By stewartb
The logic of the British Labour Party’s messaging for the 2026 Holyrood election – that the SNP is holding Scotland back – would be open to ridicule amongst voters if it wasn’t for the support – the complicity – of pro-Union news media. The latter’s lack of critical assessment of this and other Labour negativity about Scotland is palpable. Context- and perspective-free reporting has long been a characteristic of the mainstream media that supposedly serves Scotland.
Labour’s view of the UK
Before and since the UK General Election we’ve been told by the British Labour Party’s leadership just how damaging over a decade of Tory governments in Westminster have been for the UK. The Labour Chancellor is reported in the FT (July 8 2024) stating that the new Labour Government has inherited “the worst set of circumstances since the second world war”. She is quoted saying: “We face a legacy of 14 years of chaos and economic irresponsibility”. A speech by the Labour PM was reported on the BBC News website (August 26, 2024) under the headline ‘Autumn Budget will be painful, warns Starmer’. Here we learn that: the state of the UK is “worse than we ever imagined”.
But no spillovers here?
Despite being in a ‘precious Union’, despite being told we’re highly integrated into the UK on internal trade and more, despite supposedly being so dependent on the ‘broad shoulders’ of the UK for our economic well-being, the logic of the British Labour Party is that Scotland has been – or should have been – immune to the serious, indeed the exceptional harms Labour leaders themselves are claiming the UK as a whole has suffered under the Tories.
When the leader of the British Labour Party in Scotland claims that Scotland is being held back by the SNP, he is able to set aside the impacts of UK-derived factors only because of an uncritical mainstream media. And candidly, he must ignore or seriously underplay them: the case for ‘better togetherism’, for ‘UK OK’ Unionism still relies on it!
And when assessing the state of Scotland during the terms of SNP government let’s not forget the long lasting inherited consequences of the UK’s financial crash during the term of the Brown Labour government and the Tory austerity that followed – nothing to do with the Scottish Government! Let’s not forget about Brexit and its economic harms – nothing to do with the Scottish Government! Let’s not forget the Truss budget fiasco and its damaging impact on interest rates – nothing to do with the Scottish Government! Let’s not forget the serious economic harms experienced across the UK and internationally due to the Covid pandemic – handled as well by the Scottish Government as any in the UK. So who and what then has been holding Scotland back?
The case for whataboutery
The chosen form of the British Labour Party’s negative claims about Scotland and its government might have some merit if there was evidence that the same Party, so long in government in Cardiff, had done a much better job on behalf of Wales. Is Mr Sarwar’s logic – is it his contention – that it matters not so so much who is in government in Westminster because the British Labour Party has demonstrated in government in Cardiff that it ensures Wales flourishes, regardless? Really?
What is the state of the NHS in Wales? And to use a favourite source of the British Labour Party in Scotland, what about the Private Health Information Network’s statement on September 9, 2024 that ‘’There were over 7,900 reported private in-patient/day-care admissions in Wales, the highest ever quarterly total’ and ‘Wales is the only UK nation where self-pay – where patients fund their own treatment from their savings, a loan or fundraising – is the dominant payment method’ and ‘Self-pay admissions were at their highest level yet’ and ‘The use of private medical insurance (PMI) was also at record levels’? (See https://www.phin.org.uk/news/private-healthcare-market-update-september-2024-wales-phin )
On 17 September, the BBC News website’s Wales section had this headline: ‘First minister sparks row with health bosses’. The BBC reports that: ‘A row has broken out between the first minister and NHS bosses after she said she would hold them to account over long waiting lists. Eluned Morgan said on Sunday that she wanted to pressure health board chief executives, “who are paid significant sums of money”, over the care they provide.’ (my emphasis)
The same BBC article reports the following statistics for NHS Wales:
- On delayed discharge: “In some hospitals 20% of beds are unavailable as patients wait to leave hospital’
- ‘Over the last year, assessment issues were responsible for 41% of these delays and nearly a quarter were due to care home placement arrangements’ – i.e. they were related to problems with social care provision in Wales
- ‘Freedom of Information requests by the BBC found the average delayed time patients were spending in hospital beds was five weeks’
- ‘It was calculated that this was costing the NHS £14m a month’ – in Wales
- On waiting lists for treatment: ‘Last August’s waiting times figures hit record levels, with those waiting longest – more than a year and two years – had increased’.
On 17 September 2024, the BBC News website had this headline in its Wales section: ‘BBC reporter’s 8-hour wait outside A&E in ambulance’.
The BBC article provides this: ‘Figures from a recent Freedom of Information request to (sic) BBC Wales revealed more than 2,000 ambulances spent more than four hours outside A&Es in Wales waiting to hand over patients in May. There have been 1,700 ambulances a month waiting more than four hours outside A&Es over a 12-month period. The average handover time was 2hrs 11 minutes in May.’
