THERE are many rewards when given the opportunity to serve your country in a senior political position.

In recent weeks a relatively unknown SNP MSP has been elevated to the post of Finance Minister in the Scottish Government.

There have been many column inches in the newspapers about her elevation and already fevered speculation of her potentially succeeding Nicola Sturgeon into the highest office of the land.

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Heady stuff indeed. Yet underneath all the froth and speculation is the bitter reality that the Budget presented

by the new Finance Minister, Kate Forbes, is a total disaster for public services and a particularly bad one for the city of Glasgow.

You don’t even have to take my word for it. It seems that SNP councillors, when put under pressure by local voters in local community meetings, are putting their hands up in abject surrender and admitting that the Budget settlement is a poor one for the city.

The only problem is that when it comes to Budget Day in the Chambers their new found honesty will disappear “like snaw aff a dyke” and they will roll over and attempt to vote through a budget which will have serious impact on how the City Council provides services. It will also put Council Tax up and once again ask Glasgow citizens to pay more but receive less.

I have raised, repeatedly, the issue of structural underfunding of local government but it seems that the Scottish Government have been happy to pass on austerity budgets to councils and to avoid being held accountable on some of the most difficult decisions imaginable.

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I would invite the Glasgow MSP’s who seem happy to pass budgets at Holyrood that force local councillors to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea of despair to sit down and identify how they could make the budget work. I can even recall a senior SNP Government Minister claim a few years back that he could find the money easily. I invited him to send in his suggestions. I never received any. It was just his usual bluster.

That encounter reveals how hollow things have become in our politics and it requires genuine leadership at both city and national level to find long term solutions. That is why the City Council Leader should act on the decision made by all councillors to write to the First Minister about the resources needed for our city.

I have written, just before our Budget meeting today, to the First Minister about the need for a review of the Budget allocation to Glasgow. She really needs to listen and to act.

If the city really matters to the First Minister and if the MSPs of the city are really listening they can change the Scottish Budget for Glasgow’s benefit.

Let us see if they are really listening.