Labour's Malcolm Cunning says it can win in Glasgow as SNP has 'p***ed off too many people'

Malcolm Cunning, Labour group leader, said the party is going into Thursday’s election with a “genuine” belief it can win.

Recent elections in the city have seen Labour fall far short of the SNP, having lost control of the council in 2017, and losing in every constituency seat at both the Westminster elections in 2019 and Scottish Parliament last year.

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The Glasgow group leader, however, thinks a corner has been turned, believing Labour to be a more credible force and he said the SNP is losing support, particularly in Glasgow.

Speaking exclusively to the Glasgow Times ahead of the election, Mr Cunning said the SNP is under more scrutiny and it is having an impact.

He said: “I think we’re in this election with the genuine intention and the genuine hope that we can win.

“We will more than hold our ground in this election. I am confident of that.

“I think there’s national factors and very specific Glasgow factors on the go.

“The SNP are finally being held to account by the same political gravity that normally does for political parties that have been in power for 15 years.

“You’ve p***ed off so many people that eventually, that trade union group, that interest group, that organisation, and they just mount up and that’s happening.”

Often elections are won and lost on national issues and popularity of national figures but he said that there is a real local dimension to this vote.

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He said: “When you speak to folk, they are really concerned about their communities.

“They are really concerned about their bins, potholes come up time and time again and that’s not the big politics of international agreements or whatever but that’s what people see when they open their front door in the morning and they’re concerned about it.”

He added: “And there is also the issue of, I think, and I’m always reluctant to say things like this, but the leader of the council is known and not necessarily in a good way.”

Asked what he would do differently, he said connection between the council leadership and citizens and council staff needs to improve.

READ MORE:Council elections Glasgow 2022 battle in the east for city seats

Mr Cunning added: “I would like to think I will be a listening leader and I will not be a leader that dismisses the concerns of citizens which I think has been.

“A very clear message has come from leadership of almost ‘we know better’ and 'this happens elsewhere, why are you complaining?’ And that has been said both to the people of Glasgow and equally importantly in terms of how well we deliver services, it has been said to our own staff effectively. 

"It’s been said to our trade unionists and that is not a good way either to get the best out of our staff or to convince the people of Glasgow that their council is actually working for them.”

He wants to give people more of a say in how the council spends its cash.

“What we’ve done in the past, both, I think we used it as a Labour administration and we’ve used it again under this current administration, we’ve used focus groups created by polling organisations.

“Now they’re very accurate and they know what they are doing, and I’m not having a go a polling organisation, but that’s not going out to community groups, that’s not going out to the third sector, that’s not actually going out to service users.”

One of the ways the SNP administration spent cash was on a holiday food and activity programme for children.

Labour proposed cutting the budget available for the initiatives from £2m to £1.5m.

Mr Cunning denied it would reduce the service and said more targeted funding was included in the plans.

He said: “In terms of the total money available for the food programme we were confident having spoken to officers that our proposals would have maintained the same level of service during the holiday food programme."

Ultimately, he believes Labour’s prospects are improving and said that previously, national leadership was a problem.

He said: “Absolutely, I do think in recent elections up until 2019 you were getting lots of issues about Labour wasn’t necessarily a credible alternative and concerns were raised particularly about our national leadership, I’ve got to be honest about that.

“If I heard the phrase ‘yer man’ once, I heard it a thousand times.

“Whether you like Jeremy Corbyn or not that was the truth on the doors. I think that we’ve now got a situation where Labour is both credible at a national level.

"Starmer is beginning to make an impression as a credible alternative Prime Minister and Anas (Sarwar) is popular on the doors and he’s known and he’s liked.”

On his own popularity he said he is “probably” not known “terribly widely” in Glasgow.

He said: “Councillors tend to vastly overestimate their personal vote but in certain parts of my own ward I am I think reasonably well known and have a good reputation as the local councillor.”