“Things can only get better” was a classic tune when I was a kid that many people will recall heralded in the Blair Government.

After 14 years of Tory mismanagement, it’s no surprise that the electorate decided to oust them from government, and whilst their litany of incompetence is still fresh, it's worth asking ourselves why that tune didn’t benefit from a nostalgic Blair bounce in the charts.

Quite clearly the public wasn’t voting for Labour’s vision but to take the Tories out.

Things have started off worse than expected, and you didn’t have to be Nostradamus to know what was coming. In my last column, I highlighted that rather than change promised by Starmer we would continue to be short-changed by Westminster.

Within a month of the General Election, despite Anas Sarwar saying "Read my lips" during the BBC Scotland leaders' debate and "No austerity under a Labour Government", swingeing cuts were announced despite Sarwar’s promise to the Scottish people.

New Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, ‘stumbled’ across a £20 billion blackhole, despite this being forewarned by SNP Leader John Swinney in the debate with Sarwar, and her Westminster colleague, the SNP’s Stephen Flynn highlighted numerous times. Ignoring the warnings of the SNP is one thing, ignoring the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warnings about the hole in public finances is another. Cuts were planned all along by Labour. It’s why the IFS rightly referred to the pre-election denials of the blackhole as “a conspiracy of silence”.

Allowing the most vulnerable to suffer is an all too frequent Labour approach. In June before the election, Glasgow Labour voted against Glasgow SNP’s child poverty motion in the City Chambers. Two of that Labour cohort, elected as MPs in July, doubled down by voting to maintain the 2-child benefit cap once they arrived in the opulent surroundings of the Palace of Westminster.

Despite being morally repugnant, this wasn’t a surprise, Labour told us they would maintain the cap before the election. We shouldn’t really be surprised that Rachel Reeves, a former economist at the Bank of England, wants to cap the number of children families can have while refusing to cap the bonuses bankers can receive. We knew Labour planned to leave our children hungry, but we didn’t know they also wanted to freeze our grandparents. Reeves announced that the overwhelming majority of pensioners will no longer receive the Winter Fuel Payment from this winter. This Reeves Freeze will bite just as energy prices rise once again.

Given the UK Government’s decision to restrict payments to those in receipt of means-tested benefits, such as Pension Credit, and the implications for the Scottish Government, the SNP are urging the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to undertake a benefits take-up campaign for Pension Credit and to move forward with a social energy tariff.

Here in Glasgow, we already do so. The SNP have ring-fenced £6.5m for the Glasgow Advice and Information Network ensuring that Drumchapel CAB and others provide financial advice and support. Our local CAB secured £1.47m in financial gains for local people in the past year. What an incredible return on investment!

We will also be investing in community energy projects across Glasgow. This week we discussed the SNP plans for Community Renewable Energy supporting Glasgow communities to establish projects on vacant and derelict land sites across the city.

Building on support through the Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES), and the learning and positive participation in our People Make Glasgow’s Communities programme, land assets will be transferred to the community with the intention of any income revenue raised being directed back into the community for local benefit.

Helping vulnerable people access support and advice will only be part of wider social and economic benefits. Putting communities in control of the energy they use will help maintain energy efficiency and security and tackle climate change; and help people save money on their energy bills.

Community Wealth Building will also involve the use of local contractors to build and maintain projects.

In energy-rich Scotland, we have become accustomed to raising billions in tax revenues for the UK Treasury, whilst Westminster has repeatedly failed to provide adequate support for the industry, threatening Scottish jobs whilst abandoning investment in renewable technologies.

The total amount of electricity exported from Scotland in 2022 was worth £4bn: enough to power all Scottish households for more than two years. Yet more than 980,000 Scottish households (39%) are currently in fuel poverty and Scottish households also pay some of the highest electricity standing charges in the whole of the UK.

The last time Labour were in power they bailed out the banks and laid the ground for Tory Austerity. Now, they have their own banker who will implement it herself.

However, as long as there is an SNP government in Glasgow and in Edinburgh, we will find ways to combat the worst of what is inflicted upon us from 400 miles away at Westminster.