Stop trying to find excuses

Sir, – Accustomed as I have become to reading letters from your independence supporting correspondents, blaming all of Scotland’s problems on “the Union”, I was flabbergasted to read the letter (August 28) penned by Alex Orr, suggesting that the GERS figures published recently are either some sort of guesswork or, alternatively, a measure of the state of public finances in Scotland as a consequence of “the Union’s” management of the economy.

Does he not realise that the GERS report (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) is actually published by a Scottish government department ?

No doubt if the report had shown Scotland’s economy in a better light, he and others would have been verbally patting the SNP on the back instead of trying to find excuses for this party whose grasp of prudent fiscal management, is tenuous to say the least.

It is a matter of record that the Scottish Government budget for 2018/2019 shows expenditure of £31.8 billion, and taxes collected of £12.8 billion.

Where does the shortfall come from?

The bulk of it from the UK Treasury, under the Barnett formula block grant, which incidentally is far more generous to Scotland than it is to Wales and Northern Ireland.

Without the block grant, where would the shortfall come from? Vastly increased taxes? Vast borrowings at rates far above those that the UK Treasury can command? Huge cutbacks in public services?

Rather than trying to find excuses for the poor performance of the Scottish economy under an SNP Government with increasingly devolved fiscal authority, he might consider just how much investment in Scotland’s infrastructure is held back due to the monetary and political uncertainties created by the SNP as a consequence of its mission towards economic and political suicide, otherwise known as sovereign independence from the UK, this small island that we have successfully cohabited with the English and Welsh for so many years.

Derek Farmer. Knightsward Farm. Anstruther.