- John McLellan

It’s hardly surprising membership numbers have continued to fall when her husband and former chief executive Peter Murrell has been charged with embezzlement, but it is the prospect of unpicking totemic policies as well as the General Election rout which will make this one of the most downbeat gatherings many will have experienced.

The suspension of the Connecting Scotland scheme to provide free iPads and laptops for "digitally excluded" people to help fund council pay deals, is just one example of how a lack of prudence can quickly unravel.

The £10m it will save won’t cover the wage settlements, so the expansion of free school meals will be another casualty, along with flood defence programmes, and despite desperate attempts by the SNP to blame Westminster, the expert view is the buck stops with them.

“As well as previous public sector pay deals in Scotland being higher than in the rest of the UK, other policy commitments made by the Scottish Government such as the council tax freeze in 2024-25 and the ongoing effect of its social security reforms have contributed to the growing pressure on the Scottish Budget,” said the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission this week.

And if the faithful this weekend are tempted to indulge in a bit of independence fantasising, the Institute of Fiscal Studies was just as clear in its assessment of the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland figures this month, saying that “unless North Sea revenues rebounded or economic growth and hence onshore tax revenues were boosted, tax rises or spending cuts would need to be even larger in the years ahead in an independent Scotland.”

There is no way out of this bind other than tax-raising and cost-cutting and the latter should include compulsory redundancies, but of course it won’t. Meanwhile, the private companies and third sector organisations bearing the brunt of reduced government spending are forced to lay off staff.

Things, as D:Ream didn’t sing, can only get worse after Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer’s thoroughly miserable and depressing speech this week which warned of a “painful” budget in October, which will almost certainly mean higher taxes of one sort or another, and less money than the SNP had been hoping for.

With Labour’s axe on the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and an expected tax raid on pensions and inheritance, this is no country for old men or women. But the crisis in Scottish further and higher education, the freeze on apprenticeships and gradual reductions in teaching staff through non-replacement means it’s not much fun for the young either.

The common denominator between Labour and the SNP is sacrifices are demanded of us to fund big public sector pay deals, and neither party seems to have either the stomach or imagination for reforms which might deliver better services taxpayers are entitled to expect for the extra they will be forced to pay.

Labour might be promising not to raise income tax, but in Scotland there will be no escape for even modest earners. Sir Keir Starmer talks of the broadest shoulders bearing the burden, but Scottish taxpayers need to get on the weights.