What have the SNP ever done for us?

I was a wee bitty concerned when Stewart asked me to write a  piece for Caledonian Mercury about my thoughts on what the other parties' weaknesses are vis-a-vis the SNP. A dull thud in the back of my head pounded out the question, why me? Paranoia kicked in. Was I leaving myself open for a kicking from the plethora of dribbling sockpuppets that infest the Scotsman comments undergrowth and who occasionally slither over to the Cal Merc board? Probably. Would it bother me? Yawn. Was I expected to put the boot into the Tartan Overlord after he joined Labour in devoting an entire FMQ to little old me and my wayward keyboard ways? Nope, I’ve had loads of opportunities to do so in the Cheesy blog and haven’t felt the need to bellow half-naked from the rooftops, yet. Would I take the opportunity to do a Crichton/McKenna like fluff job on the SNP leader. As if.

So dear reader, in order to avoid a spiral of paranoid stupidity, I decided to ruminate on where Scotland is today and why we should all be fearful of mediocrity.  

The vintage age of fifty is approaching me like a joyriders stolen Suburu hurtles towards a bumbling blue bottles backside. There’s no way to avoid the impending thud of this date, so like the leisurely feller I am, I tend to find myself taking a dawdle down memory lane, wearing comfortable brogues and idly twirling my moustache, where like a chap who had a good war, I wallow in the fading glow of nostalgia.

I belong to that generation of Python heads who at the merest mention of the word ‘blessed’ can rattle off the sermon on the mound scene from the ‘Life of Brian’. I spent the early eighties living in the schizophrenic environs of west end Glasgow. On one hand, it was the enlightened city that saw culture as a great regenerating force that created Mayfest and brought Peter Brooks Mahabarata to a freezing cold tram depot. On t’other the venerable city fathers embraced their dark fearful side and prohibited screenings of the above mentioned film, lest wit and sacrilegious thought infested the city youths. Like North Africans and Arabs have taken to Twitter and Facebook to express themselves, early eighties Pythonians would furtively gather in basement flats of an unemployable afternoon and engage in the nefarious act of listening to and reciting the long player soundtrack of the film. I still have the somewhat faded vinyl album, complete with closing hymn, which all these years on reminds me of our venerable opposition in Scotland. ‘All Things Dull and Ugly.’

The one sketch that resonates to this day is, “What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?” The debate between the Peoples Front of Judea as they discuss life in Judea before the arrival of the Romans. It’s a bit like watching the weekly ordeal of FMQ. The opposition parties are convinced that the SNP government have done nothing for them and their constituents these past four years. Until a wee voice at the back of the mind of the most impartial viewer pops up and says. ‘The aqueduct’?

So apart from the Aqueduct what have the SNP ever done for us?

How about these for starters?

·        

   Delivered an extra 1,000 police officers

·       Crime in Scotland has fallen to 32-year low

·       Scottish Knife Crime at a 10 Year Low

·       Gun crimes falling to a 10-year low

·       Keeping open local accident and emergency units as promised

·       Prescription charges cut dramatically and about to be abolished

·       Removed the tolls on all of Scotland's roads and bridges

·       A record number of modern apprenticeships

·       Reversed a decade of decline in international educational comparisons

·       Increased payments for free personal and nursing care

·       Helped 70,000 small businesses with the small business bonus

·       Oh and of course frozen the council tax for the last four years.

I could quite easily fill the page with other achievements both small and large that make a difference in every day Scotland, but that’s not my job.

The opposition parties in their effort to contain the fiendishly successful machinations of the Scottish government have gone out of their way to put party before country. Legislation for the betterment of all has been brought to a shuddering halt by the spending power of the vested interests. Those same parties who swear to their dying breath a desire to save small Scottish business, now nestle comfortably in the comfy pockets of the supermarket billionaires.  

Therefore I’m more interested in, ‘What the SNP could have done for us, but were stopped from doing.’

The opposition parties block vote against the introduction of a minimum unit price for alcohol, has potentially cost Scotland’s health and wealth a fortune.

There is as we all recognize a booze culture in Scotland where our youngsters indulge in necking the cheap supermarket stuff at home before going out clubbing or pubbing, thus avoiding the high prices often found at said establishments.

Having imbibed to beyond sufficiency, they then indulge in post entertainment ribaldry and japes which more than often involves vandalism, pissing in shop doorways and vomiting in no-longer-working public fountains. Attempts at back alley amour usually end up with further exchanges of bodily fluids, just not the intended ones. This usually results in raised emotions, tempers are frayed and some poor blighter's son or daughter ends up with a smashed bottle being ground into their previously unblemished faces.

The 'harder' type will of course endeavour to display his weaponry skills and often sever a companion’s major artery resulting in massive loss of blood. The resulting costs in police, ambulance, nurse, doctor, mortuary, undertaker and social worker services are of course perfectly acceptable when balanced against the 'do-gooders' attempt to curb excessive alcohol consumption.

