This time last year all political parties were gearing up their preparations for the General Election campaign.
Barely a day went by without Labour figures taking to the media to extol the virtues of their “fully funded, fully costed” plan for government which, they solemnly promised, would not mean tax rises for working people.
We now know, literally, to our cost it was at best nonsense and at worst deliberately misleading, and we are all going to feel the consequences of the sleekit rise in employers’ National Insurance (NI) contributions, whether we are working people or not, however Labour defines us.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ claim that the public sector would be covered also turned out to be balderdash in Scotland, and the rise has driven a coach and horses through public sector budgets, particularly councils already wrestling with years of underfunding from the SNP at Holyrood.
Next week, my ex-colleagues on Edinburgh City Council must set a budget, and if it was difficult during my time in the City Chambers it’s now impossible without some very unpalatable choices.
Some money has been forthcoming from the Treasury to cover the NI rise, but only about half. A £1.5 million top-up from the Scottish Government is obviously a big help, but it still means the council must find 40 per cent of the cost from other savings
Private sector companies would dearly love to have 60 per cent of their NI increase covered, so perhaps sympathy should be limited, but the impact will be felt on all our services.
We will therefore pay a lot more for poorer services because it looks very likely that the officers’ recommendation of a whopping 8 per cent council tax hike will be accepted. This is the brutal reality of Labour’s fantasy of “no higher taxes on working people”.
In fact, the council faces a triple whammy because of the never-ending crisis in health and social care, as the money available for the care of the elderly falls well behind the demand from an ageing population. It will need to pay £13m to plug the gap in the finances of the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board (EIJB), which oversees the care services provided by the council and NHS Lothian, because it too faces rising costs.
But at least the EIJB is getting something. Not so lucky is Edinburgh Leisure which, as I pointed out in this column last week, will need to fill a £2.5m hole in its budget by reducing services and/or staff and putting up prices.
Meanwhile, council house tenants will face a 7 per cent rise in their rents, as well as the hefty council tax hike. As for the housing emergency, the council has been forced to cut its programme to build social rent council homes by 1350.
It means the cash cow of parking charges, which already makes a £28m profit from £40m of revenue, will be milked again, with rises of around 10 per cent.
This is the reality of an already dysfunctional Labour government colliding with an SNP administration whose failures over the past 18 years are almost too many to document.
They may have different positions on the constitution, they share the same misguided belief that if they increase taxes they can make things better. And boy, do we all pay the price.
