Smell the coffee
One wonders when those who voted No in the 2014 Scottish Referendum will finally wake up and smell the coffee? Gordon Brown’s decision as UK Chancellor to deregulate the banking market in 1997, among other poor decisions of the UK Labour Government of the period, directly contributed to the UK’S huge debt of around £1 trillion by 2010. George Osborne promised not only to reduce the annual deficit but to repay the debt, by controversially embarking on a programme of Austerity. In 2014, those voting in the Scottish Referendum were advised that economically we would be Better Together if Scotland remained in the UK, and that a No vote was the best means of securing our membership of the EU and continuing to benefit from the Single Market.
In 2015, the SNP fought the UK election on an economic platform calling for an end to austerity along with targeted infrastructure spending, such as on transport. In 2016 those who led the Brexit campaign boasted how much better off the UK would be economically when outside of the EU, where the UK is now destined. When Chancellor Philip Hammond gave his Autumn Statement on Wednesday, that coffee aroma should have been strong enough to make the heads of even the strongest Unionists spin into abject dizziness.
Even before Article 50 for leaving the EU has been triggered the UK Government is looking at a staggering national debt approaching £2tr and an annual deficit approaching 90 per cent of GDP.
Six years of financial misery for millions of working people and those most vulnerable in our society has not only not wiped out the UK national debt, but sadly has simply delayed the day when future generations will not see sigfrom nificant portions of their taxes used to pay interest on the UK’S now spiralling debt.
Certainly £800 million in “Barnett Consequentials” over the next five years for transportation infrastructure investment is to be welcomed, but Scotland’s “share” of the estimated £60 billion extra borrowing requirement alone will be more than five times this infrastructure figure, without considering the knock-on effect on the GERS figures those who continue to support our unequal Union like to quote. More coffee please?
STAN GRODYNSKI
Longniddry, East Lothian