By Professor John Robertson OBA
Readers will know that comparing Scotland’s drug deaths to shame the SNP Government is considered fair game but this is, somehow, not talked about.
As First Minister, John Swinney’s speech on eradicating child poverty is reported at length but minus this:
It’s worth putting child poverty into the same European context, so loved by commentators on Scotland’s drug death rate, with the above data, graphed by Eurostat in 2024.
Only Romania, Spain and Bulgaria have higher rates of child poverty than England or Wales. Scotland already despite limited fiscal powers, has lower child poverty than many northern and western European countries.
Footnote:
Just over 2 000 drug deaths across UK but 4.3 million children live in poverty. Drug abusers have some choices, children in poverty have none. Which should be John Swinney’s priority? Which should media report?
Sources:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
How many infant deaths are die to this situation ?
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Drug death statistics are collected differently. Scotland as a total amount. Others in separate categories. Death by poison, death by heroin, death by accidental overdose. Different categories. Scotland total is as a whole. It makes the total look higher by comparison.
Scottish Gov funding drug services £250Million over five years. More total abstinence, proper rehab facilities are opening. More beds are needed. MUP has reduced alcohol deaths.
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Relative poverty and absolute poverty. Absolute poverty rates are lower. Especially in Scotland. Alcohol and drug abuse causes poverty. People are unable to work or care for children. Kinship payments keep children within the family. Less children are in ‘care’. People in care can stay longer with foster support, they get increased educational grants, affordable accommodation and do not pay the council tax. Increase support.
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The Guardian has fastidiously avoided any mention of the effect of the Scottish Child Payment in any of its articles on child poverty.
If there is anything that can present Scotland in a bad light, the baleful Libby Brooks will present an article on it.
Alasdair Macdonald.
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Yet the Labour UK party chose to make specific cuts that will impact some of the poorest in society whose needs are far greater than some others, like say Bankers and large corporations .
Where Labour UK have also chosen to not reinstate the cap on Banker’s bonuses and also where Labour UK have chosen to not raise corporation tax as the new UK government.
According to the BBC UK Politics part of the BBC website (as in the part of the BBC who remain loyal to the Tory party) :
“The government has repeatedly claimed that it has inherited a previously undisclosed £22bn “black hole” in the nation’s finances from the Conservatives.
Ministers have used the figure to justify the decision to cut the winter fuel payment, while Sir Keir Starmer has also warned that October’s Budget will be “painful”.
(“Painful” for whom though ? Says I).
But economists say the state of the public finances should not have come as a complete surprise to the Labour government, arguing some of the pressures should have been anticipated“
“But while Labour can credibly claim it was not aware of all areas of overspending, certain things were known.
For example, pay review bodies were likely to recommend a raise bigger than the 2% initially budgeted by the last government in order to retain teachers, nurses and other public sector workers.
It is a point made by IFS director, Paul Johnson: “The numbers may be a little bit worse than they thought at the time, and I think there were some things that were hidden from view, but the overall picture over the next four or five years is very, very similar to what we knew before the election.”
“The trouble with terms such as “black hole” is they suggest the government’s hand was forced“
“It is important to remember that choices were indeed made. The government decided to do things like giving winter fuel payment only to those receiving pension credit, but it could have taken other decisions”.
“For example, it is basing the decisions on needing to meet the fiscal rules that it imposed on itself, but it could have changed the rules. Or it could have decided to spend less on something else.”
“The Leader of the House of Commons, (Labour’s) Lucy Powell, told BBC News on 1 September: “If we hadn’t taken that action we would have seen a run on the pound, we would have seen the economy crashing.”
“Nina Skero, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research told BBC Verify: “It is hard to find any evidence to support the claim that there is an imminent risk of a run on the pound.”
She added that the size of any hole in the public finances is “highly speculative, subject to forecasts, and there are no alarm bells going off at the moment among investors looking at the UK“.
So really based on all of the above why then pre the GE were Labour making so many pledges, promises, financial commitments and also declaring with such (faux) confidence and (Faux) sincerity that with them, Labour UK as the new UK government, the public would see real “Change” and a real “Fresh start” which was really Labour UK declaring that they would be different from the previous Tory UK government. Surely ?
The public then assumed (wrongly) that the financial burden they were all living under ,when the Tories were in charge , would then be eased indeed lifted as a burden when Labour UK took over as the new UK government.
This has not happened with Labour UK instead we , within the UK, now all (as ordinary people aka workers) must still suffer hardships via what the new Labour UK government has decided to do.
(And just like the Tories their decisions as the new UK government impact us, the majority , more than the wealthy minority, as in the so called top 1% , who are reported as being those who are disproportionately assumed to be Male, middle aged and London based ).
I have highlighted certain words and noted that the above was on the BBC website via their UK Politics page, which does , as an article, dispute and contradict a lot of what Labour UK, Labour in Scotland and also what their, Labour , friends in the media, including BBC Scotland, are claiming in Scotland.
As in respect to both the Labour UK and the SNP cuts , which as cuts were made initially by Labour UK as the current UK government.
Where now , in Scotland, it seems as if most of the blame is being directed at the SNP, as the Scottish government, who yet again are being singled out and named as the (political) villains within the UK , according to much of the pro UK media in Scotland.
Meanwhile on the same BBC website on both the Scotland page and the Scotland Politics page as the second story on both pages there is this headline and story by James Cook (Chief Tale spinner for the BBC in Scotland):
” Scotland’s struggle to tackle poverty while cutting services”
Read that story on the Scottish page and then think of what Labour UK have decided, as the new UK government, to do when they had choices to do other things instead .
Also where economists have said that in their (professional) opinion as economists they ,Labour UK, were not totally oblivious to some of the financial shortfalls via the previous Tory UK government.
Additionally they, Labour UK, were also aware of the expectations of public sector workers pay being increased as in them expecting, via pay review bodies recommendations, a pay raise higher than the 2% initially budgeted by the last government.
How about for once, all of the UK media everywhere in the UK , just all coming out and being honest in them all stating that in relation to what Labour UK are now currently doing and saying as the new UK government, then it is patently obvious that they , Labour UK, lied to all of the public before the UK GE in July of this year.
That is in respect to what they, Labour UK, promised would be the public seeing and experiencing both a “Change” and also a “Fresh start” with a new Labour UK government in comparison to what they, as a public, suffered under the previous Tory UK government.
So surely for the UK media in relation to this situation with Labour UK “if it looks like a Duck, walks like a Duck and Quacks like a Duck then it just may be a Duck”
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