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Watch: SNP councillor insists ‘all cities have rats’

Mr S had not intended to provide a rolling blog of COP26. But with the UN’s green games less than a week ago, things in host city Glasgow go from bad to worse as the world’s leaders prepare to jet in to tell the rest of us how to save the planet. Unite and GMB today confirmed their bin men, school cleaners and janitorial staff will be the latest workers out on strike during the eco-summit, joining the RMT’s train drivers and the GBA’s lawyers on the picket lines. At what does point does industrial action become a general strike…?

And it’s that decision by the refuse collectors to walk out which will compound the other main issue currently plaguing Glasgow and its long-suffering residents. The head of the SNP-run authority Susan Aitken – the current frontrunner for Mr S’s ‘worst council leader in Britain’ – was hauled up before a House of Commons committee today amid increasing reports of the city’s infamous and ongoing rat infestation problem. 

As Nicola Sturgeon delivered her big pre-COP26 speech this morning, at the Scottish Affairs Committee the leader of Glasgow City Council was trying to downplay bins staff being taken to hospital because of contact with rats. And

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Steerpike
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Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

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