As a living embodiment of the posh, braying public-school Tory-boy stereotype, Fraser Nelson of the Spectator used to reside in our “Zany Comedy Relief” links bar until we kicked him out for rarely lowering himself to write about Scotland.
But his guest appearance in today’s Telegraph we enjoyed at least parts of.
In “breaking news” during a dull ding-dong of a debate on Wednesday’s Newsnight Scotland, we were breathlessly told that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had made an important intervention in the debate about whether Scotland should keep paying for railway lines between London and Birmingham, weapons of mass destruction and Ian Davidson’s expenses. (We paraphrase.)
Stopping just short of a drum-roll or mariachi band (yes, those are Mexican, but are you telling us BBC Scotland would know the difference?), viewers were dramatically informed that in a major new development Mariano Rajoy had said… exactly what he’s been saying for most of the last two years.
One of Labour’s key allies in Scotland is solicitor Mike Dailly of the Govan Law Centre. Best known for his attempts to force the Scottish Government to subsidise the bedroom tax by cutting services elsewhere, he’s a venomously anti-SNP figure who rarely passes up the chance for a bit of Nat-bashing.
(It would, we’re sure, be overly cynical to suggest that Mr Dailly wants the bedroom tax propped up because if it was abolished he’d suddenly be out of the public eye.)
Today he’s published a blog angrily contesting the claim made in yesterday’s White Paper that the UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.
We thought we’d take a look.
We’re still dutifully ploughing through “Scotland’s Future”, but in truth we’re not really its target audience. We’re already convinced, and much of it is just like reading our own articles back except in rather blander language. What we can definitely say for certain is that it doesn’t lack detail – the composition of an independent Scotland’s armed forces, for example, is laid out almost down to the rifle.
Naturally, that didn’t stop the No camp from rushing onto the nation’s TV screens within minutes of the press launch ending with their considered, serious and thoughtful assessments of a document none of them had read.
There’s an atrocious piece of journalism in this morning’s Guardian, and on this particular occasion we’re referring to its technical standards rather than any bias or spin. Here are the opening paragraphs:
We’re confused already.
There’s an interesting piece from Lesley Riddoch in this morning’s Scotsman, pointing out that “Better Together” is scared to put its prospectus for a Scotland inside the UK to the electorate, preferring a purely destructive critical approach to the Yes side’s:
But while the piece echoes one we wrote last weekend pointing out that Scots will be choosing between two different futures next September (not just opting to keep things as they are) Riddoch doesn’t quite capture the full extent of the No camp’s cowardice, because she misses one important point.
So we’re pretty embarrassed that we’ve only just put these two things together. We’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently pointing out that there’s almost no chance of the Barnett Formula – in essence, a mechanism for returning to Scotland some of the excess money it sends to Westminster in the form of oil revenue and tax receipts – being retained after the next UK general election.
We’ve also spent a good six months highlighting that the possibility of Holyrood being given “more tax powers” after a No vote is actually a trap, not in reality offering more power at all, but more responsibility. (Because it does you no good to have to collect your own tax revenue – the power lies in deciding how your tax revenue is spent.)
And duh, it’s taken us till now to see the connection. Boy, is our face red.
That’s how often they tell us.
Our emphasis, from today’s “Telegraph View”.
The Barnett Formula is worth, by our sums, approximately £7bn a year to the Scottish economy. Bear it in mind when you’re being told about the “black hole” in Scotland’s finances after a Yes vote, because even if you vote No you can wave bye-bye to Barnett, and then Scotland really WILL be looking into a black hole.
We’re getting fair warning, folks. Pay heed.
Let’s make this one as short as possible. This week’s latest comedy FEARBOMB from the No camp (well, one among many) was a topically Doctor Who-themed repeat of one of their classics – “You won’t get the BBC after independence”.
We pulled that one apart in detail almost a year ago, but let’s see if we can boil it right down to the bare undisputed facts for easy quick reference.
We’ve had a closer look at the Institute for Fiscal Studies report from this week.
Basically, the conclusion of the report is that if an independent Scotland continued to do exactly the same things over the next 50 years as the UK does now, it would have to grow its GDP by 1.9% to cover a predicted fiscal gap, while the UK would only have to grow by 0.8% to cover a similar gap. According to the IFS, this 1.9% shortfall would mean a 6% cut in services or a hike of 8% in income tax in an independent Scotland.
However, close reading of the small print in the IFS document highlights facts and forecast figures that appear to contradict the IFS’s argument and instead point to a situation where an independent Scotland would actually be in a similar fiscal position to the UK. Confused? Yes, so were we.
There’s pretty much nothing about Labour’s latest fearmongering anti-independence leaflet (revealed exclusively by us on Tuesday night) that doesn’t make us facepalm.
The only difficult thing is deciding which aspect is the most idiotic.
Here’s the Labour First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, one year ago:
Jones is all over the papers today with his bizarre delusions-of-influence assertion that he would have some sort of veto over a Sterling currency union between the rUK and an independent Scotland (“Wales could block efforts by an independent Scotland to join a pound-sharing pact”, reports the Scotsman).
For perspective, imagine Alex Salmond being given a veto over the result of a UK referendum to leave the EU. Stop laughing, the article’s not finished yet.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
