IT WAS THE DAY THE SNP’S GRIEVANCE WAGON HIT A LARGE WALL

THE SNP’s decade-long moan about ‘Westminster cuts’ has become a doleful feature of Scotland’s public life these past few years. Never does a Nationalist minister’s statement go by without berating the UK Government for so-called ‘austerity’.

Yesterday, however, the SNP grievance wagon hit a rather large wall.

Let’s leave aside the fact that public spending in Scotland has, throughout this past tough decade, remained consistently higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom (and that independence would, at a stroke, end that Union dividend immediately).

Yesterday’s Budget confirmed that, far from cutting public spending – as SNP Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has claimed these past few years – the Scottish Government’s budget is about to go up. And by some way.

Over the next 18 months, nearly £1billion more will be sent to the SNP from the UK Government thanks to decisions to increase spending, mostly notably on the NHS. This is the first tranche of extra NHS spending which will continue until 2022.

On the eve of the Budget, Mr Mackay demanded that the Chancellor ‘show me the money’. Well, Mr Mackay, there it is.

It was not, therefore, an easy shift for Mr Mackay and Nicola Sturgeon yesterday. Nationalist ministers like nothing more than pointing to evidence that Westminster is robbing Scotland blind. Imagine being in charge when Westminster comes armed not with a big gun, but a large cheque.

Last year, Mr Mackay tried the novel approach of claiming the funding was the wrong type of money, that it somehow wasn’t ‘real’. This year, he doesn’t have even that bogus excuse.

For example, breaking down the figures, the Budget shows that next year the SNP will receive an extra £719million in so-called revenue spending – or dayto-day cash. That’s nearly £2million a day extra to spend any way the Scottish Government likes, on top of the £30billion-plus it is already getting.

COMPLAINTS about lack of funding simply don’t hold water – and the SNP knows it. The entire exercise has been about distracting attention from its own domestic failures.

The tactic is obvious: blame somebody else, run away, and hope nobody asks why, when Mr Mackay is getting such a whopping increase, the SNP Government says it can’t find the money for Scottish teachers, council workers and other public sector staff.

It is all a game – but it will stop next month when Mr Mackay unveils his own spending plans for next year. His pockets full of UK Government cash, he will – having complained there isn’t any – suddenly spray funds all over the public sector and seek to claim the credit.

Everything about the SNP’s decade in charge suggests it will spend without any thought of the long-term. But in the six weeks Mr Mackay has between yesterday’s UK Budget and his own, I would urge him to consider changing tack.

The Scottish Conservatives have already made it clear we would be prepared to support an SNP Budget which put the economy first and dumped the reckless plan for a second referendum on independence. The SNP now has a real opportunity to show it too wants to use its extra money wisely. It must show it is up to the task.

First, on the NHS. The pressures facing it are intense. Between 2011 and 2017, the SNP failed to match spending increases on the NHS seen elsewhere in the UK.

That must now end. Over the next five years, the Scottish Government will receive £2billion more thanks to increased health spending in the rest of the UK. It has been given the first payment: a £550million increase for next year.

In his own Budget, Mr Mackay must agree to devote all this money to health and social care.

Secondly, on tax. Last year the SNP decided to use new income tax powers to increase the amount if takes. Meanwhile, high street firms here are being stung by some of the UK’s highest business rates. Mr Mackay now has leeway to act, millions of pounds worth. Given the extra spending power he has, there is no need to ask taxpayers to stump up more – or to accept the crippling income tax increases being urged by the terrible trio of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens.

FOR the high street, there is now scope to act. The Chancellor has backed rates relief for thousands of small firms in the rest of the UK – and sent cash to Scotland for the SNP to follow suit if it wishes. It should do so.

Scotland needs to compete in the modern world. We cannot risk being seen as the highest taxed part of the UK.

So rather than spending for today, and asking taxpayers to shell out even more, the SNP must invest for tomorrow – thus encouraging more taxpayers to come and live here. Over-arching it all, the SNP must tighten up its act. We have seen far too many examples in recent years of the Scottish Government managing money carelessly. Only last week, an Audit Scotland report found ‘short-term firefighting’ was costing the taxpayer millions, with NHS boards tipping into the red and having to be bailed out.

We learnt of yet more IT blunders in government, this time at Disclosure Scotland, with taxpayers once again footing the bill.

All the time, there is a blanket refusal to examine how to bear down on needless public expenditure. It would be criminal if, having received more funding, the SNP was to blow it all on pet projects, politicking and more waste. For once, it needs to put the national interest before its own.

The SNP has excelled mostly in the production of excuses over its 11 years in government. As the country prepares for Brexit, we require a more grown-up approach.

After yesterday’s Budget, Miss Sturgeon and Mr Mackay will know that, if they continue to trot out the same old complaints about Westminster cutbacks, they will be laughed out of town. They are welcome to do so if they wish.

But take some free advice: it’s time the Nationalists tried a different tune.