One could go on: what about the state of school education in Wales (- and PISA scores for Wales, if we must!); of rates of poverty in Wales; of the state of Welsh economy more generally etc. – all thriving despite Westminster rule due to governance by the British Labour Party? Hardly!
Another example – homelessness
Turning to one aspect of devolved social policy that has been profiled negatively in the news in Scotland in recent days viz. tackling homelessness. The British Labour Party seeking power in Holyrood will hope information of sort given below will never reach Scotland’s electorate. The Labour- and/or Union- supporting media in Scotland will hope their readers/audiences – voters – never become aware of this sort of information as it would alert many more people to just how much news reports about Scotland are denying them important context and perspective.
From the South Wales Argus, September 7, 2024 we find this this headline: ‘Concerns rise as homelessness in Wales reaches highest level recorded’
It reports: ‘Homelessness in Wales has risen to the highest levels since records began, new figures have revealed. Statistics Wales has said that 13,000 households were categorised as homeless last year, marking an eight per cent increase from the previous year. (my emphasis)
‘The alarming rise comes less than 12 months after a White Paper was published outlining the Welsh Government’s plans to eradicate homelessness.’
From Wales Online, September 19 2024 this headline: ‘Hundreds of homeless people left stuck living in B&Bs – there is simply a massive need for temporary accommodation’.
It reports: ‘The extent of the housing crisis facing thousands of people in Swansea has been laid bare in a hard-hitting report which said the number of people being put up in bed and breakfasts has risen ninefold. Around 270 people, including some families, are currently in bed and breakfasts compared to 30 five years ago because other forms of temporary accommodation are full.
‘The council report said people are also spending far longer in temporary accommodation than they used to. The average stay was below 25 days five years ago but is forecast to be around 225 days in 2024-25.’
‘The report said just under 4,500 people presented to the council as being at risk of homelessness last year – a 50% rise compared to five years ago – although not all of them needed to be found temporary accommodation because agreements could be reached with landlords for example.’
Financial constraint – and the cause.
Indicative context for this and probably much more in Wales is provided by Wales Online (December 19, 2023) under the headline: ‘Key points from the Welsh Government’s 2024-25 budget – Spending is being cut in many areas as the Welsh Government tries to protect health in a tough year.‘
We’re told: ‘The Welsh Government says that to protect core, frontline services, jobs and the most vulnerable, it has to make savings across the board. They say there was no adequate funding settlement from the UK Government which has forced it to make real terms cuts to all departments except health.’
Tackling low pay?
One impact of financial constraints is spelled out on the Community Housing Cymru website (February 18, 2024): ‘Welsh Government funding shortfall pushing homelessness workers into poverty’
‘New data collected by Community Housing Cymru and Cymorth Cymru has highlighted the impact of repeated Welsh Government funding freezes on the wages of vital homelessness and housing support workers in Wales. These organisations, which represent over 100 support providers, have written to the First Minister ..’
‘Despite promises on the Real Living Wage at the last Senedd election, the Welsh Government has not provided additional funding to the homelessness and housing support sector to uplift salaries and make this a reality.’
‘Rhea Stevens, head of policy and external affairs at Community Housing Cymru, said: “The housing crisis is pushing more and more people towards homelessness already. To see the very people who have dedicated their careers to providing the life-changing help that others need being at risk of significant hardship too is wholly unacceptable.”
Katie Dalton, director at Cymorth Cymru, said: “Fair work and the Real Living Wage were at the heart of Welsh Labour’s election manifesto and Programme for Government, and we were promised that homelessness and housing support workers would be included in the Real Living Wage commitment.
“Since then, the sector has not received a penny more in funding to deliver this pledge. It is unacceptable that workers who do such skilled, complex and traumatic jobs are paid so little, and it is intolerable that the very people who are tasked with preventing homelessness are being pushed closer to homelessness and poverty themselves.”
Imagine this was a report about Scotland!But surely it cannot be the result of actions or inactions by the British Labour Party, the Party of Mr Sarwar and Dame Jackie Baillie?
So what is the explanation? Is it that the British Labour Party in government in Wales is not as politically ‘virtuous’ as the same Party wishing to govern in Scotland? Or is the British Labour Party in government in Wales somehow not as effective as the same Party contends that it would be if ever in government in Scotland? Or is it that within this Union any and all devolved governments have to make genuinely difficult decisions over prioritisation and funding, and the British Labour Party when governing in Wales is – and can only be – little different? It too has severely limited choices when it comes to levels of investment in public services and the development of the Welsh economy. It makes choices – that’s ‘government’ – and it gets these right sometimes but inevitably, not always!
