“I REGRET voting for them now.”
That was the response I was given when asking one Rutherglen resident about their view of the new Labour Government so far.
The area elected Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks, who was later made an energy minister in the UK Government, in the July General Election.
Scots voted for what Shanks and Labour were promising: change. But the overwhelming feeling from people on the ground in Rutherglen was that they have so far failed to deliver it.
“People were expecting a Labour Government to be for the poor and for the elderly and for the oppressed – and to me it’s just like the Tories,” one man told this paper.
That really summed up how the majority of people were feeling. And one issue came up again and again: the Winter Fuel Payment.
The arguments for making the benefit means-tested may be sound – but the heavy-handed cut which Labour imposed was far from the best way to do it.
It only saved the UK Government around £1.3 billion this year – and there is no doubt that Labour underestimated just how much it would cost them.
“They've probably demonstrated the same incompetence as the last government,” one Rutherglen local told The National.
“So far, it is early days, but they haven't really hit the ground running, in my opinion, and that's principally because to me, they've made very stupid fiscal decisions about who they're targeting.”
The idea that Labour had entered power only to “target” the elderly – instead of the rich or big business – came up again and again. People felt that they were having money taken out of their pockets, instead of those with much deeper ones. Some even said they were rationing heating as a result.
The optics of entering power only to take away a benefit which many people relied on has cut through, and no doubt fed the rising cynicism about politics among the UK public.
On Sunday, the i reported new polling which found that people had grown more cynical since the General Election. Among Labour supporters, just 17% said they felt well represented by the party – compared to 26% before the July ballot.
Seb Wride, from Public First, said: “People just don’t believe that political action will happen – commitments and announcements all feel meaningless, and it’s hard to see a way back.”
While that poll paints a nationwide picture, it is demonstrated on the ground in places like Rutherglen.
There, people feel that they have changed one heartless UK Government for another. And with Keir Starmer warning of a “harsh” fiscal reality and a “painful” Budget, is there any wonder?
The message from Rutherglen was clear. If Labour want to – as they put on page one of their manifesto – restore hope, they must start offering it.
