New Laboured All Over Again In Scotland

John Beattie writes: 

The rest of the UK could be forgiven for thinking that the SNP is a left-wing party.

It says on its Twitter page that it is a centre left and social democratic party.

Whenever the SNP is featured on prominent political shows like Question Time or leaders’ debates at election time, social media is awash with people from all over the UK saying they want to move to Scotland or that they want the SNP to stand candidates in England and Wales. 

This is highly amusing to those of us who live in Scotland and experience the reality of 10 years of SNP governance. 

Behind the SNP’s smoke and mirrors is a record of failure, upper-class freebies and increasing poverty and inequality in Scotland. 

Many of its supporters are guilty of cherry-picking specific issues and using them as justification for their claim that the SNP is doing great within the realm of the devolved areas.

However, the reality is somewhat different. 

For example, the SNP and its supporters claim that the Scottish NHS is “better than in England.” 

This appears to be the nationalists’ benchmark, as long as it is a little bit better than the savage Tory government’s record in England. 

However, this is done to mask their failures. 

The example they persistently use is NHS accident and emergency waiting times in Scotland. 

It is true that recently, Scotland has had the best record for patients being seen within four hours. 

This is lauded by the SNP and its supporters as proof that the SNP is doing a good job in Scotland’s NHS. 

However, while they laud this, they are sweeping grave problems under the rug. 

Cancer patient waiting time targets have been deteriorating in Scotland. 

The Scottish government target is that 95 per cent of cancer patients will wait no more than 31 days for a decision to treat cancer and wait no more than 62 days from referral to get their treatment. 

Across Scotland, NHS statistics show that the 31-day target has dropped from 97.8 per cent in 2011 to 94.1 per cent by the end of 2016. Recently it has moved back up to 94.9 per cent. 

The 62-day turnaround target has dropped from 96.3 per cent to 88.6 per cent in the same period. It now stands at 88.1 per cent.

One can only imagine the worry this will cause those who are concerned about the progress of their cancer. 

There is also a developing crisis of treatment waiting times in the Scottish NHS. 

In 2012 the SNP implemented a legally binding guarantee that patients would be treated within 12 weeks. 

In 2015, the number of people waiting longer than the 12-week target was 1,759 patients and that had increased to 11,168 as of March 2017. 

Health isn’t the only devolved area where the SNP has received much criticism; it has also been condemned over its track record in education. 

Literacy and numeracy skills among Scottish children have been declining under SNP control. 

The party has received most criticism in relation to the attainment gap. 

Poorer Scottish children are falling further behind their wealthier counterparts, and, lagging behind their English counterparts, which ironically contradicts the “better than in England” nationalist mantra. 

Overall, Scottish schools have been cut to the extent of more than £1 billion under the SNP. 

The SNP plan to tackle 10 years of failure in Scottish education is to hand head teachers in Scotland £120 million to try to clean up the mess the SNP has made via constant local authority budget cuts. 

Interestingly, this approach places responsibility for closing the attainment gap in these schools with the head teacher. 

One would suggest this is called “passing the buck.” 

The SNP is expecting its £120m investment to solve problems caused by £1bn of cuts. 

It just doesn’t add up. 

There is also the issue of free university tuition in Scotland. 

The SNP consistently and falsely claims to have been the party that scrapped tuition fees. This is not true. 

It was Scottish Labour which scrapped tuition fees in favour of what was known as the “graduate tax.” 

The tax levied on graduates when they gained employment after leaving university-funded student bursaries. 

Free university education might be a noble policy, but it has not been funded properly. 

You may have seen nationalists claim that Corbyn’s Labour has been nicking their policy on tuition fees. 

This couldn’t be further from the truth. 

The SNP funds free university education by cutting college places and bursaries for people from poorer backgrounds. 

Under the SNP more than 130,000 college places have been cut and bursaries for poorer Scots have been consistently reduced. 

These cuts to college places have been criticised by opposition parties in Scotland who cite college as being the main route to higher education and university for people from poorer backgrounds. 

Worryingly, as a result of these policies, poorer kids in Scotland are less likely to go to university than their English counterparts, another example of conditions in Scotland not being “better than in England,” as the SNP and its supporters like to claim. 

It appears that the SNP’s policy on education as a whole has failed the poorest Scots. They have suffered most as a result of the SNP’s £1bn of cuts to schools. 

After leaving the Scottish education system, where achievements in key areas like literacy and numeracy have been declining, they find their second chance for an education, a college place, limited. 

If they manage to jump that hurdle, they can go to university and get a “free” education, but support from the Scottish government for poorer kids has declined, creating another — ironically, a financial — barrier for the poorest Scottish kids. 

This is effectively a regressive policy.

Kids from wealthier backgrounds, who are most likely to stay on at school and achieve the higher grades needed to go directly to university, can expect no tuition fees. 

However, poorer kids who didn’t do so well at school and need to access the college route can expect many challenges because the SNP has been directing resources away from them to benefit the wealthier kids. 

This is the reality of the situation in Scotland and a far cry from the “progressive” image the SNP likes to project to people across the UK. 

Free university education is a noble idea and one that we should support, but we should not support it when it is clear that it’s paid for by slashing college places and bursaries for poorer people. 

When you properly analyse the SNP’s record it becomes clear that their small-c conservative approach to governance in Scotland has left us with an education system in steep decline and an NHS that is slowly descending into a crisis. 

There are very challenging times ahead for the nationalists. The SNP talks progressive and acts conservative. 

Where have we heard that before? We’re being “New Laboured” all over again in Scotland. 

In 10 years of SNP control standards have been declining. 

The party’s most ardent supporters apply what I call the “Andy Murray syndrome” — i.e., their belief that when Murray wins he’s Scottish and when he loses he’s British. 

Whenever statistics are favourable they demand that the SNP is given the credit, and whenever they unfavourable, Westminster is to be blamed and lambasted for it. 

There are now calls from within the SNP to embrace a socialist, progressive outlook. 

This is quite perplexing to those of us who are familiar with Scottish politics because we have been told for quite some time that the SNP is a “progressive” party. It is anything but. 

This is why Labour’s journey back to the political left must stay on course.

This strategy will help us expose the SNP’s conservatism and win back our Scottish working-class heartlands.