Gaslighting is a very hard habit to break for SNP

SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison isn’t exactly a ray of golden sun at the best of times, but she surpassed herself on Wednesday when condemning Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s budget as a “betrayal of public services”.

But while Ms Robison remains on the ceiling it’s worth taking a look at who has betrayed who as far as defending public services is concerned. Look no further than the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the respected think tank’s study of health spending last month, which pointed out that in 1999–2000, Scotland spent 22 per cent more per person on health than England. As the SNP took over the Scottish Government seven years later and has been running NHS Scotland for 17 years, any change to the position is almost entirely their responsibility, so what has happened? Spending has been cut back to the extent that the difference is now just 3 per cent.

Perhaps recognising how much they have neglected Scotland’s NHS, First Minister Humza Yousaf gave a solemn pledge at the SNP’s October conference that they would invest an additional £300 million over three years to cut waiting lists by an estimated 100,000 patients by 2026. So what did his Finance Secretary do?

Again, the IFS can provide some answers and it revealed that Ms Robison’s budget for 2024-25 actually represents a 0.7 per cent real-terms cut in the NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care portfolio, despite the SNP claiming it had risen 1.3 per cent. It’s not just a question of who is betraying who, but who is deceiving who?

Ms Robson’s statement on Wednesday was a masterclass of deliberate confusion, moaning about capital budgets and gobbledygook about consequentials in the hope that Scottish voters wouldn’t notice the Chancellor just handed her another £295m. Thanks to the Chancellor, Humza Yousaf now has a chance to honour that promise of health investment and still have enough left to restore the affordable housing budget Ms Robison cut by £200m.

That was the cash raid which led to the director of homelessness charity Shelter accusing the SNP leadership of “gaslighting” Scotland by claiming to be tackling poverty while condemning thousands of families to live without a proper place to call home. And after a UK budget which put hundreds of pounds into the pockets of Scottish workers through another National Insurance cut to boost wages by up to £900 a year while the SNP hammers modest earners with higher income tax it seems gaslighting is a very hard habit to break.