Better off alone? SNP hasn’t a clue
YeSterDaY’S Government expenditure and revenue Scotland (GerS) figures and the SNP’s response to them says it all – the Nationalists don’t have a clue. how can Finance Secretary Kate Forbes interpret a £15.1billion deficit as evidence that Scotland’s future lies in independence? could Miss Forbes’s almost total invisibility over the past few months be the result of her taking a summer course in advanced creative accounting? It must have been a bit of a damp squib as she abandoned her predecessor’s desire to produce an annual alternative to GerS. could it be that she realises no amount of massaging the figures can hide the awkward fact a deficit is a deficit no matter how it is presented – you can’t pay the bills when there’s nothing in the bank and no one to bail you out. Needless to say, Brexit and the covid pandemic are this year’s scapegoats, but what is the explanation for the many previous years of deficit? Politicians may have the gift of the gab but most are neither experts nor magicians – and we won’t be deceived by slick words and sleight of hand.
GRahaM WylliE, Greengairs, lanarkshire. earlIer this year, then finance secretary Derek MacKay announced that he would present, in tandem with the annual GerS figures, a prospectus of his own which would demonstrate the ‘economic case for independence’. this year’s GerS figures show that Scotland’s deficit is growing, therefore any case there ever was for Scexit is diminishing. Next year’s figures will be dreadful, after the ravages of covid-19, which will further weaken any such case for separation. Now, Mr Mackay’s successor, Kate Forbes, has signalled her admission of defeat by shelving the plans for such a prospectus. Mr Mackay’s objective was to ‘publish an equivalent analysis of what we could do with independence’. ‘equivalent’ means ‘of equal value’. Would an SNP crystal ball produce analysis of equal value to the GerS figures and the commentaries on them by authoritative experts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Fraser of allander Institute, who have shown that a separate Scotland would be significantly worse off than Scotland in the UK?
Jill sTEPhEnson, Edinburgh. aFter more than a decade of SNP Government, Scotland has a massive deficit of £15.1billion, which represents 8.6 per cent of GDP. I can’t imagine the financial mess this country would be in if we had gone down the slippery path to independence in 2014. We would now be facing very high taxation and the slashing of pensions and social benefits. DEnnis FoRBEs GRaTTan,
aberdeen.