There's always money for independence
Kate Forbes warns of tight budgets ahead. Well, except in one area.
This is my sketch of the ministerial statement ‘Investing in Scotland’s Future’, delivered by Finance Secretary Kate Forbes on Tuesday, May 31, 2022.
There wasn't a hint of self-examination in Kate Forbes's statement on Scottish Government finances.
Oh, she spoke in stark terms about the problem but she deflected onto the UK Government. Big bad Boris strikes again.
An impressive bit of blame-shifting, especially when you consider Forbes’s statement was an admission that she was all out of money.
Not just out of money, but in the red to the tune of £3.5 billion. This lot have done for Scottish public finances what Bernie Madoff did for New York pension schemes.
£3.5 billion isn’t pocket change. It’s twice the annual GDP of the Seychelles. Five Sir Tom Hunters. A peak-time return on ScotRail.
How did Forbes manage to chalk it all up to Brexit and the ‘chill winds of Tory austerity’ and get away with it?
Perhaps because the opposition was given exactly 60 minutes to read the statement before it was published and just 30 minutes to ask questions.
The Tories’ Stephen Kerr asked for extra time, citing rule 8.14.3, but every time he tried the Nationalist benches heckled furiously.
Maybe rule 8.14.4 should be: no hooting like over-stimulated chimpanzees when other people are speaking.
‘You can shout me down all you like,’ Kerr told the peanuts gallery.
In the event, it was the Presiding Officer who slapped him down.
‘It is very important that we protect time for other important items of business in the parliament this afternoon,’ Alison Johnstone told him.
True enough, MSPs were down to debate the important issue of drugs deaths later in the afternoon.
They were also scheduled to discuss ‘opportunities to integrate ethical principles into the Scottish Government’s strategic approach to wildlife management’. I think time could have been found.
Forbes framed her statement on Scotland's long-term financial outlook in the context of Covid, the war in Ukraine and an 'unprecedented cost of living crisis'.
'This government is doing all it can in response,' she told MSPs, 'prioritising additional funds to help households in need, but the limits on our fiscal and economic powers limit in turn the support we can offer.'
Of course. Not content with maxing out the national credit card, this was also going to be a shakedown for yet more devolution.
'We face these challenges without the tools and without the levers that other governments have at their disposal,' the Finance Secretary continued.
'Never let a good crisis go to waste,' Churchill is reputed to have said. The SNP version of this maxim is: 'Whatever the problem, the answer is always more powers for Holyrood'.
Forbes also 'welcomed' Rishi Sunak's extra £400 per household — by complaining it was not enough and snipping: 'Of course, this help has been funded disproportionately by taxes on Scottish industry.'
Slap a tax on grievance and the SNP front bench alone would have raised £3.5 billion by the end of the week.
Speaking of tax, Forbes reminded an opposition MSP that under her income tax policies, 'the lowest-paid people in Scotland pay less and the highest-paid people pay more'.
That's worked out well. For some reason, hiking income taxes in a country with a small base of top-rate payers did not produce a cash mountain of extra revenue.
This outcome seems to have surprised ministers. Art Laffer, meanwhile, was unavailable for comment.
Forbes called her plans 'an ambitious but realistic public spending framework for the years ahead'. The message: tough choices all round.
From Liz Smith’s demeanour, Forbes had staggered home with an open pay packet.
The Tories' chief bean counter reminded her opposite number that the Nationalists had 'received record payouts from Westminster' and concluded that the black hole was 'the product of incompetence from an SNP government that has no idea how to manage public finances'.
For Labour, Daniel Johnson noted: 'Although the government proposes to cut economic and enterprise support, it is finding £20 million for another referendum.'
The tough choices weren't quite so all-round after all. That's the SNP's other maxim: There's always money for independence.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on June 1, 2022.
God I hate the nationalists. For the past 15 years their incompetence has ruined Scotland and they’ve blamed the UK for it. The Presiding Officer in Holyrood is no more than a Nat puppet, unable or unwilling to shut up the monkeys as the organ grinder drones on and on
None of anything Kate Forbes says, does or is going to do matters. The same goes for Nicola Sturgeon & her SNP. They go ahead regardless of the majority of the people in Scotland.
The other parties are weak, ineffective & are very unlikely to be in power again. What does matter is the total mayhem they cause, the disasters & the damage, freedoms taken away, the children who have been abandoned to a crap education & to everyone’s lives.
For this and many other reasons we need a Scottish Referendum to CLOSE THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT. The UK government seem not to care and hardly ever put them in check.
Ask yourself what has devolution done for Scotland that has made things better for ALL its people. What things are not better?
Free prescription are just an illusion, no such thing & the administration cost for a simple packed of day paracetamol will probably be £30 ask any pharmacist just how much it is.
The money ALL the MSPs get is too costly. This is not a devolution most people signed up for.
It needs to go.