Provost Drew McKenzie: Where has all the money gone?

There is clamour for our votes. We are being promised the world. That other mob are hopeless. You can’t trust them. Everything will be fine with us.

Now, if everything was fine, what would it look like? This land of milk and honey.

We would feel safe. Less anti-social behaviour outside the window. Less crime. We could walk our streets at any time of day or night. There would be less violence. Less vandalism. The abuse of drugs and alcohol would be brought under control.

And yet police budgets are under pressure!

Our schools would be modern. Great places to teach. Great places to learn.

Inverclyde is ahead of the game here. More so than most other places. But our teachers need paid. Those coming into the profession need to know there are jobs for them.

And yet council budgets are under pressure!

Sport and health. The two are linked. Encourage the first, we spend less on the second. Decent leisure facilities, affordable for all. Well used swimming pools. The playing field over the Playstation. Amateur sports supported. Young people getting fresh air. And teach them how to cook as well.

And yet council budgets are under pressure!

Seeing a doctor and getting treated quickly. More preventative medicine. More social care. More support for carers. Not hearing a cash register in your ear every time your tooth hurts. Our nurses being rewarded. More doctors. Less administrators. More investment in our hospitals.

And yet health board budgets are under pressure!

The green environmental issues. More recycling. Less plastic. Less cars on the road. Efficient public transport. Modern trains and make people happy and confident to take the bus.

And yet we keep building car showrooms. The next one bigger than the last!

Culture. The arts. Libraries and museums cutting hours. Theatres and music. Support at grassroots. Choirs. Writers. Painters. Potters. Sculptors. Cinema and film. Invest and encourage.

And yet budgets at both local and national level are being cut!

Our surroundings. Our place looking nice. The grass cut and lifted. Graveyards tended. A flower bed or two. We used to have a dual carriageway full of them. Our litter picked up and our bins emptied!

And yet council budgets are under pressure!

Housing. A basic human right. Proactive landlords in both the public and private sector. Affordable housing. Get on the ladder affordable. To rent or to buy! And a rent should be cheaper than a mortgage. If it’s not, why can’t we have either?

And yet investment in affordable housing seems to have stopped!

And jobs! Real jobs. Making things jobs. Manufacturing. Selling to the outside world jobs. Paying good wages. Keeping the money local. Money made round to go round. Not made flat to pile up!

We need more investment. Less cuts. We’ve been suffering death by a thousand of them. We’ve forgotten how our place used to look. What we took for granted. What we paid our taxes for. It’s as if the pot of cash is being continually skimmed. We are constantly being told by a compliant media that the country is skint. A cost-of-living crisis. Do you not feel someone has their hand in the till? That we are being controlled? Being played? Being fed the scraps off the table?

The councils here get most of their money from the Scottish government. The Scottish Government gets most of its money from Westminster. Westminster says it has no money.

So where has all the money gone?

Vote for whoever can tell you!