London parties admit jobs will go as Tories Scottish cuts agenda exposed

Today’s demonstration by trade unions in Glasgow highlights a growing protest against the London parties’ admission that their cuts agenda will mean cuts in jobs, said the SNP’s Glasgow East MP John Mason.

Mr Mason said that it showed how only more votes for the SNP would deliver More Nats, and More Nats means Less Cuts. He also pointed out how the previous demonstration against cuts identified Gordon Brown’s central role in the London parties’ cuts agenda and seized on a Tory admission that Scotland faced larger cuts.

Commenting Mr Mason said: “Yesterday’s admission by all the London parties that their cuts agenda means cuts in jobs pulls the rug from underneath their dishonest claims of saying they will create or protect jobs. They are now all the parties of cuts and job losses.

“Today’s demonstration underlines the growing protest against that cuts agenda. If Labour now oppose the council tax freeze they now have to say how much extra tax they want ordinary Scots to pay? Yet they have not answered this question yet.

“We have also learnt that the Tories plan to raid Scotland’s funding yet again to meet their cuts agenda. Like Labour they are trying to avoid the hard questions the SNP has put to them about why they plan to raid Scotland’s budget?

“With the LibDems threatening ‘savage' cuts, the Tories wanting to raid Scotland’s budget, and Labour saying that their cuts will be ‘deeper and tougher’ than Thatcher’s it is only the SNP which stands against the London parties’ cuts. Only More Nats will mean Less Cuts.

Notes:

1. The London parties admitting that their cuts will mean job losses can be read here.

“The Tories have said vacant posts will be axed in order to meet their £12bn savings target next year but have ruled out any compulsory redundancies.

“A senior Lib Dem MP said it was "dishonest" to pretend there would not be job losses over the next four years.

“And a Labour minister said public sector employment would shrink.

2. On 6th February 2010 at the last trade union demo Dave Prentis, UNISON's general secretary, said:

"If Barack Obama can say to the bankers in America, 'I want every dime back', why can't Gordon Brown say the same thing in this country?"

He also pointed out what he considers to be the danger of cuts plunging the economy back into recession, saying that public spending is the only engine of growth the country has.