The SNP will not give Keir Starmer a free pass to inflict more public service cuts

The race for Downing Street is no longer an election, it’s turned into a coronation. In a few short weeks, the already knighted Sir Keir Starmer will be crowned as the next UK Prime Minister.

I think we all know that, for the main part, he has the Conservatives to thank for his coronation.

The Tories have been toast for a long time, their fate was already sealed before this election was called, but few could have hoped that Rishi Sunak would deepen their demise by conducting one of the worst political campaigns in history.

The current Prime Minister’s decision to leave the D-Day commemoration early to – let’s remember – take part in an election interview was the definition of disrespect.

Disrespect for the elderly veterans who made the difficult journey to Normandy. Disrespect to the office he holds and disrespect to the basic understanding that the D-Day anniversaries are actually about the saving of democracy itself.

Some have said it was another example of a lack of political judgement from Sunak, but I think that completely misses the point. Of course, it was a terrible political judgement, but it was also far worse than that.

It was a failure to act and think like a decent human being. It was another example of a Tory Prime Minister who seems to have a suffered from a humanity bypass at birth.

Apparently, that Tory trait applies up here too, with Douglas Ross doing down a sick man so that he could personally swoop in and try to grab himself another job in the north east of Scotland.

Pretty cold and pretty cruel by anyone’s standards. Throwing grannies under the next bus is clearly the next phase of this Tory campaign. The nasty party just got nastier.

The disaster that is the Conservative campaign means that the decision about who sits in Downing Street is already done. Voters down south are about to crown Sir Keir as their next Prime Minister.

So, with that big question already well and truly answered, the real question in this election is who is now best placed to put Scotland’s interests first at Westminster.

And the context in making that choice is hugely important. Because the danger with coronations is that the person who is crowned can sail into power without telling us what they believe and what they will actually do. And here in Scotland, democracy demands that can’t be allowed to happen.

Because what we do know about Sir Keir should worry us – especially when it comes to more Westminster austerity and more spending cuts to public services.

The Labour Party is so terrified of scaring off Tory voters in England that they are adopting the same approach to public policy and spending as the Conservatives.

Don’t just take my word for it. One of the most significant interventions in this election has come from the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson – as independent a figure as independent figures come.

He said last week that “neither party – the Labour and Conservative Party – is really addressing the big problems that they’ll face if they win the election. The numbers that we’ve got from the Chancellor, which the Labour Party have not demurred from at all, imply big spending cuts over the next five years”.

The IFS reckon that these Tory and Labour Party plans would mean a massive £18 billion of cuts. Another think tank puts that figure at closer to £33 billion.

That is vital money taken away from Scotland’s public services – meaning less money available for the NHS and schools, less money to tackle poverty, and less money to help families with the cost of living.

That’s why public spending on our public services is becoming the defining issue of this election. After years of Westminster cuts and economic mismanagement, and policy disasters like Brexit, we urgently need to see investment in the services which we all hold dear.

The Westminster parties aren’t prepared to invest, and they are hiding the cuts that they are both planning.

So, in this election, the choice in Scotland is whether people want to vote for a Labour Party that will deliver Tory spending cuts, or do they want to vote for the Scottish National Party, that will invest in the future of Scotland and put Scotland’s interests first.

This article was originally published in the Daily Record, 10th June.