The SNP’s fiscal contradictions are becoming increasingly funny.
First they lead a crusade for ‘full fiscal autonomy’ – a chant they and the infantry were able to learn to sing but had not the remotest idea what having it would do to Scotland.
Then, when the SNP’s top bananas themselves start to understand what it means, they bolt hard in the opposite direction, muttering in retreat that it’s only an aspiration a long way down the road.
Then, while the former First Minister pompously gives the House of Commons an irrelevant – and less than articulate, if forceful - tutorial on the operation of the Barnett formula, the current First Minister, increasingly sidelined by events and desperate for attention, tries to ginger up an anti-austerity crusade.
Anti-austerity? The SNP?
Aye right.
This is the all-Scottish government for Scotland, Scotland’s strong voice – the home team that covertly imposed austerity on Scotland – all by itself.
Finance Secretary, John Swinney, annually made secret cuts in spending, withholding a proportion of the annual revenue grant.
And last year he held back close to half a billion of it – £444M. Think on.
No one has explained why these repeated internal spending cuts were made – but since this happened more than once, it cannot have been an accident.
Any of the infantry now chanting an end to austerity need to turn their attention to the silent austerity slapped on Scotland in sleight of hand cuts from its very own government.
And then there’s Greece.
That too is a country keen to spend as is the SNP; a country also crying the need for an end to austerity.
That is an association hardly inspiring of confidence in Scotland.
And of course, during indyref 1, former First Minister Alex Salmond threatened to default on debt if he didn’t get the terms he wanted.
The words ‘wheels’ and ‘wagon’ look as if they’re in the offing.
