Labour released their manifesto last, curiously close to the election. It means I’ve mostly run out of energy to read it and care. Let’s see what pops out at me.
“Scottish Labour will work to bring together stakeholders such as Sport Scotland, the Scottish Sports Association and the Scottish Volunteer Forum to create a Sport Volunteer Fund aimed at supporting people to go on coaching courses, child protection courses and mentoring schemes.” sounds like the sort of thing which could help canoeing although it’s not clear what difference it has with existing grants for these things.
“We will end the housing crisis that has developed under the SNP” Hmm, no, I’m pretty sure it was Labour who allowed house prices to spiral out of affordability and didn’t build new homes despite a large increase in population.
“no ifs, no buts, no fracking” a lot more honest than the SNP’s only-ban-if-fossil-fuels-harm-the-environment nonsense
“Labour will scrap the unfair council tax and replace it with a fairer system based on property values” isn’t council tax already based on property values? There’s zero other information on what this tax would be.
“ensure land in Scotland is registered within the EU” something the SNP did a u-turn on disappointingly
“When the Scotrail franchise is available for renewal we will seek a publicly owned ‘People’s Scotrail.’” other menifestos have something similar and it’s popular stuff, but the franshise lasts another 6 years and the government only lasts 4, so a bit of a lie this one.
” ban second jobs for MSPs” yay I like that, although not as much of a problem for MSPs and it is for MPs I suspect.
Always overlooked by commentators is that half of Labour’s MSP candidates also stand for the cooperative party. I have little idea of what this party does or why it exists, it sounds a bit like the Tory MSP candidates also standing for the J Sainsbury’s and Philip Green Supporters Party (which I suppose they do). Alas the website is down, quite a fail during an election campaign, so like everyone else I remain in ignorance of the third largest party in British politics.