Spending figures show Scottish Government is running on empty - John McLellan

First Minister John Swinney and finance secretary Shona Robison. Picture: Lisa Ferguson/National World

Like Creationists claiming dinosaur fossils are merely there to test faith that the earth is only 6000 years old, there is little the SNP doesn’t claim as evidence of the benefits of independence if only the electorate could see the truth.

The electorate did indeed see the truth last month and reduced the SNP representation at Westminster to a rump of nine from 43, but the publication of the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures yesterday changed nothing. It would be naïve to expect otherwise.

Despite rising income tax revenues, the Scottish spending deficit between government expenditure and revenue rose from 9 per cent last year to 10.4 per cent of GDP.

And if it hadn’t been for revenues from North Sea oil and gas – the end of which both the SNP and Labour are committed to accelerating − the deficit would have been 13.2 per cent. Meanwhile, the UK deficit fell from 5.2 to 4.5 per cent of GDP.

Finance secretary Shona Robison was quick out the blocks to claim the gap “is not a reflection on the finances or policies of the Scottish Government – it is a reflection of UK Government choices.” SNP Scotland good, Westminster bad, we’ve heard it all before.

But hold on a minute. Right at the top of the official report, it clearly says the figures reflect policy changes including “freezes to Scottish Income Tax thresholds, and increases to the Higher and Top Rates of Scottish Income Tax.”

So, whether you agree with the spending priorities of the Scottish Government or not – free tuition fees, the Scottish Child Payment, free bus passes for 22-year-olds, free prescriptions and higher taxes − it is utter balderdash to claim the results are nothing to do with the Scottish Government.

Maybe Ms Robison is exhausted by having to make these claims year after year, only for voters to tell her party to shove them where the sun don’t shine, but it seems the SNP has learnt nothing from July.

Unionists have grown equally tired out pointing out that the gap between expenditure and revenue would be the sole responsibility of an independent Scottish Government, with either lower public spending or higher taxes or both, but the SNP still peddles the myth that this wouldn’t be so.

Ms Robison even claimed part of the problem was the high cost of servicing UK government debt, “paid at a higher rate than our European neighbours," she said. Perhaps, but with a massively bigger deficit than the UK to cover and historically sluggish economic growth, the cost of borrowing for an independent Scottish government would be astronomical.

It may be true that an independent Scottish Government would make different choices, but Ms Robison tries to fool people into believing she knows what those choices might be when she can’t possibly know how such a fantasy government would operate.

It’s all smoke and steam, but the curtain has already been pulled back to reveal a burnt-out old administration desperately going through the motions, reliant on bust assertions to continue denying reality.

Yesterday exposed a Scottish Government which is running on empty promises and it’s time for Ms Robison and the SNP to change the record. The electorate, however, wants a new DJ.