The Labour Party put forward a motion to remove the Bedroom Tax from Scotland. The SNP and Plaid Cymru put forward a similar proposal earlier this year but I believe it was unsuccessful because of the lack of Labour support; at that time Labour weren't even sure if they were going to keep it.
Now they've made it their main election issue, especially in Scotland (though we don't have the powers to actually do anything about it here) and haven't stopped banging on about it for months. The SNP have stated unequivocally that they will remove the tax when we become independent, Labour leave it as a general election issue. Anas Sarwar, deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party and one of the high heid yins down in the Westminster group, regularly accuses the SNP of not doing enough about the tax and even brought a fake prop of a Bedroom Tax document to a debate with Nicola Sturgeon
(seen here, it's worth seeing by the way). I would genuinely recommend watching that to get a taste of the debate in Scotland and the way things are going. It's quite accessible, perhaps for those watching from abroad too.
Back to the vote. All of our Lib Dem MPs voted against the motion (including Ming Campbell) or abstained. All of the SNP MPs (though there are few of them) voted in favour of the motion to remove the tax, same with Plaid Cymru. What then of the Labour Party? What then of Anas Sarwar? 25% of the Labour Party's Scottish MPs didn't turn up for the vote, including Gordon Brown (who accidentally called himself an "ex politician" at an international conference recently, despite being sitting MP for Kirkcaldy), the little streak of excrement known as Douglas Alexander, the empty, soulless husk known as Pamela Nash and the abominable, war mongering, semi-articulate ghoul Jim Murphy. Mr. Sarwar joined them in abstaining.
Their excuse? They have some kind of pairing system in Westminster, unofficial of course, with the Tories where they mutually agree that they will abstain from voting on an issue where it is obvious it would be defeated (you know, they cancel each other out) so they don't have to go to Parliament. Saves time, means they don't have to sweat the small stuff (it begs the question why they get 60 grand a year for being in opposition). Therein lies the rub however. This system is only permitted with respect to issues that are not of
"Great National Importance". Obviously Scottish Labour do not consider this to be an issue of great national importance.
The strong left in Scotland are up in arms at this and are launching campaigns against Anas Sarwar himself. The Labour Party are squirming, but the press is simply not reporting this issue. There was only one article in the last week on this subject, in the Daily Record, which did not mention Labour at all, only the "cowardly Lib Dems". The biased media at work in Scotland.
As a point of interest, it has become clear that Anas Sarwar may just be the most despicable of all Westminster Labour politicians, and that's including walking atrocities like Ian Davidson. The reason for this is that despite receiving a £64,000 a year salary (roughly $100,000) for being mouthy on television and not bothering to turn up for votes, he is actually claiming £60,000 a year in expenses. I have no idea how he justifies that. All I can say is the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, his corrupt MP dad who's left to become governor of Punjab this year would probably be quite chuffed.
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