11/14/2007

What the SNP said to win student votes and what they do in power are two separate things

Oh dear. The SNP have been caught out at the very first hurdle when it comes to keeping promises they made in order to win votes.

In their first budget since taking power in Scotland they have decided not to keep their election promise to scrap all student debt. John Swinney, the SNP's Finance Minister then came up with the lamest of excuses when he then tried to pass the blame for this on to other political parties.

He told MSPs: "I know there is insufficient parliamentary support for student debt servicing or for loans to grants, and we must therefore prioritise funding on policies that we can deliver and which will be supported by parliament."

The SNP have discovered that pledges made from the safety of opposition need to be properly funded and costings worked out in advance. I wonder how many students were caught out by the SNP's lies on this issue. Hopefully the electorate will have learnt that the SNP are not as honest as they claim.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This post is entirely hypocritical coming from a LibDem. At least the SNP had a wasp of power, the LibDems will never hold power on their own and thus will never have to worry about what they promise.

Nice to see Mr Clegg starting as he means to go on by at least admitting he doesn't know where the £1.5bn black hole money is coming from!

Nich Starling said...

The Lib Dems manifesto pledges are always costed and checked independently. This is perhaps something the SNP should do themselves in future.

In many ways I would rather be honest and not be in power than do what the SNP have done, At least people know you for what you are now.

Well done for spotting that Nick Clegg is aware of black holes before elections and not many months after like the SNP.

Charlie Marks said...

The problem is that the Lib Dems ran from power - giving up the opportunity to govern in coalition with the nationalists in both Scotland and Wales.

The SNP can't have known how tight a grip on parliament they would have, nor how much money they'd get from Westminster - remember, the Scottish government doesn't raise its own taxes.

The dishonesty of the SNP leadership is that whilst posing as a party of the majority of Scots they court wealthy backers and promise to serve the ruling class under independence, an "independence" that will mean Scotland is part of a European capitalist state, instead of the British capitalist state.

Nich Starling said...

Charlie, your arguments are undermined by your failure to get some facts correct. It was Plaid who rejected a Rainbow coalition in Wales, not the Lib Dems.

Richard Thomson said...

I'm disappointed the SNP couldn't write off student debt. But if there's insufficient parliamentry support, it can't get through - end of. That's how government works under PR, you know.

Still, I am pleased that the SNP are to scrap tuition fees, eight years after the Lib Dems first promised then failed to do the same.

Charlie Marks said...

But you will grant me that in Scotland, the Lib Dems stubbornly refused to deal with the nationalists. Thankfully the leadership is beginning to take a more considered approach - but it's entered into a unionist alliance with both Labour and the Tories. And in Wales, what would've been wrong with the Lib Dems joining Labour and Plaid in a coalition? They missed this opportunity.

Anonymous said...

Norfolk Blogger, you claim that "Lib Dems manifesto pledges are always costed and checked independently. This is perhaps something the SNP should do themselves in future."

See the following coverage of the CPPR report from April 2007on 'uncosted policies': http://www.holyrood.com/content/view/230/10540/

My favourite part is: "

Any comment to make on that!?

Joe said...

"Scrap tuition fees, eight years after the Lib Dems first promised then failed to do the same."

I though tuition fees and graduation fees were something slightly different.

Lib dems got Tuition fees done, but not graduation fees... which the SNP have done (sorry Richard Thomson for pointing that out but Im thankful for both)

Not to say Im thankful for the SNP pulling out of pledges, giving the stereotypical politician all over Scotland a bad name with Students... just like the typical stereotype politician would do.

As a student, I expected as much before the election so am hardly shocked.

Richard Thomson said...

Zanderlibra - the Lib Dems didn't get rid of tuition fees. They simply repackaged them as a 'graduate endowment', which hadn't existed previously.

So tuition fee/graduate endowment, call it what you will. Either way, it still represented a charge for further education, which students will now no longer have to pay.

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