Created on: 05 Jun 2025
In his keynote speech to the AGM today (Thursday), outgoing President Allan Crosbie expressed the severe disappointment of Scotland’s teachers over the failure of political leaders to follow through on promises to better support education, and to tackle the scourge of child poverty across the country.
Addressing a comment to the Prime Minister, Mr Crosbie said, “The multiple ongoing crises our country faces were not caused by poor families with more than two children; or by disabled people on benefits; or by desperate people arriving on our shores in small boats; they were caused by a rapacious minority who arrive on their superyachts and on their private jets, and by you, the political class who serve their interests.”
“Today the top 50 richest families in the UK hold more wealth than the poorest half of the whole population. In a country where a quarter of our children live in poverty, that level of super-wealth is a moral stain.”
Moving on to refer to the First Minister, Mr Crosbie said, “I have to tell you at the STUC this year, the First Minister didn’t mention schools or teachers once, or the range of tax measures he could introduce, even though he was talking about tackling the far-right and ending child poverty.”
“We stand in solidarity with those currently striking at Robert Gordon University, and with all comrades across the sector, and we say to the First Minister, we don’t need respect in the form of warm words at conferences, but we do need it in the form of a governing party actually keeping its manifesto promises.”