Sturgeon openly admitted that the Scottish Government were pocketing the cash from welfare cuts, which include the family cap and rape clause that they are so actively campaigning against.
It's exposing a level of hypocrisy on a grand scale and demonstrates just how complacent the SNP have become in that they believe they can get away with this sort of thing.
Anyone with a bit of patience can string the budgets, powers of the Scottish Parliament and policy decisions of the Scottish Government to prove this case. But it's a difficult process to simplify.
Fortunately Sturgeon did the job for me when she let it slip in a planned debate soundbite that they really should have thought twice about.
I can just imagine the pre debate prep:
Sturgeon: OK so we’ll skew Dugdale with the leak of a vague private conversation and the spinners in the room can be there with detailed circumstantial evidence to follow it up. With a bit of luck that will stick. But what about Davidson she’ll batter me on independence? We need a strong soundbite against her.
Adviser : What about the rape clause again?
Sturgeon: Maybe... it didn’t cut through in the local elections though?
Adviser: Yes you’re right. But what about linking it to the tax cuts, something like stealing from the poorest and most vulnerable to fund tax cuts. After all we know that IDS resigned over the cuts funding the higher rate tax cuts
Sturgeon: Hmm that might work, and we can throw in some moral outrage line on the night to help it stick. Yes! That should do it.
And so it came to pass. At the STV Scottish Leaders Debate last night Sturgeon went for it:
“The money you are saving (on the subject of the rape clause and welfare cuts), is money taken from the poorest in society, is then being spent by your party on tax cuts for the richest. How do the Tories sleep at night.”
There we have it.
Sturgeon has absolutely accepted that the benefit cuts are funding the Tory tax cuts for the rich. That of course means the increases the the higher rate band that the SNP opposed in Holyrood as we can see from their 2016 manifesto.
So the SNP have decided to generate £1.2 billion in additional spending by forgoing the 'Tory tax cuts'. But we know categorically that this money has been "taken from the poorest in society" via cuts like the family cap and rape clause.
Well this is awkward!
The SNP are openly admitting that they are pocketing the cash from the welfare cuts (for public spending rather than tax cuts) but leaving the welfare cuts in place.
Let's be clear there is nothing to stop the SNP changing welfare levels upwards in Scotland, that decision is fully devolved to Holyrood.
They could end the family cap and the rape clause tomorrow, and we know they have all the resources they need to do it because they pocketed £1.2bn in Tory benefit cuts.
But government is about priorities.
The SNP have made a decision to accept, and benefit from, the rape clause in Scotland. They have decided to use the money from it to benefit public services in Scotland. That includes such policies as free tuition for middle class students from Scotland and the EU (but not England, Wales or Northern Ireland), free prescriptions for the wealthy, and a cut to income tax for everyone earning under £100,000.
Or let me put it another way:
The money you are saving (on the subject of the rape clause and welfare cuts), is money taken from the poorest in society, is then being spent by your party on free benefits and tax cuts for the richest.
How do the SNP sleep at night?
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