Completely rubbish approximations

Sir, As Mike McGeachy (letters March 24) has basically accused me of lying, I hope you will allow me to answer him.

The data I used in my letter of March 10 was drawn from OECD and official UK and Scottish government sources, all of which, as is normal practice, quoted the US dollar as the comparison currency.

I’m not sure I understand his point that my Scottish figure was our GDP within the union, since this means that even within the union our GDP is higher per capita than that of the UK as a whole.

If anything, it would be higher still under the conditions which would come into play with independence.

In response to his points about Government and Expenditure Scotland (GERS), Mr McGeachy might want to have a look at what accountants Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd said just last year: ‘GERS data is produced for Scotland as part of the UK – it does not model scenarios for an independent Scotland in which the Scottish Government would be enabled to make its own fiscal choices.’

Even self-confessed unionist Professor Brian Ashcroft of Strathclyde University calculates that Scotland is not in deficit but in surplus, to the tune of £68.5 billion.

Mr McGeachy might also wish to investigate, as I have, what Professor Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford university and Professor Richard J Murphy of City University, London, say about both GERS in general and the question of the Scottish deficit in particular.

It can be summed up as Completely Rubbish APproximations – Prof. Murphy’s words.

I’ll leave Mr McGeachy to work out the acronym for himself.