STUC President Lilian Macer opened the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Dundee on International Workers’ Memorial Day today with a message of solidarity to workers at home and abroad — and a challenge to politicians in Holyrood and Westminster.

Ms Macer, Scottish regions secretary for public sector union Unison, told congress that workers across the country had voted for change at last year’s general election, but “instead, what we see is a Labour government lurching to the right with eye-watering cuts to the welfare state, plunging more families into poverty, increasing the need for food banks and scapegoating disabled people as a drain on the public purse.