Welfare vote only delays austerity

Last week saw the first full year of the Labour UK Government and it has left me wondering apart from the colour of the ties on the front benches, what has changed?

- BY GEORGE BY PAISLEY MSP GEORGE ADAM

Labour began their first year in government by cutting winter fuel payments to the elderly and have chosen to end the year by attacking payments to the disabled.

You may be experiencing some deja vu reading my columns in recent weeks, as these are the same policies I had spoken out against during the worst years of the Tory government.

Labour’s Scottish leader looked us all in the eye on national television and promised “no austerity under Labour,” but we can all see that this was simply not true.

This latest fiasco around the welfare bill proves that.

The bill had initially proposed to slash eligibility for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a move which the government’s own analysis showed would remove support from 800,000 people by the end of the decade.

Labour have gone from ignoring disabled people to changing the bill minutes before the vote.