The game’s afoot

The First Minister announces her “programme for government” this week in the Scottish Parliament to much fanfare.

Unsurprisingly, bearing in mind her past record, it was light on detail but in cluded more consultation, like an independent review for a national care service and, of course, the nirvana of “green” investment – gale force winds driving our renewables and the digital revolution that will produce the many, many jobs required to drive growth after the economic ravages delivered by Covid.

As Ruth Davidson noted in her questions to the First Minister, there was not a single mention in the programme about the real driving forces of the Scottish economy being the estimated 354,125 Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMES) providing an estimated 1.2million jobs. SMES provided 99 percent of all private sector businesses and 55 per cent of private sector employment.

However, her“rabbit out of the hat” for her nationalist acolytes was the proposed draft bill paving the way for a second independence referendum to be published before the election in May 2021.

With that single announcement, she has declared her hand and indicated to her supporters that she wants the election to be dominated by independence at the expense of any real scrutiny of her and her government’ s abysmal domestic performance.

The First Minister is only too well aware that any real and unbiased examination of 13 years of SNP rule can only conclude that it has failed and failed spectacularly. The recent reactions by SNP ministers and their like to the GERS numbers actually displays their true concerns while insisting all will be well under independence and we just need more borrowing powers. Hence the now clear plan to fight the election on inde - pendence.

From Shakespeare’ s Henry V :“I see you stand like greyhound sin the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot.”

RICHARD ALLISON Braehead Loan, Edinburgh