Mhairi Black: A week of good news for Scotland has left Unionists exposed on the UK's failings

 

"GET on with the day job” is the constant cry from Unionist politicians as they take turns to talk down Scotland and the SNP Scottish Government.

Tory and Labour politicians are practically interchangeable as their press releases use the same lines, gleefully reporting anything that they could consider as bad news for the SNP. It doesn’t matter to them if someone loses their job or if someone’s health treatment isn’t as good as it should have been. What matters to them is how they can spin every single issue into a bad news story for the SNP.

The last few weeks must have been a tough time for them. Perched like vultures ready to pick over the bones of the recession they expected Scotland to fall into, they were denied their treat when official UK Government figures revealed that Scotland’s economy actually grew at four times the rate of the UK-wide average. Other figures confirmed that Scotland was one of the most successful parts of the UK for attracting inward investment – only London and the south-east of England did better. And only a few days ago, it was also confirmed that Scotland’s unemployment rate has fallen to a 25-year low. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed it was Scotland’s lowest rate since comparable records began in 1992.

It wasn’t just the economy that was looking better; a report came out which acknowledged the NHS in Scotland was doing better than its counterparts elsewhere in the UK. The report from the Nuffield Trust, a charity that produces research on improving healthcare, entitled Learning from Scotland’s NHS, set out lessons the NHS in other parts of the UK can take from Scotland.

Some of the highlights of this report included the finding that the quality of care is being improved by supporting dedicated NHS staff, that Scotland’s NHS has a “more personalised” approach, and that the focus on continuous improvement allows best practice to be rolled out across the health service in Scotland.

The report concluded that other parts of the UK can learn from our integration of health and social care.

It was clear that Unionist politicians weren’t going to have a happy summer of scaremongering but who would have expected them to dig up the same old nonsense about the WASPI campaign.

As National readers will know, last week I had the privilege of summing up for the SNP on a debate about the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign. There was extensive coverage of it and again it highlighted just how poorly these women have been affected by an intransigent and uncaring Tory government. They can find £1.5 billion stuffed down the back of a couch in 10 Downing Street to pay off the DUP, yet can’t find the money to fulfil pension commitments and promises their predecessor governments had made to women who paid into the state pension scheme but found out at the last minute that they have been cheated out of their retirement.

To make matters worse a Tory Minister was offering these women the chance to take on an apprenticeship to make good any shortcomings in their income! Did he actually check his notes before reading this? How out of touch with reality must he, his researchers and speechwriters be to even think that was an acceptable comment?

Over the past few days my office has been inundated with emails and letters from many WASPI women thanking the SNP (and to be fair a few others from other parties) for standing up for them, and expressing their horror at the lack of concern the Tory government is paying them and their campaign.

However, what I’ve also started to pick up is the nonsense that the SNP Scottish Government can wave a magic wand and provide additional payments and pensions to those who fall under the WASPI banner. This myth has been debunked time after time, most recently in the debate last week when my colleague Philippa Whitford corrected the Pensions Minister to remind him that the restrictions of devolution specifically stop the Scottish Government from acting on pensions. Let’s be clear, it was the UK Government who took the payment from these women during their working lives and it was the UK Government who reneged on the promise of a state pension.

For better or more likely worse, the Tories will cling to power for the foreseeable future. They are the UK Government – it’s up to them to get on with the day job and sort out, once and for all, the WASPI issue.