A WEEK’S a long time in politics so they say… just a bit!

Between Donald Trump’s charade over the pond, the pantomime villain of Boris Johnstone resigning from Westminster and Nicola Sturgeon finding herself getting a lift to the cop shop on Sunday after her arrest, we have barely had a chance to take a breath, let alone enjoy the sunshine.

And as much as the news streams are filled with this and some commentators find it all highly entertaining – I think even Thick of It Writer, Armando Iannucci would have struggled to come up with this sort of ridiculous politic scenario – it’s our county, our city and our communities that are suffering.

You see, while the headlines are filled with talks of how Sturgeon was released after questioning, what she was wearing and how her own party are going to send her flowers after the traumatic experience, what they are failing to report on are more catastrophic failures by Scottish Government for everyday citizens.

Our communities have been gripped in a cost-of-living crisis now for nearly a year and we are no further forward. Why is that?

Because our governments, both at Westminster and Holyrood are too busy defending themselves and dealing with their vanity projects to actually address what is happening to the people they claim to represent.

In Glasgow, for example, we are still trying to deal with the reality of the brutal SNP budget and what that will mean for our citizens.

It’s all of it – the added cost for the brown bin uplift, the closure and reduced hours of Glasgow city venues – especially the health suites which are essential for recovery for many people, the charging for entry to our museums, the introduction of the LEZ zone, putting more and more pressure on Glaswegians who are in a financially precarious situation, to name but a few, that makes this cost-of-living crisis so much worse.

Indeed, in our city, in the one of the most deprived areas in the whole of the UK, the Canal ward they have discovered that the Ruchill Community Centre has a roof that is riddled with asbestos.

The community had been told that, after three years of this centre being closed, it would be open in June 2023.

Now they are facing an uncertain time and waiting to find out if it is going to be saved (with a cost of over £350,000) or if they are going to face demolition.

A centre that is essential to the heart of this community.

What does that really mean?

It means that vital mother and children’s groups that operated from the centre have nowhere to go, leaving new mums and their children isolated.

It means that senior citizen groups who spent their afternoons in the centre are left on their own with reduced access to socialising and help and support and it means that addiction groups which met there, which are well needed in our city, are forced to find new homes or disband.

All the while bills and food prices and transport costs are going up.

All the while the SNP are focusing on vanity projects and sending flowers.

It’s not fair. It’s not right and it’s not on.

Glasgow and her citizens are suffering for these vanity projects and are plunging further and further into debt.

The cost of living crisis is here and it’s now and it needs to be addressed.

Enough is enough now. Glasgow deserves better.