Rubbish Decisions and SNP Ministers
The Times published an excellent leading article on the council workers strike which lays the blame squarely where it belongs - at the door of Team Sturgeon and her increasingly incompetent administration.
The Times view on the strike by street cleansers: Rubbish Decisions
The SNP government can try to deflect blame but in reality strikes are their fault
No matter what lofty matters parliamentarians might prefer to discuss, their regular constituency surgeries bring them back down to earth. Voters are rarely more exercised than when it comes to the quality of local services. For many, bin collections are a more pressing issue than constitutional reform, “levelling up” or any number of big ideas.
And so it was entirely predictable that senior MSPs would become engaged in a frantic game of buck-passing over strikes by refuse collectors. As trash piled high in Edinburgh, the SNP cabinet secretary Angus Robertson was quick to point the finger of blame at the Labour-run city council. That soon became unsustainable when council workers across Scotland, including a number employed by SNP-controlled local authorities, signalled that they, too, would be taking industrial action.
The deputy first minister John Swinney has tried to wash the Scottish government’s hands of the problem, saying the strikes were a matter for councils and the local government umbrella body Cosla. Within a couple of hours, he had changed tack and announced plans to meet council representatives to discuss a way forward.
Strikes can’t have come as much of a surprise given the funding of Scotland’s councils in recent years. Local authorities have been expected to maintain services despite the impact of budget cuts, exacerbated by a council tax freeze between 2007-21. It is little wonder that councils are struggling to meet the demands of low-paid workers.
The mounting cost of living crisis is being driven by world events but the SNP, by cutting budgets and diverting money to vote-grabbing giveaways, such as the extension of free prescription provision to the wealthy, has left councils woefully underprepared. Senior Scottish government ministers may wish to blame others for the situation but the reality is that their policy decisions are at its root.
