Public transport in Glasgow is a joke.

Need to use the Subway on a Sunday? Better travel before 6pm. Need to use the trains? Better have a healthy bank balance. Need to use the bus at night? First Glasgow’s managing director has ludicrously suggested that you take up a part-time job with him and drive the bus yourself.

Much like everything else, public transport in Glasgow seems to have succumbed to the modus operandi of paying more while getting less. That has culminated in the recent news that First Bus has decided to axe its night bus services across Greater Glasgow, a foolhardy decision that should serve as the final nail in the coffin of the idea that the deregulation and privatisation of essential public services – services upon which we all rely – was ever a sensible or sustainable decision.

The tragedy of it is that those on low incomes will suffer most while women and marginalised groups will be put at risk, sacrificed on the altar of private profit. That cannot be right, and bluntly it must be prevented at all costs.

Context is important – because this move comes at a time when Glasgow City Council has hamstrung the city’s taxi trade through the brutal and blunt implementation of a Low Emission Zone despite warnings that there were insufficient finance options available for taxi drivers to upgrade their vehicles. Consequently, much of the out-of-hours transport available in the city has been decimated.

It is even more important when you consider that in Scotland the power to bring buses back under public control by re-regulating regional bus networks already exists and has done since 2019. So, what is stopping that from happening? Put simply, indifference and ineptitude at the heart of the Scottish Government.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Politics Matters