Children in poverty just props for Swinney’s political pantomime

First Minister John SwinneyFirst Minister John Swinney
First Minister John Swinney
John Swinney is better suited to playing Scrooge than Santa Claus. Even when the First Minister breaks out a smile, he always gives the impression that a rebuke will follow shortly thereafter.

So while he, and his chief elf Finance Secretary Shona Robison, may have wrapped last week’s budget up in bright yellow Christmas bow (recycled of course), their gifts to the nation were not nearly as bountiful as they first appeared.

Take the First Minister’s pledge to end the two-child welfare cap which has, for nearly a decade, made poor families even poorer.

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“It’s a cruel policy, I’m going to scrap it,” he said the day after Robison’s budget speech. Hallelujah. A politician who knows the true meaning of Christmas. Cue a choir of heavenly angels singing his praises. But wait. Open Swinney’s carefully wrapped Christmas box and it’s empty inside. Zilch. Nothing. Not even a handful of chocolate coins and a squashed tangerine.

John Swinney’s pledge to end the cruel two-child cap is timed to come into force, not in time for this Christmas, or even Christmas 2025, but a few weeks before the Holyrood elections in May 2026.

His Christmas gift is nothing more than an election promise. Some would argue an empty election promise as he is largely dependent on the UK Labour Government to help him fund his bribe … pledge. It is a cynical stunt, designed, not to help vulnerable families, but to embarrass Scottish Labour and weaken their electoral chances. And there is a strong likelihood that the UK Government will announce the abolition of the cap, long before Swinney has to come good on his promise. Oh how his team must have laughed when they dreamt up this Christmas cracker.

Everything is politics with the SNP. Shona Robison described the government’s spending plans for next year as “a budget by Scotland for Scotland” but what she forgot to mention that that most of the £63 billion she plans to spend is a grant from the UK Government – £41 bn in fact, with the rest raised through taxes, the highest in the UK by the way.

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It is a UK Labour Government that is footing most of the bill for free bus fares for asylum seekers, a £2 billion boost for the NHS and a 9 per cent pay rise for public sector workers, not Robison and her boss Swinney. Even their £768 million “boost” to affordable housing is just a reversal of the cut the SNP made in last year’s budget and spending on homes is still lower (by 3 per cent) compared to 2023-24. This despite the fact that many councils, including Edinburgh, have declared housing emergencies.

No doubt Swinney and his spin doctors are pleased with how their Christmas budget has so far landed, particularly as their last minute “gift” of the ending the two-child cap puts Scottish Labour in a quandary when the Parliament votes on the budget early next year.

Getting one over on Anas Sarwar matters far more to John Swinney than the plight of the 15,000 children who will benefit if the cap is ever lifted. These kids are just props for his political pantomime.

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