Kirsty Blackman

The Labour Government must deliver urgent help with the cost of living at the UK Budget this month, including a meaningful package of measures to reduce bills and help households.

Andy Burnham is breaking his promise to cut the cost of living as mortgage rates soar to new highs on his watch – leaving many households thousands of pounds worse off.

They must be accountable for their actions and reveal the true cost of their reckless decisions.

The Labour Party’s choice to hike employer National Insurance contributions has hammered Scottish businesses and our public services.

People in Scotland can see an obvious pattern here – small announcement after small announcement from the Burnham Government but they are all for England.

Scotland is clearly ‘off-limits’ when it comes to Burnham’s personal political priorities – so what right has he to declare that the fresh start of independence is ‘off limits’ for the Scottish people?

In Scotland, Burnham’s obvious priority towards England might have more merit if he stopped blocking the Scottish people’s democratic right to choose their own future.

For all his early 'vibes' about supposedly doing politics differently, he is doing a very good job at displaying the exact same anti-democratic arrogance of every single Westminster Prime Minister who came before him.

Andy Burnham should listen to those economic sirens that are ringing louder by the day – and act to protect families ahead of this autumn and winter.

The UK Labour Government has endlessly boasted about confronting the big issues, but they have completely ignored the biggest issue on the horizon for families this autumn.

This spike in inflation will cause real worry that Brexit Britain is headed for another autumn of soaring fuel, energy and food prices.

Clearly Scots are wise to the fact that Andy Burnham thinks Manchester is the north of the UK, when it’s barely the north of England.

If Andy Burnham really wants to make Manchester the north of the UK, fair enough. He can make that happen by respecting Scottish democracy, giving us the right to decide our own future, and Scotland will become an independent nation which…

The only people guaranteed to always serve Scotland's interests are the Scottish people themselves, as part of an independent nation like any other.

No wonder then that the Scottish people don't trust him to serve our interests when his arrogant disrespect for Scottish democracy appears exactly the same as every Westminster Prime Minister in the last decade.

This was a scandal of unparalleled proportions and it is simply not good enough for Joani Reid to be readmitted to the Labour Party with no reassurance given to the public on the national security of these islands.

It shows why real change can only come with independence.

Under the Labour Government, many families are living payday-to-payday, the number of people in poverty has risen by half a million and UK unemployment has increased to a five-year high.

Families in Scotland will get no meaningful benefit from the changes announced so far, which are far too small to make a real difference.

Andy Burnham must go much further and faster to help households with the soaring cost of living in the UK, and to reverse the damage done under the Labour Government, which has left many people hundreds of pounds worse off.

The news that UK mortgage rates and oil prices are rising again will pile more painful costs and pressure onto families, who are already struggling to get by in Broken Brexit Britain.

The promotion of Miliband to the Treasury would be the ultimate betrayal of the energy workers of Aberdeen.

Ed Miliband has destroyed 1000 energy jobs a month and the Labour Party looks set to make him chancellor.