A taste of things to come
The Welsh Labour-Plaid coalition are finding it hard to make ends meet and to meet their election promises.
It appears that the parties made uncosted promises to secure votes and are now faced with a big cut in the money from central Government so that they are being squeezed from both directions.
Councils are expecting the tightest settlement in 10 years and will have to make substantial savings from now until 2011, according to commentators.
I think that we will see exactly the same tensions in Scotland next week when the Scottish budget is announced, in circumstances of an even tighter settlement. I look forward with great interest to find out the circle can be squared, and what rabbits are going to be pulled out of the hat.
As I have previously said, the cuts imposed by Brown/Darling on the overall pot should have been foreseen, and the making of limitless promises just to get elected only means that you let more people down in the long run. I expect local government to get as battering, but the challenge for all political parties will be to see how they can shift the blame to others.
The challenge should, of course, be to do the best with the limited resources, not to go for cheap point scoring, but what politician can resist the obvious?
It appears that the parties made uncosted promises to secure votes and are now faced with a big cut in the money from central Government so that they are being squeezed from both directions.
Councils are expecting the tightest settlement in 10 years and will have to make substantial savings from now until 2011, according to commentators.
I think that we will see exactly the same tensions in Scotland next week when the Scottish budget is announced, in circumstances of an even tighter settlement. I look forward with great interest to find out the circle can be squared, and what rabbits are going to be pulled out of the hat.
As I have previously said, the cuts imposed by Brown/Darling on the overall pot should have been foreseen, and the making of limitless promises just to get elected only means that you let more people down in the long run. I expect local government to get as battering, but the challenge for all political parties will be to see how they can shift the blame to others.
The challenge should, of course, be to do the best with the limited resources, not to go for cheap point scoring, but what politician can resist the obvious?
9 comments:
As I understand it the settlement for Scotland is a very small increase in real terms.
This is not enough to fund the SNP election promises, as seen by the breaking of the pledge to recruit 1,000 more police officers.
Salmond will no doubt lay the blame for all his failed promises on the door of Westminster and hope
that the Scottish electorate buy it.
I also see that our MSP was on newsnight making a complete full of himself with the Lib Dem spokesperson running rings round him.
The latest postings to the AA website are hilarious but I find the lines between fact and fiction getting ever more blurred.
Don't be so fullish.
The most charitable assessment is that the SNP haven't got experience in government. The least charitable is that their one-item agenda has been finally exposed and that they're unfit for government.
We all know this was a last line of defence from GB down south to harm the delivery of services by a SNP goverment.It also harms every Labour MSP and Labour controlled Council in Scotland too. Nose and face spring to mind.
The most charitable assesment is that 1:28 is talking bollocks.
How do you ever get experience in Government short of getting into Government for the first time? Or indeed Scotland becoming a one party dictatorship as the Labour party seems to want.
And how could anybdy possible accuse the SNP of having a one item agenda if they look at the measures and the volume of reforms the SNP have announced recently.
It was common knowledge amongst all parties, before the election, that this settlement was going to be tight, hence the claims back in May that the SNP manifesto did not add up.
I agree that the SNP have put forward some very good policies but at the end of the day they have to balance the books and not blame Westminster when things go wrong.
If the promises made prior to the election are what the Scottish people want?
They must be that's why the SNP received most votes.
Then Salmond has the power to deliver by using tax varying powers. How much would a 3% hike in Income Tax raise?
Go on Alex a promise is a promise!
When this was discussed before (Aug 20th)on this blogg, I made this comment:
"I suspect it's a simple as this:
Salmond WILL 'promise everything to everyone' knowing full well he will ultimately not be able to deliver on many of them due to obvious financial constraints.
He will (then) blame central government funding as being the limiting factor and claim that all these initiatives WOULD be affordable, if only Scotland had it's independence.
But perhaps I'm tooo cynical?"
I can now answer my own (originally rhetorical...) question: 'No'.
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