It sounds as if Iain Gray, Leader of the Labour Group at Holyrood, needs to listen to Annabel Goldie. We recently reported the Scottish Conservative Leader as saying to her senior colleagues after Cabinet Secretary for Finance, John Swinney’s strategic programme became clear in the first days of the SNP administration: ‘How can we not support a council tax freeze. We’d be unelectable’.
It now looks as if Iain Gray has set himself and his cohorts on that road to unelectability.
A number of Labour MSPs have gone on record as criticising the Council Tax freeze that has operated since the SNP took control of the Scottish Government in 2007. Their leader, Iain Gray, has now been challenged by Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather, to indicate what level of Council Tax Labour would impose were they to regain office.
Mr Mather says that he would be interested to get this information locally but is unsure who is presently speaking for Labour in Argyll & Bute.
He says: ‘On 10th March, Labour’s Deputy spokesman on Finance tabled a motion attacking the freeze on Council Tax which has been operating for the last three years as a result of the concordat between the Scottish Government and the Council of Scottish Local Authorities ( CoSLA).
‘That motion has been supported by ten Labour MSPs including Jackie Baillie, Rhona Brankin and Pauline McNeill. Johann Lamont, MSP, who serves as Iain Gray’s deputy and Des McNulty, MSP, the Labour Education spokesman ,are also on record as attacking the freeze.
‘I understand that my colleague Joe Fitzpatrick, MSP, has written to Iain Gray as Labour Leader at Holyrood asking to what level he feels the Council Tax should be raised to meet the demands of his colleagues. The answer, if it comes, could be illuminating.
‘In ten years of Labour of which eight were in shared government with the Liberal Democrats in Scotland, Council Tax rose across the country by an average of 60%. In Argyll & Bute the tax went up by a staggering 75%. Is this what Labour have in mind for hard working families at a time of recession and severe restraint?
‘I am encouraged to ask this of local Labour representatives in Argyll & Bute but that is difficult to do because they are not to be seen here in any discernable form.
‘It would appear that we must wait for Iain Gray to speak up and clarify matters’.
It’s amazing how beeing consigned to opposition has exposed just how politically inept is the empty shell that is Scotland’s remants of the Labour Party
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Labour has returned to the loony days of old, big time,
the country is on route to hell in a hand basket and they don’t even get it. We can only hope that enough NATS make it to Westminster to make a difference for Scotland come the savage years following the election.
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