Cop26: ‘Delusional’ SNP council leader blames Margaret Thatcher for Glasgow’s rats and bins crisis

The SNP leader of Glasgow council has tried to blame Margaret Thatcher for the Cop26 host city's rats and bins crisis.

Susan Aitken was branded “delusional” after she suggested the former prime minister, who left office more than three decades ago and died in 2013, was responsible for "challenges" facing Scotland's largest city, days before the UN climate summit begins.

There are fears that the event will be marred by industrial action, with Scotrail staff and Glasgow’s refuse workers currently due to strike - potentially humiliating Britain on the world stage.

In an evidence session with the Scottish Affairs Committee on Monday, Ms Aitken sought to downplay fears over the "filthy" state of Glasgow, claiming “all cities have rats”.

However, she was forced to admit to "one, possibly two" recent occasions in which council workers had been hospitalised after "small incidents" where they had "very minor contact with a rat".

She went on to claim many of the “challenges” faced by Glasgow were “a legacy of our post-industrial past when the Thatcher government walked away and abandoned, and left in neglect, communities right across the city".

‘Serious problem’ of rail strikes

Meanwhile, Colin Edgar, Glasgow council’s head of communications, told the committee that the rail strikes would be a “serious problem” for people staying in Edinburgh if they “can’t get a bus or an Uber” to the conference.

Thousands of delegates have booked rooms in Edinburgh, on the basis that it is just a 50-minute train journey from Glasgow.

The “plan B”, if the rail strikes go ahead, would be to tell people not to go to stations and to travel by road instead, it emerged.

On a typical day, an Uber between Edinburgh and Glasgow would cost around £80 and take around an hour and 10 minutes - meaning delegates, many from poorer nations, would face daily commuting costs of £160.

However, there is expected to be severe road congestion, meaning the journey could take much longer and huge demand would mean a surge in Uber’s prices.

'Far-fetched excuses'

Sandesh Gulhane, a Tory Glasgow MSP, described Ms Aitken’s comments as “completely delusional” and said the SNP-led city council was “utterly out of its depth”.

“We’ve heard a lot of far-fetched excuses from Susan Aitken over the past few months, but the idea that Margaret Thatcher is to blame for the current state of Glasgow’s streets absolutely takes the biscuit,” he said.

“The disgraceful state of our city right now is due to nothing other than years of SNP incompetence.

“Susan Aitken must now stop the excuses and urgently produce some solutions – not only for Cop26 in a week’s time, but for the people of Glasgow who live here all year round.”

In hot-tempered exchanges, Ms Aitken accused MPs of launching “gratuitous” attacks on Glasgow and claimed Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, was “insulting” Glaswegians.

Mr Ross had asked Ms Aitken about “bins overflowing, rats on the streets” and reports that council workers had been taken to hospital after coming into contact with rats while collecting rubbish.

She claimed problems with dirty streets were not unique to Glasgow and had been made worse by the pandemic.

“There was I think one, possibly two at most, small incidents where there was a health and safety incident, and an employee was taken as a precaution to hospital for what was very minor contact with a rat," she said. "It’s not unheard of.”

She also repeated her claim that Edinburgh was dirtier than Glasgow, despite the allegation leading to a row between the cities when she first made it last week. Ms Aitken also claimed to have personally gathered evidence of dirty streets in London during a recent visit.

“I was in London a couple of weeks ago for the first time since the pandemic and I have to say, I had a phone full of pictures of rubbish,” she said.

Asked whether it was a “sad reflection” that Scotland’s two largest cities were publicly arguing about which was dirtiest, she replied: “Well I could easily also point to the Conservative-run Westminster Council in London, for example.”