Opinion: Politicians must stop offering false choices to voters over funding of public services

Scotland’s political discourse has descended into farce and disingenuousness.

One truth our politicians can agree on is that public services in Scotland are in dire straits, straining at the seams of years of under-funding, Covid pressures, and increased demand.

If you look at financial projections, the future is bleak bordering on disastrous.

Demographic challenges, sluggish economic growth, and a decade of austerity and the resultant lack of investment has left ministers scrabbling for cash every year as fiscal gaps widen.

But, as it stands, all of the country’s major parties refuse to contemplate offering the major reform that is needed.

Council tax, and its long-awaited replacement (or lack of), is emblematic of this.

Humza Yousaf’s SNP announced, to understandable fury from local government, that there would a council tax freeze, fully funded by government.

A commitment that is as vague as it is regressive, with cuts to services somewhere within either local or central government funds inevitable.

Scottish Labour, under Anas Sarwar, spent the Rutherglen by-election scaremongering about prospective council tax reform and the increased tax burden on around a quarter of properties it would have resulted in.

Following the council tax freeze announcement, the party has returned to apocalyptic warnings about service pressures and cuts, but refuse to put forward an alternative course of action.

Nowhere do you see Labour agreeing with 10 per cent council tax increases to bridge the funding gap, or pointing at where hundreds of millions of cuts should come from.

Douglas Ross’ Scottish Conservatives also don’t oppose the freeze, but are appalled by cuts to other front-line service budgets from the Scottish Government.

Across all three major parties is this belief in fully funded public services, with no tax increases or tax reform.

Not one, despite years in opposition or in government, have a concrete council tax replacement proposal.

All believe their own political victory instantly solves fundamental demographic and economic challenges without significant reform.

Our politics has declined to a simplistic ‘all cuts bad, all spending good, all tax increases bad’ false choice.

It is fantasy politics, played out in front of our eyes while libraries close, hospitals struggle to keep up, and buildings literally crumble into dust.

Voters deserve better than this petty point-scoring. Politicians must step up, provide genuine options, or step off the stage.