Coslads ... Labour's last fiefdom in Scotland

Labour's last bastion in Scotland, Cosla, is squealing, like the herd of stuck pigs they are, that Mr Swinney is, "Jist no playin fair!". The reason is, apparently Big Bad John Swinney has said you can have this extra money to help reduce the impact of the Westminster cuts your Labour bosses in London voted for but you have to spend it on the areas I have given it to you to spend on - Education and Social Services - or it stays in the Scottish Government wallet.

This in fact means Scottish councils who would have otherwise had to dig deep into cash reserves to maintain services at current levels will not have to dig as deep into their large cash reserves to maintain services; surely this is a 'good thing'?

For most normal business folk delivering a service or product to council tax payers, this sort of deal would be 'mana from heaven', a way of tiding you over until the next upturn or in their case independence. You would be looking to maximise the benefits to your core market and consolidate your work practices, employee training and retention to ensure you had everything in place which is needed to rapidly re-expand when the better times arrive. A downturn is the time smart organisations invest in staff and do not divest themselves of essential staff.

Sadly, when talking of Labour Councils and councilors in Scotland the word 'smart' in terms of organisation or councilors is rarely, if ever, applicable. Labour councilors would use the word in a sentence such as: "That's a smert suit yiv hiv on Mr McAveety. Yon bilely green herrin bone, fair suits yer orange 'Jist like Tam the Socialist' complexion, Franky boy  ..."

 

So COSLA are screaming "The arse is oot oor breeks, thanks to thon cruel SNP cuts." to all the usual Unionist media pundits. Pundits who then spew it out as fact while keeping very quiet it was 'proper' Labour who voted for the cuts to English council spending, over the duration of the current UK Parliament, as part of their 'austerity craze' and so they could look tough like the Tories; as a result of this the Barnet consequential sees Scottish pocket money for Cosla councils cut by the same amount.

To offset the real impact of Westminster cuts on Scottish Councils, Mr Swinney has robbed Peter to pay Paul, juggled here, scrimped there to protect, as far as possible, education and social services while expecting the Labour Councils to use some of the massive cash reserves they are all sitting on to even up the ante.

To ensure the usual Labour Councils and councilors can not indulge in their standard 'jobs for the boys and girls' racket, also known as 'Let's invent a new ALEO', the additional funding comes with a set of 'handcuffs' to keep their sticky fingers out of the till. This, according to COSLA is 'unfair' and 'undemocratic' where as to many of us council tax payers it is not before time that a halt is being called to their cronyism and sticky fingered activities. 

 

The recent farce over flood repair grants in Dumfries and Galloway and the rapid Labour/Tory council climb down highlighted just one of many scams Cosla members run, as the D&G Unionist coalition sought to siphon off Scottish Government Flood Grant money, given to help individual tax payers, local businesses and organisations recover when flooding hit the 'Shire in December 2015 and again January 2016; for their own pet projects.

Cosla's Labour members next response to Swinney's, " 'NO' you can not spend it on anything else?" Well it was this truly stupendous bit of lateral thinking:

"We are going to put up council tax and youse canny stop us, nyah, nyah, nyah ...."
 

So they think the answer to their problem of being made to be accountable for how they use this extra cash is the equivalent of putting a gun to the heads of local council tax payers and demanding with menaces a whole heap of brown envelopes containing unmarked notes. Probably so they can then spend the sum raised on a new shower and bidet for the Council Leader with enough left over to fund a fact finding trip to other Labour council leader's new shower and bidet combinations around Scotland, often via New York or Boston, with enough left for a damn good 'knees up'.

"Fine," says Mr Swinney, "Go ahead, plonkers, make my day. You really think your council tax payers will buy that, more cash out of their hard earned wages for even worse council services. Roll on the May 2017 Scottish Council elections and we will see how many Labour Councils will be left standing ..."

 

I have yet to hear Mr McAveety's formal response to Cosla's plan for electoral suicide but that's probably because some sixteen year old lass has just caught his eye as he was waiting for the BBC interview to go live on Glasgow Green and almost as swiftly his current piece's punch reached the other eye... "Phwoa! Look at the knoc ..... Oww!" 

 

"BBC Scotland were hoping to uncritically air Mr McAveety's statement on the benefits of a Council Tax raise on the people of Glasgow until an unfortunate ocular event occurred. Ms Kirsty Wark (Who has no association with the UK Labour Party in any shape or form, honest ... well not since Brown and Blair shot the craw .... OK ... maybees just a tiny wee bit) has agreed to read the statement on Mr McAveety's behalf, then ask herself the prepared questions and give the already agreed answers ...."