This reminds me of research done by the Scottish Liberal Democrats last year which shows that over the whole of their four year term, the SNP will have given 133 times more every year to a household on £100,000 than they have to households on £15,000. That doesn't seem very fair to me. At the time, Tavish Scott said:
“Over four years, the SNP will have spent £950m on a set of distorted priorities and hand-outs that give more to the rich than to the poor.
“If you have two children and earn £100,000 then you will have gained £802 per year from the SNP.
“But if you have two children and you earn £15,000 then you will have gained just six pounds and seven pence.
“So that’s enough champagne and lobster every night for the rich, but a fish supper for the poor.
“So I mean it when I say that, in Scotland, the only party at the General Election for a fairer society will be the Liberal Democrats.”I'm not sure why we haven't made more of this. I mean, to give £802 per year to a family on £100,000 and only £6 a year to the poorest is not something the SNP can be proud of.
The Nationalists seem to be even more in denial about our financial circumstances than the Labour Party when they were in power at Westminster. It worries me greatly that in the current climate, they intend to continue their Council Tax freeze which gives most benefit to the better off. This was only supposed to be a temporary measure until they introduced their Local Income Tax,but they gave up on that one with undue haste. If they'd agreed that local authorities should be able to set their own rates, this could have been up and running by now and people would be paying their local taxes according to their ability to pay and not the size of their house. The elderly widow on a low income paying the same as 2 lawyers across the street under the Council Tax doesn't get any fairer. Yet another failed SNP pledge.
And then there's prescription charges, which they still insist they're going to abolish completely next year. I can think of many better uses for the £40 million it's cost us. There are more efficient ways of making sure that those who need help most get it. Under the Scottish Liberal Democrat plans unveiled in our 2007 manifesto, we'd have limited prescription charges so that people with chronic conditions who needed a lot of medication would only pay the equivalent of one full prescription charge per month. That seems fair to me.
Under the current system, I,with my dodgy thyroid, am entitled to free prescriptions. I need to take one tablet a day and I am prescribed 8 weeks' worth at a time. Even if prescription charges up here had remained at the same level as in England, my drugs would cost me less than a glass of wine in an Edinburgh pub per month. That's easily affordable. I don't need it.
I may be sick, and I'm certainly not rich, but paying for my prescriptions is not going to cause me any great hardship. I'm sure I can't be alone in that.
The SNP Government has, to add to its pretty shameful record on education, the mantle of being the Party that does most for the rich. For that reason alone, they need to be kicked out of office come May.