End note
The target of British Labour Party messaging on who’s holding Scotland back makes a strong case for engaging in what some may call ‘whataboutery’ – it makes the case for asking ‘what about Labour run Wales?’ Although legitimate IMHO in order to counter the Party’s charges against Scotland’s present government, it is nevertheless regrettable to have to do so: I have no wish to talk down Wales! Arguably, the difficulties being faced in that nation are comparable in many ways to those facing Scotland viz. spillovers from the performance of a highly centralised and failing UK state!
Arguably it is factors derived from the UK, from Westminster that are holding Wales back. The British Labour Party has described the state of the UK in the most stark, negative terms. The Party in Wales allows itself to acknowledge openly the serious harms caused by Westminster from time to time. The British Labour Party in Scotland under the leadership of Mr Sarwar does not, preferring it seems to rely on hypocrisy to gain power!
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Labour’s Wes Streeting is on record very recently indicating in no uncertain terms that Wales’ financial problems stem from Westminster . Clearly that applies to Scotland – except in the minds of the blinkered Scottish (sic ) Labour Party and their friends in the media . The Labour Party ( in Wales or elsewhere ) must be defended at all costs .
Whatever happened to Starmer’s assertion yesterday of ”Country before Party !” Or did he mean to say ” Country- except Scotland – before Party !”
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“Before and since the UK General Election we’ve been told by the British Labour Party’s leadership just how damaging over a decade of Tory governments in Westminster have been for the UK”
Spot on stewartb.
Yet the contradiction is clearly as you state in your piece where they, Labour and the media , then expect us to believe that Scotland is being “held back by the SNP” yet somehow undamaged by over a decade of different Tory UK governments.
Indeed the only time we ever hear the truth about both Labour and the Tories is when it is at a UK level.
Where Labour UK expose the Tories poor record as the UK government and so those responsible for public services in England and also for reserved policies within the UK (when the Tories were formerly in power as the UK government).
While the UK Tories expose Labour’s poor record as the Welsh government and so , as a party, those responsible for public services in Wales. (They, the Tories, also highlight poor decisions and policies via Labour UK when they were last the UK Govt).
In fact the only time they, Labour UK and the UK Tories unite, is when they speak about Scotland and the SNP, then as if by a miracle, they both sing from the same Hymn sheet !
As amazingly they both reach a consensus as in they have common ground where they both state #SNPBAD on a loop , as do their respective client media, while we in Scotland, as a public , are supposed to ignore both of their awful records as parties who govern in the UK , England and Wales.
Anas Sarwar also has an alliance with Douglas Ross (Tories) and also ACH the Lib Dem leader against the SNP as does their client media in Scotland.
Of course that’s because Better Together continued long after the 2014 independence referendum and is very much still ‘Alive and Kicking’ (emphasis on the Kicking – see Lisa Nandy’s reference on Spain and Catalonia and how the UK should treat independence supporters in similar fashion to how Spain treated their “Separatists” – a favoured term for independence supporters by British Nationalists like Nandy and all other British Nationalist parties and too UK media).
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‘.. they, Labour and the media, then expect us to believe that Scotland is being “held back by the SNP” yet somehow undamaged by over a decade of different Tory UK governments.’
I wrote this btl here previously but – with apologies to those not wishing repetition – in the context of this thread it seems worth repeating given the British Labour Party in Scotland leader’s claim that the SNP is holding Scotland back!
One could go on. So what and who is holding Scotland back?
Labour in government in Cardiff has not been able to counter the harms of Westminster under the Tories which have been ‘holding Wales back’.
If Sarwar’s argument really is that Scotland and by implication, Wales will ‘be held back’ UNLESS the British Labour Party is in power in Westminster and also in Edinburgh/Cardiff at the same time, then he is effectively acknowledging that devolution as a utilitarian constitutional construct is a sham. And that will come as no surprise to many!
And whatever happened to British Labour’s big idea promulgated by Gordon Brown – what was it called? Federalism!
The Brown-inspired Labour ‘Commission on the UK’s Future’ stopped well short of proposing federalism but it did offer a diagnosis of a broken Britain that runs directly counter to Sarwar’s accusation of who or what is holding Scotland back!
See https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/a-new-britain-renewing-our-democracy-and-rebuilding-our-economy/
It states: ‘The UK is the most centralised country in Europe. Too many decisions affecting too many people are made by too few. The deadening, controlling hand of central government is, as we will show, stifling initiative and development throughout the country.’ And: ‘Changing not just who governs us, but how we are governed, will address a system of government that the British people perceive is broken.’
‘All the evidence from recent experience is that putting too much power and control in the hands of a few leads to bad decisions and bad outcomes.
‘It led to austerity because we were told by the centre that “there was no alternative”. It led to the failure to deliver a coherent UK wide industrial strategy to support British jobs. When Covid hit, our faulty wiring was exposed ….’
From the pen of a British Labour Party sage and the Commission he led, Mr Sarwar. We know who and what is holding Scotland back. The locus in Westminster!
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