Here's a stat for you, in dearest Dumfropolis 92 % of all ambulance calls on Friday evening, Saturday evening and Sunday morning are booze related. So if your child turns blue and stops breathing in their cot on a Friday night or your husband clutches his left arm, turns puce and plants his face in the G-plan glass coffee table, chances are your ambulance crew are going to be a bit late getting too him or her, because they're currently trying to peel a shit, piss and puke encrusted half-dressed teenager off a precinct floor, whilst their mates wail, moan or jeer along.

Naturally, those lovable rapscallions are only expressing their right to go out on the lash and anyone from 'big brother' or the preferred 'nanny state' government that tells them they can't do that, can like go forth and procreate, right. However, the facts exist that money spent on mopping up the mess caused by cheap booze means there is less money to go round on things like nurses, doctors, specialists, ambulances, hospitals, GP's etcetera. But hey, don't let that bother you. Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories, those supine friends of the supermarket lobby voted against legislation that allows our kids to go right on swallowing that Carlsberg special brew, White lightning and delightful tonic wine Buckfast until their little livers pack in.

The reality is there hasn’t been an effective opposition in Holyrood. The Greens have grown from being the curly haired scamps that everyone had a fondness for, into belligerent teens that’ll huff and puff and throw a hissy fit until every house in the land has loft insulation made from kitten fur. Spurned at Budget time, they now coyly bat their eyelids in the direction of Labour. The co-joined twins of the Tories and Lib Dems are fused at the hip in Westminster, similarly so in Holyrood. You’ll rarely hear a Tory slam a Lib Dem or vice versa. Prior to last year’s Westminster election they reserved their bile equally for the SNP and Labour.

No, the real opposition in Scotland relies on the concerted efforts of the Labour group of MSPs and their friends both North and South of the border in state broadcasting and their pro-Union mouthpiece chums in the dying tree press.

Here SNP achievements are twisted, distorted, partially reported or taken out of context. Hypocrisy and deceit have become central to the very being of the Labour party in Scotland. The SNP are talking about revolution, the Lib Dems, Tories & Greens devolution, whilst Labour still ponders over the benefits of evolution.

Civic Scotland has become infested with Labour placeman. There’s barely a council in the land where members of the senior management aren’t either married, related or in a relationship with members of the Labour party. This isn’t the party that looks after their voter’s -- they simply look after their own. Much like we require applicants who plan to work with children and vulnerable adults to undergo a Disclosure Scotland check maybe it’s time to apply something similar to the various HR departments across the public paid estate, where placemen become agent provocateurs…

Yet despite this, the Tartan Overlord and crew continue in their cheery positive way, ignoring the negative, not wallowing in the politics of character assassination. This does not always endear them to their supporters, who sometimes want to see some backbone, a flash of teeth and a bit of forcing the lies and the hypocrisy back into the lying liars mouths…But, if truth be told, the Salmond mantra of positivity is working. He’s got it right. His example puts the old adage about politicians of ‘they’re all the same’ into a fresh perspective.

At the last election the SNP were elected for a number of reasons, malaise with the bright shiny right wing party that Tony Blair had created, a deeply unpopular war predicated on lies, but above all else the SNP benefitted from Labours failure to improve the significant problems our country faced, does its election campaign today suggest that they have the policies to do so now? It’s as if time has stood still and they’ve settled into a default setting of carping and girning like a petulant child. Labour’s London handlers must be looking askance at the collapse of Fianna Fail across the Irish Sea and fearing the worst.

Today, it looks as if people in Scotland have woken up to the fact that the past four years of relentless negativity from the Labour party has shown that they have not matured as a socially progressive party, their failure to cast aside tribalism to vote for the common good, declares them to be as extinct as a parrot what has joined the choir invisible.

Oh and there's this.....




and the rest from http://www2.snp.org/


We have frozen Council Tax for four years, saving an average family more than £300.

We’ve slashed or abolished business rates for some 80,000 small firms and local employers, protecting jobs in tough times.

We’ve put 1,000 more police on Scotland’s streets, helping drive crime down to its lowest level for 32 years.

We’ve abolished prescription charges, saving people with long-term illnesses an average of more than £180.

The National Conversation launched in 2007 revived progress on the constitutional debate in Scotland, and paves the way for an independence referendum in the next parliament.

We’ve restored free higher education by ruling out upfront fees and abolishing the £2,300 graduate endowment - a back door tuition fee.

We’re delivering a record-breaking 25,000 modern apprenticeships in the year ahead – a two-thirds increase on 2007.

We’ve transformed Scotland into a world leader in green energy, consenting a record 39 new renewable projects since we came to office – more than double the previous administration.

