UK dare not lose Scotland

DURING Margaret Thatcher’s regime the oft-spouted response to any mention of Scottish emancipation was “the Scottish people receive a greater, per capita, spend than the people south of the Border.” When asked “how much, per capita, do the people of Scotland contribute to the Exchequer?”, the response was: “Those figures are not available.” Not to worry, though, the Tories had a catchphrase to parrot.

The truth, of course, is summed up by these two sentences from the Business for Scotland web page: “Where does Scotland’s wealth go?”. It says: “Put simply, when the UK runs a surplus Scotland contributes more to the surplus, and when the UK runs a deficit Scotland has to pay more of the debt back than it is responsible for. It’s a ‘lose/lose’ situation for Scottish taxpayers and especially for those in need of support from the state.”

Unionist politicians know the truth of this. Without the river of revenue from Scotland, the Westminster Exchequer would, and will, be in far greater, and more serious, fiscal difficulty. They know this but they daren’t say it.

And so we have yet another Westminster party leader telling us things like, “and just as in

1997, we will make devolution a reality under the next Labour government”, in his efforts to keep the river flowing, particularly because the cost of Covid will take many years to reconcile.

My only question is: how many more layers of bovine excrement do these Unionists think they can spread before Jock Tamson and his bairns tell them “enough”, because they can’t take the smell any longer, and “independence” is their preferred perfume?

Ned Larkin, Inverness.