SNP Active Transport Cuts

The SNP have been going on about a greener Scotland and about the threat of other parties having to make cuts in order for our country not to collapse under a mountain of debt. You'd therefore expect the SNP to have done all they can in every area to protect budgets for environmental concerns.

Don't you believe it.

As Alison McInnes MSP, Lib Dem Transport Spokesperson, points out ahead of a debate in the Scottish Parliament on the Transport Committee’s Active Travel report:

"Active travel is good for the environment, good for communities and good for the people of Scotland.

"Unfortunately the Transport Minister is not going far enough in supporting active travel.

"Under the SNP the cycling budget has fallen each year, whereas it rose under the Liberal Democrat-Labour Executive.

"This Government are serial offenders- they promise much but fail to match aspiration with investment.

"The Transport Minister is not going to meet his ambitious cycling target unless he puts his money where his mouth is and allocates a greater proportion of Scotland's transport budget to active travel."

Cycle path provision is getting a raw deal under the SNP. Encouraging people out of their cars and unto their bikes. There is a network of cycle paths across Edinburgh and the Lothians but there is always room for improvement to encourage more people to take up the option. For example to cycle from Bathgate to Linlithgow you have to take you life in your hands on some of the blind corners when motorists think they own the road and because they don't see or hear a car as they approach forget the option of a cyclist the other side of the bend and hedge as they cut the corner to maintain speed.

Cycling is a nice way to get out and about and get fresh air and exercise. The more cycle routes that are taken away from shared bus/taxi lanes the more user friendly it will become for nervous cyclists. Especially ones who unlike me took on London traffic on a bike for 8 years largely unscathed.

When Less is More for Alex

Speaking to COSLA's annual conference last week Alex Salmond said:

"This Government will not sit idly by and accept cuts imposed from Westminster."

Looks to me like the no cuts message the SNP have been spouting for months.

Yet on Saturday at his party's General Election launch he said:

"Because at this election the message is simple.

"MORE NATS MEANS LESS CUTS"

It may be simple but it is not clear.

He's been accusing the other parties and even in this speech of having the "axe sharpened and poised" yet for all his rhetoric he has just announced that even voting SNP there will be cuts. Where was the clarion cry of "U-Turn"?

I'll be fair earlier on he did also say:

"The London parties talk about cuts as though it was all about numbers on a balance sheet. But we know different. Behind those cuts will be real people, real services, real jobs.

Thing is the Liberal Democrats are aware that having to make cuts to make up for Labour and the bankers folly can make an impact on people lives. That is why we are balancing cuts with holding back on some of our objectives. Balancing taxes so that the lowest paid don't suffer while we find ways to pay for things fairly. We've also promised to balance cuts with investment in employment and education opportunities so that those that have been suffering will have a way to make things better both for themselves and for our economy.

Salmond says "we as a community know the value of looking out for each other; the value of investing in education, in housing and in health." Dare I ask where is the new investment in school infrastructure since the SNP came to power, the investment they they promised to match brick for brick has not been forthcoming.

SNP's Micawber-ish Approach to Education

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery."
Mr. Micawber from Charles Dickens' David Copperfield

So more or less sums up the SNP's policy on how the Scottish Local Authorities are to help them get out their education quagmire. In the 2007 Manifesto Fiona Hyslop told us that a Scottish Government would "Maintain teacher numbers...place greater emphasis on recruitment for the early years, languages and science." They also promised smaller class sizes for Primaries 1,2 and 3.

Now however, she is asking the Councils whose tax raising power has been frozen by the Parliament to borrow £10m to help early retirement of older teachers so that the newly qualified can take their place.

Hang on. Does this mean that currently we have a surplus of teachers in Scotland? Does that mean that we have people who if they could all be employed could actually enhance the standard of education of our children? Does that mean that there is also £10m that is available for education which the SNP Government is willing to loan out? Why only loan out?

The SNP made all these promise about education, they said that they would foot the bill. However, whilst restricting annual income to a certain level they are encouraging local authorities to borrow to provide for funding which they themselves had promised to give for education. Not only that they are determining how it should be spent, rather than how it can best be used locally.

It sounds very much like Mr Micawber to me, and we know that he ended up in the poorhouse. Is that where Scottish education and our Local Authorities are going to end up thanks to Fiona Hyslop and the incompetent SNP education policy.

What is telling is that Fiona Hyslop is saying that the scheme is designed to break even by replacing teachers at the top end of the pay scheme with those at the lowest. Hang on again. Isn't this the SNP who in last weeks Queen's Speech Party Broadcast slammed the other three main parties for making spending cuts. This sounds like a cut to me.

Not only that but a cut that will place the education of our children and young people out of the hands of experienced hands and more into the hands of newly qualified teachers. Those experienced teachers are also people who are needed to mentor younger members of the profession.

So if we are training a surplus to our current replacement requirements, can't gainful employment be found for all, to help increase our level of education? And why are we making the Local Authorities pay for something else, this case by borrowing, when the SNP have asked them to hold their level of taxation. When the freeze is finally lifted, what hike will the Council Tax Payer (as the SNP have reneged on Local Income Tax) have to face to pay for all this.