In my whole political life I have only ever represented the great city of Glasgow. It’s where I was brought up, it’s where I will always live. I am never prouder than when I’m representing Glasgow and the people that make it.

It is an honour to represent Glasgow. So you will imagine my horror when Susan Aitken, the SNP leader, who wants to lead Glasgow, spent last weekend trashing Glasgow’s reputation.

She said in a newspaper interview that Glasgow was “going backwards”, that parts of the city were “unliveable”. She compared Glasgow with Detroit. No serious commentator believes that is valid. She thinks Glasgow should be Barcelona or Berlin. It’s naive at best, damaging at worst.

And this from one who aspires be Glasgow’s representative on the world stage. At a time when we are working hard to attract inward investment to the city, the last thing we need is for the SNP to talk Glasgow down and trash our reputation.

How do you think Glasgow has built its tourist economy to be worth almost £700m a year with more than two and a half million visitors - by saying you’d be better going to Detroit? In the last decade Glasgow has attracted more than £5bn in commercial property investment. How did we manage that? By telling the world, like Susan Aitken, that we wish we were Barcelona or Berlin?

Susan Aitken would be better talking up Glasgow’s economic miracle and demanding that Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP government in Edinburgh give Glasgow a better deal. Since the SNP government came to power it has hit Glasgow with cuts totalling £377 million. That’s £16 million for every community in the city.

In a recent magazine interview Ms Aitken told us that if the SNP win Glasgow on May 4 “We’ll take our lead from Nicola”. They already have - cheering on every SNP budget that has slashed Glasgow’s services.

So let me tell you about the real transformation of Glasgow. I’ve written before in this column about Glasgow’s economic achievements so I don’t want to repeat all the facts all over again.

Let’s just say that Glasgow’s economic achievements have already been recognised across Europe. In 2016 Glasgow was named European Entrepreneurial Region of the Year, by the European Union - only the second city in history to receive this award which is usually reserved for much larger city regions. The city currently generates over £19bn of economic output, making us the economic powerhouse of Scotland without challenge. We are a great European city.

Maybe a word or two on the arts would also be justified because it’s one of the great success stories of the city that isn’t always acknowledged the way it should be. We haven’t looked back since we won the European City of culture in 1990. Glasgow’s nine civic museums attract almost four million visitors per year – more museum visitors than any other UK city outside London.

Trip Advisor put our Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in its Top Ten UK Museums, the Zaha Hadid designed Riverside Museum is world renowned and was the 2013 European Museum of the Year. Then there’s the Burrell - currently undergoing a multi-million pound renovation - and I haven’t even mentioned our very own Gaudi, Charles Rennie Macintosh.

Last year Glasgow was ranked fifth in the list of the worlds Ultimate Sport City Awards. Glasgow beat the likes of Los Angeles, Toyko, Sydney and Paris - beating Barcelona on the way, by the way. The SportAccord ranking placed the city number one for legacy following the success of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and best small city by population band beating Amsterdam, Calgary, Doha and Vancouver in the process cementing the city’s position as a world leading sports city. On the horizon is the 2018 European Athletics Championships co-hosted with Berlin.

Let me finish in this time of approaching elections with a word about last Saturday when Labour and the SNP launched their political manifestos. The SNP launched theirs at the new Glasgow City College. The Scottish government’s cuts in college places means that there are more than 150,000 less college places in Scotland, than when they came to power ten years ago.

Labour’s launch took place in the Church of Scotland building in the Gorbals. The walls there are covered with pictures of the old Gorbals and the new one, rising and rising as a symbol of Labour’s £2bn housing investment in the city in the last decade.

I rest our case. Only Labour can stop the SNP in Glasgow.