Scots should breathe a sigh of relief after the first Labour Budget in 14 years. Over a decade of Tory rule saw public spending cut and tax rises for the better-off.
Brexit wrecked the economy and the economic vandalism by Liz Truss made the UK a laughing stock. But Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget was positive across a range of fronts.
She and Prime Minister Keir Starmer realise that you cannot have low taxes and first-class public services. Improvements to the NHS and education need to be funded and this sometimes requires tax rises.
The £40bn in Budget tax rises will worry some voters. But they were needed to put this country back on track. And the increases themselves will hit the wealthy way more than the poor.
Now the focus must be on how the SNP Government proposes to spend the extra £3.4bn coming to Holyrood. SNP Ministers have complained about poor Budget settlements for years but now they have no excuse.
They must lay out a plan for how these extra funds will be used to improve our cherished public services. Our NHS is in dire need of a funding boost and SNP Ministers must ensure the money is used to bring down waiting lists.
Labour’s investment budget means the blame game has ended. Scots want extra investment to be tied to results and the SNP Government has to deliver.
Spanish warning
The deadly, shocking floods in Spain should be a wake-up call to the entire world. Dozens of people have died and the destruction has been off the scale in devastating flash floods in south-east Spain.
And entire neighbourhoods in the city of Valencia destroyed. It should bring home the urgency of the climate crisis like never before when some of our favourite holiday hotspots are deluged by this unparalleled rainfall.
The hard truth is scientific forecasts all point to these freak events becoming the norm, and these disasters getting worse as the planet heats up.
Experts are already emphatic that this week’s catastrophic downpours were intensified by climate change. Any country could be next.
As the world gets hotter thanks to rising emissions – chiefly driven by fossil fuels – our skies absorb more moisture, leading to more frequent and extreme rainfall. The shocking events in Spain are a glimpse of all of our futures in the decades ahead if climate action fails.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond.Sign up to our daily newsletter.