THIS week saw the first full meeting of Glasgow City Council since the summer recess.

On a huge range of issues Green councillors were focused on delivering for Glasgow and Glaswegians.

We raised questions on night bus services which have not been reinstated and on the impact of fire service cuts on communities and workers. We called for stronger enforcement of engine idling outside schools and health centres and for action to support sustainable fashion businesses in the city.

Personally, I was delighted to welcome increases to allowances for foster and kinship carers. That’s something I’ve campaigned on alongside foster carers for a number of years. I’ll keep working so that the allowances are uprated annually with inflation, which is vital to ensure our looked-after children are supported.

The Green group’s lead motion asked councillors to recommit to making the climate emergency a top priority and not to use the environment as a political football.

We’re seeing more and more climate-related devastation around the world. As well as those who are directly affected by fires and floods there are knock-on impacts that reverberate around the world, such as greater food insecurity and spread of infectious diseases. This is not a distant phenomenon. We feel its impact directly here in Glasgow.

We need politicians of all parties to treat this as an emergency and share responsibility to lead our communities through the changes which are necessary and cannot be put off.

I wish I could say that other parties heeded that call, but Labour didn’t get the memo.

After being informed that of the 25 mentions of the climate emergency in council meetings since 2019, none were from Labour councillors, the proposer of the pointless Labour amendment couldn’t even be bothered to give a speech in support of it.

That wasn’t even the biggest Labour shambles of the day. The fact they don’t talk to each other was pretty evident by how contradictory their motions were. One argued that paying tax is a good thing because it allows us to invest in vital public services, while the other sought to block proposed reforms to council tax that will mean we raise more funding for local services from the highest value homes.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. Labour is making an artform of policy incoherence nationally as well as locally.

They say they want better public services but won’t raise taxes and want ‘real action’ on child poverty but won’t undo the two-child cap. They want to grow the economy but won’t reverse the Brexit decision which makes that nigh on impossible, and they say they will end new oil and gas licences but won’t scrap Rosebank if elected.

A party which is prepared to abandon so many of its core values in order to win a few more Tory votes is not one which is fit to lead. On so many issues it is Green councillors who are showing the leadership our city and communities need. Glasgow’s Greens are making a massive difference and that will just keep on getting bigger.