Thread by @DeanMThomson

Part Three in my thread series on dodgy election promises & campaign statements. This time @NicolaSturgeon is up. She has pledged ‘100,000 new affordable homes’ to be build in the next decade if she’s re-elected.

Only problem is... [1/11]

https://twitter.com/RadioClydeNews/status/1375427641520615425

...she’s promised affordable housing targets before, and never met them. Ever. Not once.

Let’s go back to the close of the 2016 parliament.

@theSNP boasted of meeting their 30,000 affordable homes target.

How wonderful...except...[2/11]

30,000 wasn’t the original original target. That was a slight of hand. Clever PR. A trick if you will.

Despite the SNPs self congratulations, this 30,000 target was a downward revision. They lowered the target after the 2011 victory so as to meet it. [3/11]

Now, for the close of this parliament (2021), the SNP had promised 50,000 new affordable homes (of which 35,000 would be for social rent).

Have they met this target? No.[4/11]

The SNP claim, with some justification, that the covid pandemic simply stopped them meeting this target.

But there’s more to it than that...[5/11]
scottishhousingnews.com/article/corona…

Fact is, even before covid struck, they were unlikely to meet this housing target anyway.

Newspapers reported desperate stuff including ‘massaging figures’ in rural Scotland...all to boost the numbers.

heraldscotland.com/news/18517035.… [6/11]

Even the generally optimistic Audit Scotland’s April 2020 report found cause for concern about the target being met.

audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/r… [7/11]

Now before anyone says ‘but covid had hit Scotland in 2020’...let me remind you the very first covid case was in March 1st 2020. That audit Scotland report came out barely after that, covid had not entered into those ‘serious risks’ yet. The risk was there before covid. [8/11]

Further, the Chartered Institute of Housing reported that a ‘real challenge’ existed for the SNP to meet that housing target of 50,000 March 2021. This explained concerns about meeting the target. All *before* covid. [9/11]

scottishhousingnews.com/article/cih-st…

So sorry SNP, you can’t honestly claim you only missed the 50,000 target of March 2021 due to covid.

It was factor, sure, but serious doubts predated if they would meet it before pandemic. Even optimistic audit Scotland raised structural concerns about ability to deliver[10/11]

So when Nicola Sturgeon promises you 100,000 new affordable homes in a decade...don’t believe her.

They moved goalposts on earlier pledges, revising targets down. They failed to meet more recent targets they didn’t ‘revise’ down (though did try massaging the figures)[11/11]

Addition: forgot to include the link for the ‘ministers moving goalposts’ evidence.

You can find it here: tfn.scot/news/snp-slamm…

You can find Part Two of this series on calling out election lies & misleading antics here:

https://twitter.com/DeanMThomson/status/1375166528518287370?s=20

You can find part one of this series here:

https://twitter.com/DeanMThomson/status/1374724459563716608?s=20