I don't think we should shoot people

This is the source I was able to find, assuming it's what you're referring to - to be weasel-wordy, "fair" in this case could be taken to mean that not paying out is fair. (Which I agree with, it wouldn't be fair to pay WASPI claims). The bigger point is that it would be fiscally proper to pay 1/2

Literally the same article lol

Also it appears your "trillions" is an order of magnitude off estimates commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

Would you look at that, it's a top story on bbc news!

More I would be looking at reforming council tax so it generally came out more even across income levels as a % of income, so it's fairer at all levels.

Yes, that's my bad lol - this is what I mean:

But there was different rhetoric around tax rises as the campaign went on - and now in government, as I said, there's been unexpectedly high spending in the dying days of the conservatives to account for as well

Here's an article during the election, they did not rule out any tax rises - let's see what actually happens and whether it actually breaks any election promises

Not all of them I'm sure but as a broad demographic, pensioners are richer than any other age group - and yet they were getting special allowances

Well, that's not the point - the labour government want to reduce poverty in Scotland - why give money to the government which has a track record of failing to spend it on poverty reduction? Assuming official sg sources are true spice-spotlight.scot/2024/06/06/s...

The reason why is in the article, but here's one more specifically about it www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

TLDR the Scottish government is failing to spend allocated money for anti-poverty, meaning it is returned unspent to the EU. And have already returned more than is being allocated here.