Western Isles Council SNP Group Statement
Only the SNP will fight austerity, say comhairle group
The Comhairle’s Finance Department has predicted £50 million spending cuts in the next five years should one of the austerity parties (Labour or Tory) get a majority.
The SNP ‘s anti-austerity plan of increasing public spending by 0.5% would reduce this figure by £28 million.
At a time when the islands has the highest fuel poverty rates in Western Europe, over 200 vulnerable families accessing crisis loans and one in five of our children living in poverty – can we really afford to lose £28 million from our already fragile economy?
We need SNP MPs to fight against austerity to protect the poor and vulnerable and our lifeline services.
Oh dear me, even I can see that the SNP want a Tory government that they can blame for all the bad things they do themselves, such as keeping money meant for the health service back to pay for the referendum.
And all Angus Brendan can do for us in the House of Commons is “fist pump”!
Imagine, instead of getting us jobs and keeping our shops from closing that is what he does according to the Independent newspaper.
You would think he would wait until he got home to his expensive property, either one, to do that sort of stuff in private.
So the local SNP group think that ” we need SNP MP’s to fight austerity to protect the poor and vulnerable and our lifeline services” an interesting suggestion from a party whose current Western Isles representative at Westminster has done nothing to protect the “poor and vulnerable” of these islands .
While renting out his flat [ mortgage paid by the tax payer] and then staying in posh London Hotels – at the same time as we pay for his mortgage – he also takes the rent from the flat . Nice work if you can get it but hardly the work of a man who prioritises protecting ” the poor and vulnerable of the Western Isles.
In previous years he has also even protected “the poor and vulnerable” by claiming the cost of a Toblerone bar of chocolate on his MP’s expenses…clearly no worries about Food Banks and ” the poor and vulnerable” from him there either.
None of the electors of the Western Isles would mind this if Macneil’s 10 years of failure to achieve anything of significance for these islands had made a positive difference.
Instead “Macneil’s Wasted 10 Years” have been marked by :-
FAILURE to defend the Range in Uist
FAILURE to deliver on the Interconnector [ at a time when Orkney and Shetland have been guaranteed one]
FAILURE to deliver on Fuel .While Danny Alexander delivered the 5p/litre Fuel Derogation and Fair Fuel Solutions delivered safeguards and fuel price reductions for the community he failed to deliver anything from his numerous ” secret” meetings with Scottish Fuels from which even the members of the local SNP Council group were excluded.
Macneil’s list of Failure is endless.
In fact when looking for his successes it’s difficult to find anyone who knows where to start,as his only significant success has not been in protecting ” the poor and vulnerable ” of these islands – it has been in looking after himself !
On May 7th – Don’t get Fooled Again !
But …..But …the wonderful Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy told us quite clearly that there would be no cuts….a couple of days later he was slapped down by the shadow treasurer who said there WOULD BE cuts in Scotland ..they don’t know what to say any more ….
Not even Tories or Labour can prevent our shops closing , we The people of Lewis did that ourselves , we are all to blame for this …. even before we got so caught up in internet shopping we got so Spaideal that we were going mainland shopping
I’d too would like to blame it on political parties but I can’t !
Angus MacNeil may have expensive property but other would be prospective candidates allegedly hold directorships in various companies in Lewis this can be confirmed I am told … and also has ” Expensive Property ”
Who was a Director of the defunct UBC I don’t think that was Angus B MacNeil was it ?? Curiously !!
Nonsense and grandstanding by a bunch of invisible nobodies.
Angus, but not MacNeil.
Olny two ways to end austerity, perhaps the SNP can explain their preferred method. (1). Borrow more to spend on services. (2) increase taxes to spend on services. Option 1. would end up with increased taxes to pay for the interest on borrowing. Option 2. seems more logical but the dilemma is, which taxes to increase. Perhaps the SNP can explain in more detail, I would really like to know.
Where has this £50 million figure come from? How was the figure of £28 million calculated? Could any SNP councillors please explain? The local SNP seem to be going into panic mode, I wonder why!
£ 50 Million…..£ 28 Million – what’s £ 22 million when it comes to the arithmetic of an SNP group who now don’t seem to have anyone who can do basic arithmetic – since Maroot retired from the group.
We all have to remember that this is the very same party that a decade ago talked of Scotland being part of the “Arc of Prosperity” with Ireland and Iceland [ an island which it seems is still very popular with our previous MP] which we never hear about now since these economies went “down the pan” and had to be bailed out after the credit crunch.
For some reason we also never hear about how it was the UK Treasury that bailed out the “Scottish Banks” when the credit crunch came and that an independent Scotland would not have been capable of saving them and we would have ended up like Ireland without the support of the UK Treasury.
Also – we now don’t hear how the case for Independence made around 18 months ago which was based on an Oil price which was then more than two and a half times the current price or that at this price – with Major Oil companies making people redundant, delaying investment and/or moving out of the North Sea into fields which can make a profit [at today’s prices] that the economics of Independence simply don’t stack up – even if your arithmetic is being done by the Western Isles SNP group.
Funny that some unkind people might suspect that the reason that we don’t hear about these things now is that the Economics of the SNP is the Economics of “Lah-Lah Land” !
DON’T BE FOOLED AGAIN !
Desparate, tragic and deluded as the regular Labour contributors to this blog regularly are. They know they are losing the argument so they resort to old style Central belt tactics. The sad thing for them is that the electorate both here and in the rest of Scotland have grown tired of their nonsense, and have embraced a new way forward. Bye bye numpties.
Morrison – Loser
Curran – Loser
Hood – Loser
Alexander- Loser
Carmichael – Loser
Mundell- Loser
etc etc etc
Scotland – WINNER
No responses to my questions, do no SNP councillors read the blog they send their press releases to? It appears that the SNP groups figures are way out. Is it the case that they have confused £15 million with £50 million? Stop misleading people!
Mr Mackinnon, you need not expect a response from the SNP anytime soon to your very reasonable and legitimate questions . The Nationalists just pluck figures out of thin air, as proven by Alex Salmond’s assertion that the price of oil would average 113 dollars a barrel ( its now 57 ) We must also remember this figure was calculated by Salmond , the qualified economist who once worked for RBS. No wonder they went bankrupt ,and brought disgrace to Scotland. !
Instead of attempting to answer questions, the Nationalists try and intimidate the questioner by wheeling out supporters like the anonymous Truaghan who, had he been born in England , would now be a fully paid up member of UKIP, having graduated from the marching bovver-booted ranks of the National Front.
Numerous people have asked me to clarify the position re the Comhairle cuts over the coming years. Following a budget seminar on 21 April 2015 the following estimates were put in front of members
2016/17 – savings to find £1.2m
2017/18 – savings to find £3.1m
2018/19 – savings to find £3.1m
Alistair MacLennan
Councillor An Taobh Siar agus Nis