SCOTTISH Labour has published a dossier of fifty "SNP failures and broken promises" ahead of Nicola Sturgeon’s launching her party’s election manifesto.
In Tuesday’s STV debate, the First Minister admitted she had taken her “eye off the ball” as Scotland racked up the highest drug deaths rate in Europe.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said that wasn’t the only tragic lapse in concentration, and Ms Sturgeon’s failures “go well beyond taking her ‘eye off the ball’ on drugs deaths”.
He said the SNP leader’s “blind spot on the constitution has led to higher poverty rates, fewer teachers, fewer local police officers and millions wasted on mismanaged projects”.
Labour’s list of SNP failures included high rates of care home resident deaths from Covid, the summer exams “fiasco”, and almost one child in four living in poverty.
He also criticised the SNP for failing to deliver on its promise to close the poverty-related education attainment gap, and 380,000 broken Treatment Time Guarantees for patients.
He said that after 14 years of SNP failure, the people of Scotland deserved a better government and a better opposition.
READ MORE: IFS says SNP has made Scots tax system needlessly complicated
He said: “Nicola Sturgeon confessed she’d taken her eye off the ball on drug deaths, leading to the loss of thousands of lives - but SNP failures go well beyond this travesty.
“We’ve had the second-highest number of Covid deaths in care homes in Europe. Young people were judged by an algorithm in the exams fiasco. Six years after it opened, we still don’t have answers on child deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
“As we emerge from the collective trauma of Covid, Scotland can’t afford for the scandal-hit Government’s failures - sky-high child poverty rates, fewer teachers, fewer police officers and millions wasted on mismanaged projects – to continue.
“Scotland deserves better. We can’t afford to have an ‘eye off the ball’ during the recovery – that’s why we need a better government and a better opposition.
“Rather than being distracted by the old arguments, Scottish Labour has a national recovery plan to ensure we emerge a better, stronger and fairer nation than went into lockdown.”
READ MORE: Sturgeon bids for fourth term with plan to 'remobilise' the NHS after pandemic
Ms Sturgeon is due to launch her manifesto for a fourth consecutive SNP term later today with a promise to increase frontline health spending by 20% over the next parliament.
She will also commit her party to holding a second independence referendum, after the Covid crisis, despite Boris Johnson already refusing to grant Holyrood the power to do it.
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