SSP Co-Spokesperson Colin Fox issues statement on the SNP’s ‘Programme for Government’.
With the National Health Service in Scotland facing the worst crisis in its history, social care provision something the country is more ashamed of than proud, and the cost of living still people’s number one concern, there was much John Swinney could have addressed.
Additionally our prison population has 1,000 more offenders than we can accommodate and the there is still no sign of the 100,000 Council houses we were first promised to solve the housing crisis twenty five years ago.
And what solutions did the First Minister offer to these and the myriad other challenges in his ‘2026 Programme For Government’?
The short answer is next to nothing.
As I watched his thirty-five minute speech I felt here was a man going through the motions, again.
He began by promising to ‘eradicate child poverty in Scotland’ – the seventh successive First Minister to do so.
All failed, as indeed he will too. ‘I will address the cost of living crisis’ he announced again something he himself has pledged for three years now, and failed!
He did acknowledged ‘people across Scotland are disillusioned by the failure to address economic inequality’ yet offered nothing to narrow the gap.
As is often the case with such speeches it is what he did not say that was the most revealing.
He made no mention for instance of the PFI cancer eating away at our health service when the first of our privatised NHS hospitals is due to be returned to public ownership after 25 miserable years [Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary].
He made no either mention of advancing the case for a national care service which Nicola Sturgeon promised back in 2020.
Nor did he repeat his own party’s pledge to scrap the hated, unfair Council Tax – a demand the SSP first raised in 1999 and now backed by the Scottish Trades Union Congress.
To be fair John Swinney does not have a parliamentary majority and must therefore rely on others at Holyrood to get any of his proposals off the ground.
All of which further lessens the likelihood of even his flagship reorganisation of ‘the deck chairs on the Titanic’ – his plan to reduce the number of Health Boards and Local Councils.
It is no wonder fewer and fewer people take Holyrood seriously and the turnout in elections barely reaches 50%. It is all such a contrast to the heady days of 1999!