THE SNP have ruled out any coalition with Labour.

 

Labour have ruled out any coalition with the SNP.

When neither side want a coalition deal, it's a safe bet that no such election deal will take place.

The SNP want you to believe that a vote for the nationalists in May will deliver a Labour Government.

It won't. The way to get a Labour Government is to vote for Labour.

It's a strange election strategy from the nationalists to say if you want a Labour Government then you should vote against your local Labour candidate. 

It's a fact that since before the Second World War the largest party across the UK has gone on to form the government.

In the election in May the largest party will either be Labour or the Tories.

A vote for any other party, including the SNP, makes it more likely that the Tories will be the largest party across the UK and that David Cameron will return to Downing Street by the back door.

That would be the worst possible result for Scotland.

There are two main reasons why there will be no Labour coalition with the SNP.

The most important is the SNP's plan for austerity max, which makes even the Tories look timid by comparison. Their main General Election campaign demand is full fiscal autonomy - which means what we spend in Scotland we raise through Scottish-only taxes.

The consequence of this plan is that Scotland's budget is dependent on falling and volatile oil taxes.

The SNP's plan also means scrapping the Barnett formula - the means by which Scotland gets a much higher share of public spending than the UK average.

Last year Barnett was worth £4 billion to Scotland, and the experts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies say this is set to rise to over £6.5 billion in the coming years.

The impartial experts at the Scottish Parliament say that cutting public spending by £6.5 billion, as the SNP plan to do, would cost 138,000 jobs in Scotland.

It would mean slashing the budgets for our NHS and schools.

When there is already an A&E crisis on the SNP's watch, the nationalist plan for full fiscal autonomy would be dreadful for Scotland.

We are campaigning night and day to get rid of David Cameron and his failed austerity agenda.

We aren't going to do any coalition deal with the SNP who want to impose austerity-max on Scotland.

The second reason to rule out any coalition deal with the SNP is the instability it would cause.

The SNP said before the referendum that it was a once in a lifetime thing.

Yet they have now gone back on their word to the people of Scotland.

At a time when we need our government to be working to get young people back into work and helping working class Scots get on in life, another referendum is the last thing we need.

A Labour Government will use the money raised from a Mansion Tax on homes worth over £2 million to fund 1,000 more nurses for Scotland's NHS.

We will tax the bonuses of bankers to get young Scots back into work.

These are Labour's priorities. We need a Labour Government to deliver on these plans.

Labour is the only party strong enough across the UK to defeat David Cameron and deliver the change Glasgow needs.

TODAY is St Patrick's Day, a day that is celebrated across the world - from Dublin to New York, and from Glasgow to Sydney.

Like me, a lot of Scots have Irish heritage.

It's one of the many great things about our nation - we welcome people from different countries and traditions. That's why the comments from UKIP's David Coburn aimed at Glasgow MSP Humza Yousaf are so appalling. They have no place in Scottish society.

GEORGE Osborne will deliver what I hope will be his final Budget in the House of Commons tomorrow.

He will, no doubt, congratulate himself. But he deserves no applause.

In the budget the one thing people in Glasgow need is a pay rise.

Labour would deliver this. We would increase the minimum wage to £8 an hour and work for a living wage.

We will also call time on exploitative zero hours contracts.

I am not holding my breath on George Osborne delivering on any of these things tomorrow, though.