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Sunday 6 September 2009

Spending cuts and Council Tax rises from the SNP on the way?

The Scotland on Sunday has the screaming headline "Scots facing tax hike and £1.5billion cuts" with a sub headline of "Leak reveals top civil servants' plans".

The story comes from a leaked set of minutes.

So, we now find out that civil servants and the SNP are looking at cuts, in fact even showing that blanket cuts across the board, which would save £1.5billion, would be only part of the solution.

It is showing that the SNP government are likely to consider increasing Business Rates and even Council Tax - that would be a pledge broken if they do. I like the point where it is discussed that these tax rises and spending cuts will be difficult for the ministers to implement so the group also discussed ways of helping ministers pave the way.

I see there is the potential there to bury the bad news on a day when a major political announcement is made such as the General Election result announcement or just the SNP avoiding making difficult decisions as we have seen over the last two and a half years.

I do hope they don't bury bad news on days when peoples eyes and ears are elsewhere.

John Swinney as always blames Westminster - that's grown up politics for you.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

John Sweinney gets his block grant as a direct consequential from Westminster. Who else is he meant to blame if there isn't enough money to go around?

If you want the Scottish Government to step up and take full responsibility, you need to give them full fiscal powers.

Jeff said...

Incidentally, when I said "you" I don't actually mean you of course.

As embarrassing as this admission is, I honestly thought I was on Tom Harris' blog when I wrote that first comment.

I think it's past my bedtime ;)

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