Jockeying for Position
Despite both opposition parties on Glasgow City Council delivering positive change, the competition for the title of 'principal opposition party' lets SNP wriggle free
Glasgow City Council last week voted to passed opposition motions which stand to benefit the residents of our city. The Labour Group’s leader Cllr Malcolm Cunning shepherded through a motion to restore the £100 payment to help those over 80 years old heat their homes. Having originally been introduced by Labour a decade ago, the SNP had been previously scrapped it earlier in the year - in a budget deal with the Greens.
At the time the SNP had scrapped it, they claimed the affordable warmth payment would be replaced by a Scottish Government scheme. A replacement which Holyrood failed to deliver. When I approached Cllr Cunning for comment on the SNP’s original scrapping of the payment, he explained
“The decision back in March was made on a false premise and undeliverable mitigation. As a result our over 80s would have been £100 poorer this winter had we not acted to reinstate this years payment.”
And it is a fair point to make. Especially when you look at the statistics of pensioners in poverty in Scotland. According to the Scottish Government’s own statistic relative pensioner poverty has been on the rise in recent years. Pensioners in relative poverty (after housing costs) rose from a 12% low (2012-15), rising to 14% (2017-2020). Sadly pensioner poverty has begun to trend upward, having been falling between 1994-2011 period.
Furthermore the number of pensioners living in absolute poverty in Scotland is 12% (120,000 pensioners each year) in 2017-20. And material deprivation reveals 5% of pensioners (50,000 pensioners each year) were in material deprivation (2017-2020).
So given the very real reality of pensioner poverty in modern Scotland, it only underscores how beneficial the Labour Group’s £100 affordable warmth payment is. And why it was so incredibly reckless for the SNP run Glasgow City Council to have scrapped it in the first place - when the Scottish Government replacement had yet to be delivered (and to date, still hasn’t).
Some might claim, the SNP councillors deserve praise for having voted for the Labour motion (following agreed amendments), but this isn’t convincing. You don’t get a pat on the back for agreeing to let the opposition fix a mess you yourself made. Nor do you deserve a ‘well done’ for agreeing not to get in the way of those fixing the muddle.
But this good news story is clouded by a dispute between the Labour and Tory opposition councillors on the City Council. Labour posted on Twitter
Which led to an online fracas when Tory councillor Thomas Kerr claimed that this “is a blatant lie and so easy to disprove”.
When asked for comment about this whole incident Cllr Cunning explained to me that he was claiming that the Tory councillors present had voted against Labour’s motion, instead voting for their own “delete all” amendment
“The Conservative contribution to the debate mentioned Rishi Sunak more often than they mentioned Glasgow pensioners. It was little more than a peaen of praise for the UK government rather than addressing a Glasgow issue and a Glasgow solution”
And it true that the Tories did not vote against restoring the pensioner payment, but they did vote against the Labour motion - preferring their own amended version. Ultimately the outcome was 70 votes for Labour’s (adjusted) motion and four for the Tory amendment (the four Tory cllrs present of the eight on the council)
Naturally enough the Tory councillors took issue with Labour; with Cllr Thomas Kerr informing me that as far back as March the Tory Group had been campaigning for the restoration of the affordable warmth payment. Cllr Kerr claimed however that
“Labour and Cllr Cunning in particular knew our position and so was looking for a way to play politics rather than work constructively with us. His motion made jabs at the UK Government over Universal Credit, Furlough and the Energy Price Cap. Labour knew we wouldn't back that but went ahead anyway”
Cllr Cunning naturally enough rejects any claims that Labour wasn’t interested in working constructively with the Tories, telling me
“Unlike the parties they made no approach with possible add amendments but simply lifted our resolves section and dropped it in to their delete all amendment. That was clearly an overtly party political move rather than a move to facilitate common cause.”
Now my purpose in litigating this dispute isn’t to argue about the merits or demerits of the claims back and forth. Instead it’s to highlight why the SNP perhaps keep getting away with poor governance in this city of ours.
Here we have a great Labour motion that was successfully passed and is a great help for many pensioners trapped in poverty. A victory which ought to have concentrated press attention on the embarrassed SNP, whose recklessness in prematurely cancelling the payment created the mess in the first place.
But was that the story was on twitter, or in local city papers? No, instead coverage focused on what was a bun fight over whether Labour or Conservative better deserves the title of ‘principal opposition party’ on the council. It lets an increasingly incompetent SNP administration off the hook.
Both Labour and Conservative urgently need to focus more on taking the fight to the SNP, instead of firing shots at each other. After all, both parties can point to successes in their own right. Labour has the pensioner payment victory, and the Tories have Cllr Kerr’s ‘Right To Recovery’ motion (which focuses on drug rehabilitation access in the city, helping to fix the other SNP failure of sky-high drug deaths).
The real gains to be made is by impressing the voters with what you have achieved as opposition parties despite the SNP. It’s to draw attention to the distinction between your opposition party and a status-quo SNP administration. Voters are looking for an alternative administration to run Scotland’s largest city, and are unimpressed with political fracas between opposition groups.
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Sources:
Cllrs Kerr & Cunning’s comments to me on the record (Oct 28th)
Glasgow Times ‘Glasgow councillors to vote on £100 heating payment for over 80s’
Glasgow Live ‘Calls to bring back £100 Glasgow payment to help pensioners heat their homes’