Sadly, the Scottish Government is having to look again about what it can afford within the tight budget allowed us by the Westminster Government. I am sure those of you who read this are well aware that all the money generated by Scots goes to the Westminster coffers. They then decide what percentage of that can be returned to us to spend on our people and their future.
Everyone, who paid attention, knew that there was going to be a huge deficit in the Westminster Governments budget. I mean, nobody can keep giving money away to their pals like the Tories did and expect all to be okay. If one of us had intentionally made a huge hole in our budget, we would have to sell what we had to pay our debt and if we couldn’t pay it all, then the debtors court awaits. Meantime the ones who squandered and wasted the UK’s money, simply walked away, many of them laughing.
The incoming government knew. They had had access to books and civil servants in the weeks leading up to the election. They probably thought, who can we punish first by withholding money? The Scots, for turning their back on Labour to have a better run government. We can’t directly attack certain support as it is devolved. Who can we sacrifice in England and Wales that will allow us to cut what the Scottish government receives. We can’t touch the children because we already have the 2 child benefit limit. Oh, the elderly. We have such a majority, we won’t need them in the next few years. By taking away their own pensioners winter fuel allowance, that allowed them to cut the budget given to Scotland, forcing a cut to our pensioners in an already tight budget. Add to that the demands for higher wages from the public purse, and plans for development have had to be put on hold for now.
Then, today, I am reading that the Chancellor is going to give the Scottish Secretary all but £10 million of the cut to Scotland’s budget, for projects he deems worthy. All this played out in plain sight of the people. Far too many of whom still read all the tabloids and listen to the carefully constructed stories on MSN who report in a manner that is always negative to how Scotland can perfectly cope on their own.
As the saying goes #youyesyet?