By stewartb
Back on June 13, 2024, a BBC Scotland editor published an article on the BBC News website (so it must be true) with this opening: “Read my lips,” said Anas Sarwar, during the BBC Scotland leaders’ debate this week. “No austerity under Labour.”
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp4409yejrwo
Fast forward to today when the push back against the policies of Mr Sarwar’s Labour in Name Only (LINO) party in government in Westminster has been given further impetus. It is being reported that 42 Labour MPs have sent a letter of protest to the PM. Here is how two Labour-supporting online media organisations are covering the latest expression of discontent.
From Left Foot Forward (May 8, 2025) ‘These are the 42 Labour MPs who have called for Starmer to abandon disability benefit cuts ‘ – “The planned cuts of more than £7bn represent the biggest attack on the welfare state since George Osborne ushered in the years of austerity”
Here we learn: ‘The prime minister Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves are coming under increasing pressure to abandon their planned cuts to disability benefits. The cuts will see a tightening of criteria for Personal Independence Payments which will see many people who would receive a daily living payment become ineligible for this.’
It adds: ‘The cuts, announced earlier this year, are projected to hit 700,000 people already in poverty, and push around 250,000 people below the poverty line. In total, it is expected that around 3 million people will see their benefits affected by the changes.’ (my emphasis)
‘In their letter, the MPs say: “The planned cuts of more than £7bn represent the biggest attack on the welfare state since George Osborne ushered in the years of austerity and over 3 million of our poorest and most disadvantaged will be affected.”
The letter continues: “Cuts don’t create jobs, they just cause more hardship.”
Left Foot Forward notes that whilst many of the MPs who signed the letter are on the left of the party, a substantial number of the signatories are from the right and centre. This makes it EVEN more noteworthy that of the 42 MPs ONLY one is representing a constituency in Scotland, namely Brian Leishman, the MP for Alloa & Grangemouth.
This is how the matter is reported by Labour List (May 8, 2025): ‘Labour MPs slam disabled benefit cuts as ‘impossible to support’.
This article also quotes from the letter,: “The planned cuts of more than £7bn represent the biggest attack on the welfare state since George Osborne ushered in the years of austerity and over three million of our poorest and most disadvantaged will be affected. Without a change in direction, the green paper will be impossible to support.”
Should we now have a heightened sense of expectancy of the journalist profession in Scotland doing its job? Will BBC Scotland, STV, the Daily Record, The Herald, The Scotsman etc. that supposedly serve Scotland demand that Mr Sarwar and his colleagues explain why they conned voters in Scotland to vote for LINO in such an egregious manner during the 2024 Westminster election campaign? Aye right!
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
“How only one Scottish Labour MP opposed ‘the biggest attack on the welfare state since George Osborne ushered in the years of austerity’”
Great post stewartb.
That “one ‘Scottish’ Labour MP” being the one that is currently ‘revolting’ as in he needs to , based on the major betrayal from his party to his constituents in Grangemouth.
You know if I ‘revolted’ , as an MP, against my own party as much as he does, then I would think ‘Am I in the right party for me’ ?
The fact that he is still an MP in the Labour party , and more importantly is seemingly being given carte blanche by Labour HQ to ‘Revolt’, is a tad suspicious, that is as an ongoing action by him.
As we have seen how other Labour MP’s have been suspended for NOT VOTING WITH THE PARTY, so why then is he, Brian Leishman, so very special in being given a different treatment that amounts to exceptionalism in his constantly vocalising his opposition to the Labour party at HQ and also him voting against the Labour party (at HQ) in the HOC.
Vote SNP in 2026 etc etc
Liz S
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Your opening quote from Douglas Fraser’s article https://archive.ph/pOzNh was a mere 4 months before the 22bn “black hole” was announced in October 2024, so perhaps he’s less inclined since to make a fool of himself these days ? – Not a chance, he’s playing the ‘look a squirrel’ game ” The choppy waters between North Sea oil and green energy revolution “, demonstrating he’s as deluded on finance as Reeves is in London and Sarwar in Edinburgh, the ‘little people’ don’t matter. It’s a living if you don’t have a conscience.
I realised debt was the only growth industry left in the UK before departing skint in 2000, but very quickly learned from the Irish press just how immersed the UK population was is in propaganda, what some bright spark named goldfish syndrome (easier to gain perspective from the outside).
I suggest it is not headline Labour principles which are driving rebellion in the party, but realising it is their own pips which will be shortly be squeaking, as the populace’s pips can squeak no more – The authorities clearly expect civil unrest, hence increasingly authoritarian legislation and behaviour in England, but what happens when folks can take no more ?
One of the more ludicrous claims I read recently attributed to a ‘think tank’, was that ‘people were saving more’ hence stifling the conditions for growth – Heat or eat, but let’s put a bit by for a rainy day.
Sarwar’s colleagues will go down with his shit in 2026 in Holyrood, he’ll still be there like that nasty stain on the carpet, or James Cook or Douglas Fraser.
So to echo the answer to your ultimate question, “Aye right!”.
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