Scottish independence would make cost-of-living nightmare seem like a dream – John McLellan

Another day, another SNP independence stunt, this time an attempt to change the law in Westminster to give the Scottish Parliament the power to call a referendum.
Nicola Sturgeon's government presides over a country with Third World life-expectancy in the poorest areas (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)Nicola Sturgeon's government presides over a country with Third World life-expectancy in the poorest areas (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Nicola Sturgeon's government presides over a country with Third World life-expectancy in the poorest areas (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Of course, SNP strategists knew full well any bid to amend the Scotland Act in January has no chance of success, but was a means to add to the ‘democracy deniers’ grudge which four opinion polls indicate is having some resonance with wavering voters. Given the UK Government position on a referendum is unequivocal, the latest wheeze looked like a device to tie in the Labour party, which is now in a far stronger position to halt SNP advances than at any time since 2010.

With a remorseless stream of bad news, whether it’s rising food prices, housing costs and high inflation or unsettling industrial strife which disrupts daily lives, it’s perfectly understandable for people to think there must be a better way forward. But why anyone thinks the answer is constitutional and economic chaos which hands control to an increasingly fragile single-issue political alliance with a track record of incompetence is another matter.

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This is a Scottish Government which blames London for keeping it short of resources, when it receives over £12bn more than it raises in tax, and then last year failed to spend £2bn of what it had. It’s an administration which decries Westminster’s record on basic services, while it simultaneously starves councils of cash, over £50m in Edinburgh in the coming year alone.

It comes from a party which claims to be more caring than others, but despite a health budget which dwarfs the rest of Great Britain presides over Third World life-expectancy in dire estates, and where deaths from addictions are the worst in Europe as a direct result of its own policies. As will be seen in today’s Scottish Government budget statement, the SNP will try to make Scottish people believe it’s all someone else’s problem, which can be addressed just by taxing the better off ’til they are not better off any more.

So today, the 16 per cent of people who pay 60 per cent of all Scottish income tax can expect to be hammered, but without any promise their money will make things better. Emergency patients will still languish untreated in accident units for hours, thousands of children will still leave primary school unable to write or count, and corrosive, low-level crime will go untackled.

The elderly will be held in hospitals or eke out their days in sub-standard care homes, while the Scottish Government blows over £1bn on the bureaucratic control-freakery of a national service. And not content with crushing North Sea oil and gas, the Scottish Government is now intent on hobbling the whisky industry, either through taxes, marketing bans or both.

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The ultimate prize is a country which either has no control over its own money or has to create a new currency which no one trusts; if UK interest rates are high now, borrowing in new Scotland would be murderous. Those with any financial mobility would be off.

As a former Conservative councillor, I accept that past UK leadership bears responsibility for persuading enough Scottish people that the SNP presents a viable alternative when the reality of independence will make what we’re experiencing now appear like balmy, richly-dressed salad days.

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