OVER the past months, Labour's Scottish branch office has made much of its support for Waspi, the women who lost out due to changes to the retirement age for the state pension, with both Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie being photographed with campaigners - and making a big play of the branch office's support for their campaign for pension justice.

But, as with so much else that the North British accounting unit claims that it stands for such as calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, a halt to British arms sales to Israel, or the abolition of the abhorrent two-child cap on benefits.

What the Labour party in Scotland says it wants is not what the UK Labour party, of which it is a wholly owned and controlled subsidiary, has any intention of delivering.

Labour in Scotland constantly plays this trick and is allowed to get away with it by Scotland's ferry-obsessed anti-independence media, the branch office gains significant publicity in the Scottish press for making grandiose left-wing sounding promises which it hopes will appeal to a predominantly left-of-centre Scottish electorate.

READ MORE: Scottish Labour fury as Keir Starmer waters down workers' rights plan

However, these promises are way above the pay grade of branch manager Sarwar and what Labour delivers are the centre-right policies of Keir Starmer aimed at appealing to Brexit-supporting former Conservative voters in England.

In particular, the Scottish media colludes in the Labour party's fantasy - which is a more polite word for lie - that it has a distinctive set of policies in Scotland for a Westminster general election.

Labour MPs returned to the House of Commons to represent Scottish constituencies do not form a coherent voting bloc in Westminster agitating for distinctively Scottish policies.

They take the UK Labour whip and obediently do Starmer's bidding, as we have seen with Labour's most recent North British lackey, Rutherglen, and Hamilton West MP Michael Shanks, a man whose few short months in office already prove that he's a Labour placeman with his eye on a peerage like so many dinosaurs before him.

But, Starmer's reach extends beyond Westminster, Labour's MSPs in Holyrood are also obliged to do his mendacious right-wing bidding.

Thus, it has transpired with the branch office's much-touted support for Waspi women.

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Labour MSPs believe they were ordered by London to abstain on a motion calling for compensation for Waspi women, the Labour cohort in Holyrood MSPs refused to vote on an SNP motion put before the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday, which called on the UK Government to “pay compensation in full [to Waspi women] without delay”.

Labour insiders told The National they believe Labour MSPs were ordered by UK Labour not to vote with the SNP.

The source added that MSPs, including Sarwar and his deputy Jackie Baillie, had photographs of them with Waspi women “plastered all over social media” making their abstention “just criminal, really”.

Perhaps it's not criminal in the strict sense of the term, but it is absolutely deceitful, and hypocritical.

The Labour party in Scotland still insists that it supports compensation for Waspi women but have issues with the amount they should receive.

Of course, this shameful Labour U-turn was all over BBC Scotland news.

Naa, April Fool's Day was last month.

The National: Kier Starmer campagining with Labour supporters 

While we are on the topic of shameful Labour U-turns that BBC Scotland equally shamefully refuses to pay much attention to, Starmer's plans to water down his promised package of workers' rights, have not gone down well with the branch office.

It came to light on Wednesday that following interventions from business leaders Starmer intends to scale back plans he had previously hailed as the "biggest levelling up of worker rights this country has seen for a generation".

Note even there his use of the Conservatives' 'levelling up' terminology.

The "new deal for working people" had originally included pledges on increasing sick pay, ending "fire and rehire", and reversing anti-trade union legislation.

But, the Financial Times reported that many measures were being toned down as Labour attempted to woo big business.

READ MORE: Labour concede losing Muslim votes in England over Gaza crisis

To add insult to injury the story came out on the first of May, International Workers' Day.

A party source said: "There's not a better time to do it if you want to say 'f*ck you' to the unions than on May Day."

But, like everything else, Starmer does as he moves Labour even further to the right, and trashes all the promises and commitments that the Labour party in Scotland makes.

Sarwar and the rest of Starmer's obedient little Scottish Yes men and women will swallow it and vote as their flag-waving boss tells them to.

The immensely self-regarding right-wing journalist and broadcaster Andrew Neil - a Brexit supporter who lives in France - has provoked anger on social media after sharing a cartoon showing SNP first ministers being hanged.

The cartoon, published in The Times, was retweeted by Neil who called it "brilliant".

The National: Andrew Neil, chairman of The Spectator, caused an uproar online by sharing The Times cartoon

Neil, who is no stranger to hypocritical double standards, would be leading the charge of British nationalist outrage if a prominent independence supporter had approving shared a cartoon showing Tory leaders being hanged.

They had a fit of conniptions when some grassroots independence supporters carried a banner at an independence rally calling the Tories "scum."

Approvingly sharing an image of SNP leaders being hanged is many orders of magnitude worse, but if independence supporters complain about it, they just get accused of having no sense of humour over 'banter'.

Mike Dailly, the creator of games such as Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings, wrote: “Can you imagine independence supporters, politicians, journalists did this for any Unionist politician?

“We'd get cries of hate speech and reminded about the politicians who have lost their lives to violence.

“Yet, apparently it's okay for these far-right commentators to do it."

The National has approached The Times for comment about why it decided it was appropriate to publish such a crass and offensive cartoon.

The answer, should it ever come, will boil down to an accusation that 'anti-English' Scottish nationalists are dour Scots with no sense of humour.

There's no double standards like British nationalist double standards.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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