of office first.

FFS.

So let me get this right. You and your Scottish branch members really think we should’ve copied Boris/Liz/Rishi and failed to deliver reasonable wage rises when we could? Rises you’ve now copied but failed to fully fund? Get out of here.

(Image: PA)

Yes, we need to grow our economy.

That would be easier with access to the European Union and its workforce. So cheers to Keir for birling round Paris and Berlin with meaningless talk of a “reset”, which makes heehaw difference to anyone.

We’ve proposed devolving immigration to Holyrood – which got a big deafie from you and the Tories – and our fallback is a Scottish Rural Workers’ Visa and a Scottish Students Visa. Even the Scottish Tories agree with that. But no, not you.

Anything that recognises Scotland as a country, a place, a physical and social entity called a blinkin nation is too hot to trot for Labour. You’re too busy wrapping yourselves in the Union Flag to hear the needs of the devolved parliaments you created.

So, here’s the thing.

We would have no black holes if you did the right thing and embraced the progressive changes we’ve trail-blazed. If you axed the Bedroom Tax as Ian Murray promised (hollow laughter), that would return £133.7m per annum to Scottish Government coffers.

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Likewise, if you adopted the Scottish Child Payment UK-wide – described by Prof Danny Dorling as the single greatest impact on poverty anywhere in Europe – that would save Scotland a further £329m per annum. Instead, you’re setting up a taskforce for new ideas to tackle child poverty.

WTAF.

Cute though.

The best we can do is hatch good progressive ideas in the hope you adopt them UK-wide (without acknowledgement obvs) cos we ain’t got the cash to fund them long term. You’re getting ideas trialled whilst neatly undermining the Scottish Parliament. Just like the timing of your fiscal process.

We’ll get our actual budget sometime after your “painful” budget on October 30th. Maybe by early 2025. Yet we need to craft a Scottish budget now.

Cheers for that.

We could raise more cash in the medium term and meet a manifesto promise by replacing council tax with a land tax – indeed our conference voted through just such a proposal last weekend along with an STUC-backed motion on a wealth tax. You remember the trade unions, Rachel (below).

Unbelievably though, we apparently need your freaking permission to create a new national tax. So the motion suggested councils administer local land taxes to whack large landowners currently paying nothing (alone in Europe) and deliver that cash to a new body funding affordable housing.

Sweet, eh?

Again, if you feel like copying, you’re welcome. Now of course this radical idea is scaring our own civil servants shitless.

But if the move raises anything like the £250 million a year predicted by proposer, Chris Hanlon, we’ll look at it.

So, stand by for a new Land Tax request, and don’t think you’ll use a Scotland Act veto like His Worshipful Baron Alister Jack. Remember – they’re Tories, you’re Labour. How will it look? Land tax is a redistributive, long overdue and very popular measure. Live with it or reap the political whirlwind.

Finally, a word to the Scottish public: I’d like to apologise for under valuing the ScotWind license sale, where we raised 1/18th of the dosh we should have earned by applying a nonsensical cap. Colour us stupid for listening to the timid predictions of our own officials and not renewables experts and think tanks like Common Weal. We’re sorry for viewing this incredible renewable resource through the “hands off” and “anything to placate the private sector” lens of Britishness.

It won’t happen again.

We’re pushing the boat out.

Catch us if you can.

Yours

Scotland’s Finance Secretary – dictated in her absence.