KEIR Starmer is often accused of being a dishonest politician with his repeated lies and U-turns and brazen attempts to gaslight the public, such as when he denied that he said Israel had the right to withhold food water and power from Palestinians in Gaza when there was a recording of him saying exactly that.

However, Starmer's lies are amateur when compared to those of the Labour Party accounting unit in Scotland. "Scottish Labour" has today unveiled its manifesto for the Westminster general election at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. Just how there can be a "Scottish Labour" manifesto distinct from that of UK Labour, Anas Sarwar does not say, and it's a safe bet that he won't be asked by most of the attendant press.

Labour MPs who are returned to Westminster to represent seats in Scotland do not sit as a distinct bloc with its own whip and make distinctively Scottish voting decisions, they take the UK Labour whip and vote as Starmer directs them to.

Even if "Scottish Labour" adopts a different position from Starmer, such as Sarwar insisting that he's opposed to the abhorrent two-child cap on benefits or demanding a halt to arms sales to Israel.

(Image: Jane Barlow/PA)

At today's launch of the fantasy manifesto, Sarwar repeated his opposition to the two-child benefit cap, despite his boss's refusal to abolish it. There is no mechanism at all through which Sarwar can ensure that Labour's Scottish MPs vote according to his decisions where they differ from those of Starmer. There is only one Labour Westminster whip office, and it implements the orders of Starmer.

All this ought to have been abundantly clear from the voting record of the supine and obedient Michael Shanks, who despite prior to the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by election promising that he'd be his own man and would be a strong voice for the people of the constituency, the moment that the votes were counted, turned into a yes-man for Starmer who dutifully toes the Labour leader's line.

Every additional Labour MP that Scotland returns in this Westminster General Election will not be a voice for Scotland, they will be a voice for Starmer.

Yet Sarwar told the Daily Record: "Our manifesto will show how Scottish Labour would use the devolved powers we already have here in Scotland to change our country."

So this isn't a Westminster manifesto at all then. The manifesto is packed full of references to Labour's position on devolved matters, issues which Westminster MPs have no say over, yet the Labour Party is presenting this document as its manifesto for next month's Westminster General Election.

This bears as much relation to real politics as a fantasy football league does to the Euros. Sarwar would have been as well telling us that under Labour, Scotland beat Germany 5-1. A Westminster general election is about reserved powers not devolved powers. This is a fantasy document from a fantasy political party.

The entire document is about what the Labour Party would do if it won a different election to a different Parliament, an election which is not due to take place for almost two years. And yet we are all supposed to pretend that that is not misleading or duplicitous at all.

The fact that most of the Scottish media continues to collude in this deceit goes a long way to explaining why so many people are disillusioned with and disengaged from politics. Labour pulls this trick at every Westminster election, and every time the media in Scotland not only allow them to get away with it, but actively collude in and facilitate the charade.

In the real world, any Labour MPs returned to represent Scottish constituencies will sit on the UK Labour benches and will take the UK Labour whip, the only manifesto that they will implement is the UK Labour manifesto, the one that shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves proudly announced had the fingerprints of City of London bankers all over it.

Sarwar mentioned his personal opposition to the two-child benefit cap as he is aware that there is increasing pressure on him and the Labour party to get rid of it. Yet he still hasn't said exactly how he intends to ensure that Starmer changes his mind or that Labour MPs from Scotland vote to abolish it.

A study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published this week found that 250,000 more children will be affected by the policy over the next year alone and that within the term of the next parliament, the policy will affect one in five children, costing families an average of £4300 a year, or 10% of their income. 38% of the poorest fifth of households will be affected.

IFS figures show that the policy already affects 2 million children but by the end of the next Parliament this number will have risen to 2,670,000.

The IFS calculates that ending the two-child limit would cost £3.4bn a year, equivalent, it says, to freezing fuel duty for the duration of the next parliament. The four new Dreadnought class nuclear submarines which Labour is committed to ordering are estimated to cost £31bn plus a £10bn "contingency".

Starmer can find the money for nukes but he claims there's no money to raise children out of poverty. Scrapping just one of the four new submarines would free up more than enough to not only abolish the two-child benefit cap, but to substantially raise benefits for children.

Meanwhile, Sarwar wrings his hands and gives us nothing but weasel words and a fantasy manifesto.