Just occasionally in politics, the mask slips and political parties reveal what they really are – rather than what they would like us to believe they are. Today in Edinburgh we experienced one of those moments. Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour Leader, unveiled her plans for ‘devo plus’ for Scotland – if Scots vote No in September. We expected something technical focusing on the new powers the Scottish Parliament would be gifted by a Labour government at Westminster. Instead, we got something fundamentally red in tooth and claw.
Indeed, Lamont could not have taken a harder socialist approach had she grabbed a red flag and waved it from the rooftop of the Scottish Parliament building. The words she kept using were ‘progressive’ and ‘redistributive’ but the message was clear – she intends to give the Scottish Parliament the power to hammer the rich, squeeze the middle classes and balance as many wealth inequalities as she can.
This is what she proposed:
- Giving the Scottish Parliament control over 15p in the pound of income tax across all tax bands.
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