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SNP brands Sir Keir's first year 'disastrous'
Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaking at the launch of the Government's 10-year health plan during a visit to the Sir Ludwig Guttman Health & Wellbeing Centre in east London, July 3, 2025

PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s first year in No. 10 has seen a “litany of broken promises, U-turns, scandals, and failures,” according to the SNP.

Just 12 months on from Labour securing a landslide victory boosting its representation from Scotland from just two to 37, largely at the expense of the SNP, a number of polls have put the party in third place behind the SNP and Reform for next May’s Holyrood election.

Reflecting on that year with Sir Keir at the helm, SNP Westminster leader and Holyrood hopeful Stephen Flynn launched a withering attack on Labour’s “disastrous” record.

Mr Flynn said: “Keir Starmer’s first year in office speaks for itself — a litany of broken promises, U-turns, scandals, and failures on the economy that have removed optimism from a public who were so desperate for change.

“Voters were promised a new direction but instead they got more of the same Westminster cuts and failure.

“Families and small businesses hammered by tax hikes, and soaring bills — with millions of people feeling worse off while being lectured that things are getting better.

“The UK economy has been downgraded, public finances have deteriorated, unemployment is up, poverty is at record levels and the cost of food, energy and household bills have risen by hundreds of pounds on Keir Starmer’s watch.

“When people look back on the Labour Party’s year in office they will remember the cuts to disabled people and pensioners’ winter fuel payments, the betrayal of Waspi women and children in poverty, rising energy bills and food prices, and a prime minister who took thousands of pounds of designer clothes and freebies while imposing austerity cuts on the rest of us.”

Labour Scottish Secretary Ian Murray hit back and pointed to the record £50 billion UK funding for the Scottish government, £14bn in extra funding by 2029.

“The UK Labour government comprehensively ended austerity with billions of pounds more for public services in Scotland,” he said.

“But as waiting lists fall in England where Labour have taken control of the health service, the NHS in Scotland remains under SNP mismanagement, with one in six Scots on an NHS waiting list, people paying to go private because they can’t wait anymore and cancer waiting times at their worst ever level.

“Scots can’t risk a third decade of SNP mismanagement of our public services.”

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