‘I WAS absolutely appalled at the Labour Party for voting with the Tories to back austerity cuts which will cause even more hardship for many individuals and families.

As for Fife’s representatives, Ming Campbell supported the Government – no surprise there, but I was disgusted to see on the list of those who trooped through the Aye lobby, alongside the coalition and the vast bulk of his Labour colleagues, one Thomas Docherty, Labour MP for Dunfermline & West Fife.

I note that Gordon Brown and Lindsay Roy didn’t appear in the lists either for or against the motion. Not knowing their reasons for absence, I will grant them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t simply a case of their not bothering to turn up for such an important motion but, equally, given the voting records of those two gentlemen, I doubt very much that, if they had been present, they would have been amongst that handful of Labour MPs who stood against the official Party line and voted with the SNP and their Plaid Cymru and Green colleagues, to resist austerity.

Equally, I am proud of my SNP colleagues for their role in ensuring that the Westminster old pals act was highlighted and that an opportunity was made available for MPs to show whether they object to the way in which the poor, the elderly and the disabled are being made to shoulder the burden of the UK’s economic woes.

Because, be under no illusion whatsoever, the so-called Charter for Budget Responsibility – otherwise known as £75billion of cuts and tax rises, is a blueprint for further attacks on the welfare budget and a desperate attempt to balance the books on the back of the poor and take public spending levels back to those of the 1930s.

With 22% of Scottish children in poverty, with 11% of our pensioners in poverty and with 21% of our working age adults in poverty – to launch a further attack on welfare at this time, under the guise of amending the Charter for Budget Responsibility, is simply wrong.

In Government in Scotland, the SNP has a strong record on protecting our public services and supporting public sector workers – including the recent funding announced for NHS boards across the country. But the impact of Westminster’s austerity agenda is continuing to be felt – and with more cuts being passed down the line, the strain on our vital public services can only increase.

That is what Thomas Docherty and his Labour colleagues voted for in the House of Commons and one consequence of their actions is that we should never again be told that only Labour will stand up to the Tories; they are two sides of the same coin.

Labour have shown their true colours in siding with the Tories, and it shows now even more clearly that only by voting SNP can Westminster’s obsession with imposing austerity cuts that just don’t work - be changed.’