IN modern political times, even a day seems like a long time in politics. Since midday on Monday the internet has been ablaze with comments from SNP MPs, MSPs, wannabe MPs and their army of employees who are all “delighted” that John Swinney is their latest leader.
Only days before, the very same folk were equally delighted with and pledging allegiance to Humza Yousaf. Photographs with John, some from 20 and even 30 years ago, have been dusted down, posted online, shared, liked and commented on.
READ MORE: John Swinney to be Scotland's next first minister after Holyrood vote
Humza Yousaf is being airbrushed from history as if Winston Smith from Orwell’s novel 1984 is hard at work erasing all traces of the inconvenient past. It seems that according to Mr Swinney, “today is the beginning of a new chapter in our party’s history – a chapter that will be about uniting, coming together and dedicating ourselves the service of Scotland.” He envisaged a country where “people have good jobs, the climate is protected, the vulnerable are lifted up and opportunity is available for all”. He said that politics was in the “worst state of his career” without mentioning his party have actually been in charge of it all for the past 17 years.
With only months to go to a Westminster election, maybe it is too much to ask Mr Swinney to save the SNP seats currently exposed and about to be targeted by the Labour and Tory parties.
The road to May 2026 lies ahead, it is not as long as Mr Swinney might hope and, like many of the roads in Scotland, it is peppered with potholes.
Iain Wilson
Stirling
JOHN Swinney’s promised “new chapter” must not come at the cost of throwing out vital policies promised in the Bute House Agreement that will help people living in cold, damp homes. We need all MSPs to unite and support the Scottish Government to take the actions needed to help those in fuel poverty and to ensure all households can access affordable energy in the future.
When it comes to parliament, the Heat in Buildings Bill needs to be ambitious in its vision for improving the energy efficiency and insulation of the nation’s homes and contains a clear fuel poverty duty enshrined in the legislation.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon reacts to John Swinney becoming first minister
MSPs also need to unite in support of the current Housing Bill and a strengthened framework of support for the renewables and offshore wind sectors and the fastest possible “just transition” for the oil and gas sector, as described in the government’s Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan.
These long-term solutions to the cold homes crisis need to be backed by shorter-term crisis measures such as additional government support in future budgets, reintroducing the Fuel Insecurity Fund to help those most at risk of harm and struggling in energy debt and ensuring the new Pension Age Winter Heating Payment is better targeted than the Winter Fuel Payment that it replaces.
A failure to take these measures will see households condemned to spend more winters in cold, damp, mouldy homes. The impacts of this will be felt not just in the suffering of families and individuals, but also on the NHS and the collective mental health of communities.
Simon Francis
Coordinator, End Fuel Poverty Coalition
SO, we now have a new leader. He would certainly not have been my choice if there had been a contest but like the rest of SNP members I will accept it. I suspect Kate Forbes must have thought that she could not beat the machine. She may have lost her only chance of being the leader of the SNP, but ultimately that was her decision to make.
Let us take a look at what is to come for us. On the day we get a new leader, a so-called Scottish paper I like to call the Daily Baillie had several pages telling its readers how bad the SNP is and has been for all the years it has been in government. All the usual suspects were letting us have it with both barrels. They were saying that we should have had a Scottish election and bemoaning the fact that they were not going to get their wish.
READ MORE: People of Glasgow react to John Swinney becoming SNP leader
These third-raters need to be put back into their box, providing one big enough for their heads can be found. I have thought since Humza was in trouble that we should have let them have their election and made it about only independence.
Instead we have, as I see it, cowered in the corner instead of taking them head-on. Maybe the strategy John has will work, but I so wish we had just done it and taken the whole indy movement with us. Time will tell.
Old John
Ayrshire
DOUBLING council tax on second homes took an age to come in. Devolution powers do allow much wider local tax development.
The open discussion Shona Craven calls for (Honesty is the best policy when debating taxation, May 7) should begin with dissecting the Scottish Government’s Commission on Local Tax Reform published in December 2015.
Could it be that ahead of the Scottish election in May 2016 the Scottish ministers were heavily lobbied by the private house builders – the land bank industry? I have my suspicions.
READ MORE: John Swinney backs Humza Yousaf's Scottish independence strategy
Many in the grassroots SNP and most Greens have advocated Land Value Tax (LVT) for decades, long before Graeme McCormick’s convoluted Annual Ground Floor and Roof Rent appeared.
So John Swinney can open up the fairer tax debate and take early action to widen the tax base by a pilot scheme for LVT on the largest landholdings, and then roll our LVT for all Scottish property in five years or so.
Abolishing the council tax could be a big winner.
Rob Gibson
Evanton, Ross-shire
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