Buildingblocks

Douglas Ross pledges his party will build 40,000 council houses if elected. Can anyone spot a flaw?

One great thing about living in Scotland is we will never, ever, ever have a Tory government at Holyrood, which is why they want to close it. Scots haven’t voted Conservative as their first choice since 1955. Could they be coalition partners? Ask the Lib Dems how that worked out. The People’s Party might also think twice following their Evisceration Waltz at the Better Together Ball.

The second flaw is credibility. The Tory Party has never built a council house. David Cameron promised 200,000 starter homes in 2015 but the National Audit Office looked and found not one.

If the leader of the Scottish Conservatives wants to pretend he cares about civilised housing he can begin with an apology. How about:

I’m sorry the Conservative Party sold the bulk of Scotland’s 500,000 council homes. I’m sorry a high proportion of these are now owned by private landlords. I’m sorry not a penny of that colossal revenue was reinvested in council house building; at the time, tax cuts for our people seemed more important. I’m sorry about the bedroom tax and the attendant misery. I’m sorry we rolled housing benefit into an impoverishing Universal Credit system causing vast rent arrears, evictions and homelessness.

Just for the record, the SNP government ended the right to buy in 2016 and completely mitigates the bedroom tax.

FRASER MCALLISTER Inveresk Road, Musselburgh