As ministers voted today, they should be in no doubt, the firstjob is to keep people safe, them every single day, protect them every single day, they make the hardest budgetary decisions, harderthan they make the hardest budgetary decisions, harder than those of the treasury, because they have no choice and they have to put a roof over their head and they have to pay for their food. And they have to pay for their heating. We note that now the sums are not adding up and we are getting the letters coming in, and the constituents are scared and they are telling us they are frightened, as they will not switch to switch because they know if they do, they will have bills they cannot pay, and we need to protect those vulnerable people and i commend my friend for driving forward the ambition to get 880,000 pensioners signed up get 880,000 pensioners signed up to Pension Credit. I really hope that people will test the system and make sure they can. 243 system and make sure they can. 215 questio
You get tory and I wIll be austerIty ahead and that Is what they argue and the OpposItIon PartIes here would say a lot of the problems are of the snps own makIng and they are In charge of thIs budget and they have decIded to make generous Pay Settlements to PublIc Sector workers, Pay Settlements at the ScottIsh FIscal CommIssIon would say were not planned for In perhaps the way they should have been. But the result of all thIs, where the blame lIes, that Is up where the blame lIes, that Is up for Argument And Everyone takes a dIfferent posItIon on that but the fact Is there Is a Black Hole and cuts on the Way And Shona RobInson Wall take topIcal questIons emInently behInd me and that Is slIghtly overrunnIng but we expect her to stand up emInently to gIve about a 15 MInute Statement on where she wants to move the money and where she sees the necessIty for cuts and what thIngs can be delayed and what money can be dIverted, but we are expectIng thIs to be a substantIal statement detaIlIng
But a report from the Scottish Fiscal Commission says while Uk Government policies have contributed to the pressure, much of it comes from the Scottish Governments own decisions. Heres our scotland editorjames cook. This is the reality of life less than four miles from the scottish parliament. A Community Centre handing out free bread to help the residents of muirhouse make ends meet. And yet, now, here and across scotland, the tough times could be about to get worse. Prolonged westminster austerity, the economic damage of brexit, a global pandemic, the war in ukraine, and The Cost Of Living crisis, have all placed enormous and growing pressure on the public finances. I must take further and more urgent action now to ensure that we can balance the scottish budget in 2024 25. And i call. There is also £800 million of additional spending for new pay offers, and all that means £500 million in direct service cuts, plus a raid on the Proceeds Of Offshore Wind and publicly owned scottish w
Investigation is continuing just now, that has been difficult for the snp, hard for people to move past that. There was a lack of progress, of course, on independence. A number of people who have criticised a strategy that Nicola Sturgeon pursued, that Hamza Yusuf pursued as well, her successor, and of course Nicola Sturgeon was such a successful politician. She resigned quite suddenly and was replaced by Hamza Yusuf as her predecessor, who had a short time as First Minister and of course, he did not have the support at holyrood in the chamber i do not have enough mps to get things through. So there were a minority government, they had lost their Partnership Support so he had to go. John swinney is now coming in, trying to address a lot of those problems, a lot of those problems beyond their control, such as the police investigation. 0ther control, such as the police investigation. Other problems, when it comes to delivering, for example, Government Advisers here quite candid, say, yes
alexandria: this is last day of combat readiness controls, according to beijing, an aircraft carrier has been used to send jets. all in response to taiwan president visiting with speaker kevin mccarthy in the u.s. last week. u.s. lawmakers hardening the island in an event to by china. this is very serious. if you look at the authority of the chinese air force together with the ships becoming close to taiwan and any accident might spark uncontrollable war between taiwan and china. and if other countries try to intervene, it might be the start of a war of grand scale. alexandria: china state television sharing what a missile attack could look like. congressman michael mccaul weighs in. this is intimidation tactic they are known for. the size of this one is quite large, one of the largest ones we ve seen and it is not going to intimidate us. if we have deterrence for peace, we need to get weapons into taiwan. alexandria: china claiming the u.s. illegally intruded