Our £10 million Saltire Prize for marine energy innovation is establishing Scotland at the forefront of this global renewable technology.

We’ve removed tolls on the Forth and Tay Bridges, saving commuters £184 a year on crossing the Tay, and £207 a year on crossing the Forth.

We’ve kept healthcare local. That means A&E units have been saved, children’s cancer services and neurosurgery units protected, and maternity units kept open.

We have provided vital support for the staging of two of the world’s greatest sporting events here in Scotland in 2014 – the Commonwealth games in Glasgow and the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles. This includes the building of a new National Indoor Sports Arena and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

We’ve started 24,000 social sector homes since coming into office in 2007 – that’s an average of 115 new houses every week.

We’ve helped some of the world’s poorest people by doubling the international development budget and protecting that aid from UK cuts.

We’ve delivered smaller government, including fewer ministers and departments, saving more than £4 million over the parliamentary term.

We’ve provided funding to secure the Dundee V&A museum, the new Bannockburn visitor centre, and the creation of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire.

We’ve provided extra funding for Scotland’s veteran charities, and ensured our ex-service men and women receive priority treatment in the NHS and other services.

We’ve established Creative Scotland as a single, national body for the arts, culture and creative industries.

We’ve protected spending in the NHS with an extra £1.2 billion to health boards over the last four years to safeguard frontline services – and we will continue to protect the health budget.

We’ve abolished hidden waiting lists, and reduced hospital waiting lists to a record low.

We’ve increased the number of nurses, doctors and dentists working in the NHS – and we are reducing the number of senior managers by a quarter.

There are 1,000 more cleaners in the health service, helping ensure infection in Scottish hospitals is now at an all-time low.

We’ve set up a tough new inspectorate to ensure that our hospitals are clean.

We’ve banned irresponsible alcohol discounts in supermarkets and off licences.

We’ve made sure our older generation is properly cared for by increasing payments for free personal and nursing care for the first time since it was introduced.

We’ve delivered on our ambitious cancer target which means treatment begins within one month of a decision to treat.

We are building the £840 million new South Glasgow Hospital.

We’ve cut the risk from cervical cancer for the next generation of young women by providing the HPV vaccine for girls in S2.

One million more Scots are registered with NHS dentists under the SNP Government.

We’ve delivered a new dental school in Aberdeen.

We’ve frozen bonuses to NHS consultants.

We’ve made sure more GP practices are open in the evenings and at weekends.

We’ve abolished charges at all NHS-run hospital car parks.

We’ve introduced a Patient Rights Act to provide new statutory rights for all those using the health service.

We’ve given the public a direct say in the NHS by introducing pilot elections in two health boards.

We’re working for a healthier Scotland by raising the legal age for buying tobacco to 18.

We’ve delivered more than 40,000 new heating systems and helped Scots on low incomes to reduce energy costs and keep their homes warm.

We’ve enabled councils to build new homes for the first time in years, providing funding for 3,300 new council houses.

We’ve reformed the Right to Buy in order to protect social housing for rent.

We’ve helped over 5,300 people buy their first home with our shared equity scheme.

We’ve helped 10,000 pensioners and families secure £1.6 million in savings through our benefits health check.

We’ve invested £17 million in the establishment of world class multi-sport facilities at Aberdeen Sports Village, Toryglen Regional Indoor Football Training Centre, and Ravenscraig Sports Centre.

We’ve invested £7.5 million to improve our medal hopes in 2012 and 2014 with World Class facilities for training for our elite and emerging athletes.

We’ve delivered the smallest average primary school class sizes ever, and set a new legal limit of 25 pupils for primary one.

Since the last election, 330 schools will have been built or refurbished - 80 more than planned by Labour.

We have lifted over 130,000 pupils out of crumbling school buildings.

We’ve raised standards in schools by introducing the new Curriculum for Excellence.

We’ve increased funding for college bursaries to a record £89 million, supporting a record 42,000 students.

We’ve expanded free nursery education, benefitting 100,000 children.

We’ve given legal protection to rural schools, preventing unnecessary closure.

We’re helping less well-off youngsters by continuing the £30-a-week Educational Maintenance Allowance – now scrapped in England.

We’ve introduced tough new qualifications – the Scottish Baccalaureate – in science and languages, challenging the brightest pupils to achieve more.

We’ve helped 250,000 people expand their learning with Individual Learning Accounts to pay for training courses.

We’ve extended free school meals to 55,000 children from lower income families.

We’ve helped home-grown talent perform in Edinburgh with a £6 million Expo Fund for the City’s festivals.

We’ve reformed the unique and successful Children’s Hearing System to make it fit for the future.

We’ve made sure children who need additional support to learn get the help they need with new laws and guidance for all schools.

More than 2,600 primary children are now able to learn in dedicated Gaelic language classes, up by a fifth since 2007.

