ONE of the worst traits in politics at any level is entitlement, believing that a particular candidate or party has an automatic right to power.

We’ve seen it with Boris and his Tory pals at Westminster, particularly during Partygate, when they made clear they thought the rules designed to protect lives and our NHS didn’t apply to them.

Knocking on doors in the run-up to the 2017 local elections, voters had a similar view of Glasgow Labour, and not without good reason.

Here was a party which, after 40 years of unbroken power, had long stopped taking the difficult decisions a city with the deep-rooted challenges of Glasgow demands.

It ran Glasgow by putting its own narrow and vested interests first, believing it had an inherent right to do so. No wonder people were disillusioned.

As they had done in the previous Holyrood and Westminster elections, the people of Glasgow exercised their democratic right and voted for change.

You would think that after five years in opposition Labour would better respect local democracy and their place within it. Or, having seen the impact of their years of pay discrimination on the city’s finances and resources – not to mention on thousands of mainly women staff - that they would have learned some humility, perhaps reflecting on the burden of their legacies. Alas, no.

In his leaflet for the forthcoming election on May 5, Frank McAveety, the last Labour leader of the City Council, describes the democratic will of Glaswegians as “the failed experiment of SNP leadership”. The arrogance and entitlement of that is as breathtaking as it is predictable. Glasgow Labour has learned nothing.

Let’s be clear. The SNP inherited a mess from Mr McAveety and his Labour predecessors. Not simply their equal pay scandal but also historic under-investment in key services, a lack of strategic action on Glasgow’s deep-seated challenges, and poor relationships with key partners, including our staff.

Addressing this hasn’t been quick or easy. Indeed, the past five years have thrown up many new and unprecedented challenges for the SNP City Government, not least the impact of a global pandemic on our communities, economy and the delivery of public services. But we have a strong record, including the best ever results for school-leavers going into jobs, training or further education and delivering 1140 hours of free early learning and childcare.

We continue to deliver pay justice for thousands of women workers, have secured backing for the construction of the Clyde Metro, and tackle poverty through initiatives such as the Holiday Food programme and the extension of free school meals. 

We’ve built more than 5000 new affordable homes, with many more in the pipeline, transformed homelessness services through the creation of the Glasgow Alliance to End Homelessness, and successfully hosted COP26, the biggest global event Scotland has ever seen. We have much to be proud of.

In last month’s budget, the SNP committed millions to address the cost-of-living crisis, created new neighbourhood enhancement teams and set aside £1 million for every city ward, for communities to decide how to use in their local areas.

Labour’s budget, by contrast – after all the scaremongering disinformation from party leader Anas Sarwar – had no vision, no plan, virtually no investment. Nothing. Other than to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from our hugely successful holiday food programme.

Yet, despite its long record of misdeeds and misrule, Labour still believes it has the divine right to run Glasgow. The SNP will never take the citizens of Glasgow for granted. In the coming weeks we’ll publish our positive vision for taking Glasgow forward and for a fair, green, resilient recovery from the upheaval of the pandemic for the city economy, for public services and for our communities.

These local elections are an opportunity to continue to turn the tide in Glasgow, not turn back the clocks. Vote SNP on May 5.


ON the subject of Labour’s short memories and lack of self-awareness, another example came with the approval of Glasgow’s first transport strategy for many years.
The strategy builds on the Scottish Government commitment to deliver an entire new transport system, the Clyde Metro and our huge investment in active travel.

It includes a pledge that bus fares will be capped from next year, with integrated ticketing using ‘tap and cap’ technology for all public transport introduced the following year.

It also commits to putting in place a model that will allow us to pursue publicly owned and managed bus routes, as well as access Glasgow’s share of the £500m the Scottish Government has committed to improve bus travel.

In response, Labour complained that Glasgow lagged behind many of our peer cities.

Well, yes. And whose doing is that? Labour controlled both the city and regional transport body SPT for many decades and did virtually nothing in that time to deliver the clean, modern transport systems that a great European city like Glasgow deserves – far less prepare the ground for municipally-run services. 

They had no plans to solve the long-standing challenges that held our transport network back.

The SNP is now changing that. We know what we have to fix and we’ve done the hard work of making the case for massive national investment in Glasgow’s public transport. 
Our transport strategy provides both the vision and the plan of action to transform how we all get around Glasgow, for the better.