The professional politickers of Labour have no shame

No matter how hard I try, the brass neck of them – particularly those in our own parliament – has been frankly incredible.

Having thrown the nation’s pensioners spectacularly under the bus within just a few weeks of taking office, they’ve managed to blame the SNP for it already. If people’s lives and wellbeing weren’t at risk, the lack of dignity would almost be funny.

This week John Swinney tabled a motion in Holyrood demanding that the UK Government scrap its controversial plans to switch the winter fuel payment to a means tested benefit. The change will see 900,000 pensioners in Scotland losing out on money towards their skyrocketing heating bills this winter, as though it only applied in England, it resulted in a £160 million loss in Treasury funding for Scotland. Another great day for Scottish devolution.

These heating bills were the same ones Starmer promised to reduce before being elected. He has, of course, since done the complete opposite. They will once again rise this month just in time for winter.

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The 2024 Labour election manifesto actually promised in black and white to “cut bills for good” yet five months after the election, with Starmer nice and cosy inside No 10, those bills are set to increase by a further 10% and the only thing he is committed to cutting is financial support for elderly people.

Anas Sarwar and his Scottish Labour cronies, granted rarely a bunch to shy away from throwing their constituents to the wolves in the name of a political grievance, voted against the SNP motion this week. In other words, voted at the demand of their head office down south to keep vulnerable pensioners in the cold this winter – and then Sarwar blamed the SNP for it.

He described it as “the SNP’s axing of the winter insecurity fund”.

So, Labour will cut the winter fuel payment – but it’s up to the SNP to fix it. A running theme when it comes to rotten Westminster policy – the mitigation of which already costing the Scottish Government upwards of £600m.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar in the main chamber of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, Edinburgh, during a debate on housing. (Image: Jane Barlow) This has always been my biggest issue with Labour, particularly in Scotland. A bunch I am admittedly not short of issues with, but first and foremostly has always been the sheer dishonesty of it all.

The lack of shame, dignity and indeed moral compass among their elected cohort is really a sight to behold. They are professional politickers and not much else, and this latest tactic is nothing short of an insult to the intelligence of the Scottish electorate.

This is what happens when a political party sells its soul for electoral success instead of doing the internal work and reflection to win voters back honestly. Little by little over the years, we have watched on as Labour both here and south of the Border have sold the foundations from under themselves for a taste of a power that they, for so long, couldn’t so much as get a whiff of. And we’re all paying the price for the political ambitions of their top table.

They were humiliated in election after election for over a decade, almost outvoted into complete oblivion in Scotland if it hadn’t of been for Ian Murray and his Union Jack get-up holding on for dear life in Edinburgh South. But no matter how many times they lost, they refused to change tack.

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They blamed everyone and their dog for their own shortcomings, and not once had the political astuteness or humility to turn inward and reflect on the very real reasons Scotland turned its back on them in the first place.

When it comes to Scottish Labour, everything is always someone else’s fault. There is always a gripe, always a political grievance – and it is always teamed with an arrogance that, as a voter myself, leaves a bitter taste.

They have had a, long overdue, few months in the sun having achieved their wildest dreams this May when after years of foot-stomping and “SNP bad” soundbites, they finally managed to beat the SNP in an election.

They have obviously already managed to tank that success in an unprecedented manner, with the SNP winning the last two by-elections that Labour had been convinced were theirs for the taking – and the SNP is once again back out in front of them in national polls.

Anas Sarwar takes part in a penalty shoot out challenge during a visit to Street Soccer Scotland in Dundee (Image: Andrew Milligan)

How politically out of tune do you have to be to finally win an election after over a decade of utter irrelevance only to end up facing another Scottish parliamentary term in opposition? I think this political period in the UK will be studied in years to come for being one of the worst premierships of all time.

The reason? Labour still hasn’t done anything to honestly win back the trust of the people, they just wallowed for long enough that their main opposition in Westminster blew themselves up and they were the only alternative. Starmer was, at first glance anyway, the lesser of two evils and that alone is why they won the election. People were desperate to get the Tories out, not to get Labour in.

Labour is still the dishonest and entitled political entity that it was when Scotland decided to leave it behind all those years ago. Even in circumstances like this week, when their own failures are staring them and the entire country in the face, the only answer they have is to point the finger at the SNP. For a time, mud slinging was all they had to work with but it’s not a tactic that’s going to wash as a party of government.

This week’s display is just further proof that they weren’t, and aren’t, worthy of the trust that the people of Scotland afforded them. I have a sneaky suspicion, backed of course by national polling, that next time we won’t be so generous.