Why absolute shambles in SNP-run Glasgow may provide a vision of Scotland's future
It’s a mistake to under-estimate how much good – or bad – a government can do
Imagine the uproar from the SNP if a Conservative or Labour council had announced plans to fire and rehire 23,000 staff – cutting wages for 11 per cent of workers, some by more than £10,000.
Yet these were the drastic steps proposed by SNP-run Glasgow, amid a dispute with the unions over how to replace a pay system found to discriminate against women. Bizarrely, according to Sylvia Haughney, of Unison, most of the staff receiving pay cuts as a result of the “utterly immoral” fire-and-rehire scheme would also be women.
The council’s communication director Colin Edgar said the council was in a “hellish situation” and that the “senior leadership of the council and the politicians... feel sick”. Following a conspicuously polite request by Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth, the council has now agreed to a “pause”.
Gilruth may be pondering the Scottish government’s own future, given it faces the prospect of a near-£5 billion black hole in its finances by 2030. Might they be forced into measures as Draconian as Glasgow’s?
£33bn cost of political mismanagement?
The management skills of the council must be called into question by what is, quite clearly, an absolute shambles. And evidence of SNP incompetence at Holyrood isn’t hard to find – from scandalously long NHS waiting lists and the social care crisis to crumbling school buildings and overcrowded prisons.
The effect of government policies on the economy is hard to assess, given the myriad of other factors. However, according to Scottish Labour leader Michael Marra, Glasgow’s economy would have been almost £7bn larger if it had grown at the same rate as Greater Manchester between 2015 and 2023, while the Edinburgh and South Scotland region would have been £2bn larger. Across Scotland, the total figure would have been £33bn.
Pointing to that looming black hole, Marra said: “We need a serious plan for economic growth in Scotland... For too long Holyrood has centralised money and control, when we should be... giving [regions] the power to pursue what is best for their local areas and turbo-charging growth in the process.”
It’s a mistake to under-estimate how much good a government can do. As the SNP is demonstrating, the opposite is equally true.
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