Labour’s Michael Dugher, the Shadow Transport Secretary, has gone much further than before in launching a fierce attack on the rail franchising system and on particular train operators.

Instead if just creating a public sector bidder to compete in the franchising market, he has said, “I’m adamant about putting the whole franchising system, as it stands today, in the bin”, adding that, ‘the public sector will be running sections of the rail network as soon as we can do that’.

Rail expert Christian Wolmar has written in Labour List:

“Dugher seems to be suggesting that some franchises might simply be allowed to run out, and then revert to the public sector. The advantage of this for an incoming Labour administration would be that letting the franchises simply run out and incorporating them in a public body does not require new legislation. While under the Railways Act, public organisations are not currently allowed to bid there is nothing to stop them running a franchise that is simply not put out to tender, as has happened with East Coast for the past five years until the end of this month.”

There will be widespread support for this measure across the party and with the wider public. Opinion polls consistently show a high level of support for a public rail service. In a YouGov poll last year, by 60-20% people support renationalising the railways so they are run in the public sector rather than by private companies. UKIP, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters all support the idea, by 70-22%, 78-6% and 60-18% respectively. Conservatives are divided 42-42%.

Dugher’s forthright attack on Stagecoach whose chairman is big SNP supporter Brian Souter suggests more than just a change of tone. He said: “Every time you get one of the boneheads at Stagecoach attacking Labour’s policy for wanting to regulate the buses, that’s every day they put Labour’s policy out there and that’s every day which gives us an opportunity to win the election because we can win this argument”.

Sadly, the SNP has handed the Scotrail franchise to Abellio - a subsidiary of the Dutch national rail company Nederlandse Spoorwegen for at least ten years. Instead of waiting for new powers and a change of government.

Mick Whelan, the general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef hit out at the franchise decision. He said: "It's a particularly perverse decision by the SNP government in Scotland, which was arguing for independence, and is getting many more devolved powers, to embrace privatisation and all that means rather than wait a few months, take a fresh look at the opportunities for rail services in Scotland, and then, instead of acting in such a precipitate fashion, make a considered decision next year. "

Let's end the rail privatisation disaster in May.

Lets stop dumping austerity on local government.

Austerity cuts by the UK ConDem coalition have slashed £6bn from the Scottish Government budget. SNP ministers have decided to dump the largest share of these cuts onto local government.

While the overall Scottish government budget has faced a 10% pressure over the last five years, council funding has been hit by a 24% cut in real terms. Local government is the only major Scottish Government spending portfolio to suffer a cash cut since the financial crash.

Four out of five Scottish public service job cuts are in local government. That’s 40,000 job losses and at least the same to come if the Tories get back in May.

The council tax freeze has now cost £2.5Billion – with wealthy householders gaining three times more than poorer ones. As well as undermining local democracy the allocation is exactly the same as in 2007, so bears no relation to the increased costs that councils have faced. Councils are forced to use charges to balance budgets - that hit the most vulnerable hardest.

The impact of all this can be seen in a range of service cuts – from the potholes in the roads to school, day centre and library closures – to the national disgrace that is our social care system.

The root cause of this is ConDem austerity. But the SNP have also dumped more than a fair share of the misery on local government – far enough away for ministers to say ‘nothing to do with me’. Well it is – it’s time the ConDems and the SNP stopped dumping austerity on local government.

The SNP want to use any bargaining power they may have after the UK General Election this May to introduce an extreme form of devolution known as Devo Max. As they argued in their submission to the Smith Commission:

“The Scottish Government believes the principle should be that all taxes raised in Scotland should be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament unless there are good reasons for them being reserved......The Scottish Parliament should also be responsible for all domestic spending, including welfare, and make agreed payments to the UK Government for reserved services."

This means that the Scottish budget would have to find the full cost of falling oil revenues, instead of sharing the risk across the UK. Lost revenues now total £6 billion compared to the figures in the Scottish Government’s November 2013 White Paper. This also means for that reason alone the Scottish deficit in 2016-17 would be more than 6% of GDP, one of the biggest in the developed world.

By sheer coincidence, the amount the ConDem coalition has cut from the Scottish budget since introducing austerity economics is also £6bn. That has resulted in 50,000 public service job losses and huge cuts in the services our communities rely on.

Volatile tax revenues like oil do not make suitable devolved taxes. That’s why trade unions in Scotland argued against the devolution of this tax in their submissions to the Smith Commission.

SNP Devo Max will devolve Tory and Lib Dem austerity to Scotland all over again. No thanks!

Ed Miliband will demand that Bermuda and other UK tax havens be put on an international blacklist within six months of a Labour government taking office unless they end their system of secrecy and produce a public register of offshore company owners.

He said: “The time has finally come to put an end to a society in which one group of people can play by different rules to the rest. There is nothing pro-business about defending tax avoidance. Millions of British people and businesses pay their taxes and they are damaged by this behaviour.”

Ed Miliband also highlighted that David Cameron, during his chairmanship of the G8 in 2013, had promised to make a crackdown on tax evasion one of his central goals. At that time he had demanded reforms from Jersey, Guernsey and other crown dependencies, including a commitment from each to make the true owners of companies located in their jurisdictions public.

Miliband said: “Cameron made this big promise 18 months ago that he was going to force UK tax havens in crown dependencies to open up and he has totally failed to meet that promise.

He said: “For this to be portrayed as anti-business is ridiculous. What I am saying is what the archbishop of Canterbury has been saying, the International Monetary Fund has been saying, and the OECD has been saying – a more equal society is a more efficient society. I believe in wealth creation and company profits, and for the government to play its part, and we have been working closely with business to shape that agenda.”

And on the attacks from the offshore Boots CEO, Miliband said in a Guardian interview, “Look, I find it unacceptable if someone lives in Monaco to avoid paying taxes and chooses to lecture the British people about they should vote in a general election, and say it is catastrophic if Labour is elected. I tell you what is catastrophic is tax avoidance on the grand scale and governments that do not act.”

Real businesses pay their taxes and contribute to the common good. The squealing from the Tory funding City cliques is not the real voice of business.

Rachel Reeves, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, has published an analysis of OBR figures, which shows that another five years of a Conservative government will cost the country £9 billion in social security benefits (£337 per household).

This is because of their failure to address low pay – for example in the past five years the number of people earning less than the living wage has jumped from 3.4 million to 4.9 million. She said:

 “The Tories’ failure to make work pay, and their failure to deliver their promises on the deficit, are two sides of the same coin.”

“The government’s failure to make work pay has meant they are struggling to keep social security spending under control. Last week the IFS confirmed that, for all David Cameron and George Osborne’s rhetoric, social security spending will be no lower next year than it was when David Cameron took office.” 

“The choice we now face is clear the Tories’ low wage, low skill economy driving up benefit bills and undermining tax revenues or Labour’s plan: a plan to help businesses create and fill more productive, high skilled jobs. The Tories will leave us paying the bills of in-work poverty for years to come. Only Labour will make work pay.”