We’ve protected more than 15,000 jobs in Scotland during the recession, including by accelerating spending on nearly £350 million of public projects as part of our comprehensive Economic Recovery Plan.

We’ve put Scotland on course to exceed our interim target of 31 per cent of Scotland’s electricity from clean green renewable sources this year. And we’re on track for 80 per cent by 2020.

The approval we’ve given for a desperately needed new Forth Road Bridge will ease congestion, cut journey times, boost business and secure some 3,000 jobs.

We’ve delivered an extra £2.3 billion for jobs and public services by driving up efficiency in government – far exceeding the target of 1.5% efficiency savings.

We’ve established a £10 million national life sciences institute in Dundee.

We’ve funded improvements to major roads across the country including the M8, the M80, the A9, A90 and A96. We’re also completing the M74 - bringing new jobs and helping local regeneration.

We’ve protected Scotland’s pensioners from UK cuts by guaranteeing free bus travel, and we are extending the scheme to injured veterans.

We’ve successfully completed one of the largest rail projects in Scotland for decades, with the opening of the Airdrie-Bathgate rail line.

We’ve helped tourism and the local economy in the Western Isles through a pilot scheme to reduce ferry fares.

We’ve funded improvements in rail services and journey times from Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

We’ve invested £2.4 billion in improving the nation’s water infrastructure, and published proposals to boost the role of Scottish Water, publicly owned for the public benefit.

We’re on track to slash the number of quangos by more than a quarter.

We’ve established Public Contracts Scotland, a website that makes it easier than ever for small businesses to access government contacts.

We’ve invested £2 million in small post offices, helping 49 businesses expand and stay open.

We have established the Scottish Investment Fund to help grassroots business projects get up and running.

We’ve reformed Scottish Enterprise so that it focuses on growth sectors, growth markets and growth companies – boosting key industries such as renewables, financial services and life sciences.

We delivered Scotland’s first ever year of Homecoming in 2009, encouraging more than 95,000 visitors to travel to Scotland and exceeding its target by generating £53.7 million in additional tourism revenue.

Violent crime is down by over a fifth since the SNP came to office, with nearly 3,000 fewer violent offences last year.

We’ve used over £30 million seized from criminal behaviour to invest in community projects for over 300,000 Scottish kids.

Fear of crime has fallen – and the risk of becoming a victim of crime continues to fall, and is lower than south of the Border.

Knife crime is down by 30 per cent since this government took office, but we must and will step up efforts to keep driving this figure down.

We’ve delivered faster justice, with three-quarters of cases completed within six months – compared to only two-thirds in 2006/07. And criminals are being locked up for longer, with prison sentences at their longest for a decade.

We’ve put in place new measures to cut the cycle of re-offending with tough community punishment.

We’ve reformed the laws on sexual offences to make it easier to prosecute people for serious sexual attacks.

We’ve increased funding for Victim Support Scotland, and our victim notification scheme is helping people affected by crime.

We’re tackling Scotland’s drug problem head-on through our national drugs commission, the new national drugs strategy, and 20 per cent more funding to help people recover from addiction.

We’ve provided parents with more information on dangerous paedophiles to protect children in local communities.

We’ve given the go ahead to a new prison for the North East of Scotland, as part of our prison building programme.

We are building the Gartcosh crime campus, and have established the Serious and Organised Crime Taskforce.

We’ve provided Citizens Advice Scotland with extra funding to provide advice and support to families facing debt problems.

We are reforming the law on Double Jeopardy, to help ensure that the guilty do not escape justice.

We’ve introduced world leading Climate Change legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent by the end of the decade.

We’ve secured £1.6 billion of investment for Scotland’s rural economy through the Scottish Rural Development Programme.

Scotland is clean as well as green - under an SNP Government, recycling is at its highest level ever.

We have developed a non-nuclear energy strategy for Scotland, including working with partners to progress the concept of a European Super Grid to export our surplus power.

We’ve promoted Scotland’s top quality produce – sales of Scottish food and drink have increased by 30 per cent since the SNP came to office.

We’ve helped make our communities safer from flooding with investment in flood defences and new measures in the Flooding Act.

We’ve backed consumers with a continued ban on planting GM crops in Scotland.

We’ve developed Conservation Credits, catch quotas and on-board CCTV, working with fishermen to develop and implement fisheries policies right for the 21st century.

We are the first administration to introduce a scheme dedicated to encouraging new entrants into farming, worth £10 million.

We’ve delivered the Wildlife and Natural Environment Bill, toughening up wildlife crime measures and protecting Scotland’s environment as one of our greatest assets.

We’ve passed a Crofting Reform Act, tackling absenteeism, neglect and speculation to protect crofting for future generations.
With your support we can build on the work of the past four years. Progress has been made and there is more to do. Together, we can make Scotland better.