THE SNP has ignored glaring inequalities in Scotland to pick a fight with England, shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran will say today.
In a speech in Glasgow, the Labour frontbencher will say Scottish ministers' "obsession" with independence is blinding them to policies to help ordinary people.
She will cite research by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) that the UK's tax and benefits system under the last Labour government halted the growth of inequality in Scotland.
Ms Curran is expected to say: "The simplistic way the SNP are presenting questions around inequality in the run up to the referendum does not serve us well." She will add: "The SNP want to say that the only gap in inequality that matters is between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
"But I want to say this morning that the SNP are ignoring the inequalities that exist inside Scotland and aren't taking the necessary action to tackle them."
She will also attack First Minister Alex Salmond's claim that London is a "dark star" that is "sucking the life" out of the rest of the country. "There is a failure of logic that says that the best way to solve the problem of an uneven economy, and to increase our prosperity, is to cut ourselves off from the richest part," she will say.
Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP's work and pensions spokeswoman, said: "The inconvenient truth for Margaret Curran is that inequality in the UK increased during the 13 years of the last Labour government. Scotland is a wealthier country in economic output per head than the UK, France and Japan.
"We can more than afford to be independent, and with powers over welfare and pensions we can be a fairer country too - with a transformation in childcare provision, and guaranteed rises in the minimum wage and pensions."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article