It was inevitable – If there is even a half truth to this story, and I suspect there is, then Allan Bissett was spot and Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP walked right into it , it is as predictable as it is sad and the people who will pay the highest price for this failure are the poorest.
Scots have been warned to brace for potential announcements of higher taxes or major projects being ditched by financial experts ahead of the publication of the Scottish Government’s Resource Spending Review.
Incompetence, poor governance, an ego the size of Mount Everest, while being surrounded by sycophants have led Scotland to the potential nightmare that the Scottish Government will have to go cap in hand to the unionists in London for a bail out, and believe me that will be the
Final nail in the independence dream!
While Covid-19 could not have been predicted the rest has been incompetence of a level not seen since devolution began, I really can’t think of a Scottish Government that has been much worse than this one. I have argued for a long time that we should never have accepted the Smith Commission , in 2014 I said that we had been betrayed, in fact it was the first betrayal from Sturgeon via Swinney and the unionists. It has taken time but the Smith Commission trap is coming home to roost, the unionist plan all along, and Sturgeon has played their game every step of the way.
I have also said since 2010 that we needed to pass on the Tory cuts or face a crisis further down the road, I have no idea about economics but it was obvious that mitigation of unionist hatred of the poor was never going to work in the long term and yes the SNP Scottish Government and their level of incompetence has the unionists dancing in George Square as Sturgeon walked right into their trap. The IFS has warned such a hole, worth around £640 per person in Scotland, will leave Ms Forbes facing “very tough decisions” on whether to cut key services or raise taxes. I said back in 2017 that
Using the tax trap is just another nail in the coffin of the fight for independence (GSM 2017)
I have never truly believed that Nicola Sturgeon is a unionist in disguise but I have felt for a long time that she was all presentation and no substance, no strategist, no great thinker and today we are at the most dangerous place on our journey, the potential end of it it for the next 50 years. If the Scottish Government, led by Sturgeon for the last 7 years, have screwed up as badly as this report implies then it is over because the level of cuts to fill a black hole of over 3 billion pounds on top of the near billion already wasted by Sturgeon on ferries, hospitals, and vendettas will result in cuts that force people to think that even the Tories are not as thick as the Tartan SNP ones.
Kate Forbes SNP Finance Secretary has said “The IFS are right to highlight the challenges caused by rising inflation and by uncertain UK Government funding decisions, which can dramatically reduce Scotland’s budget at the drop of a hat. Sorry Kate that just won’t wash this time, people won’t fall for it much longer no matter how many platitudes we get from Ian Blackford, the SNP have betrayed us all.
We fight. When they ask us.
We boast. Then we cower.
We beg. (Cap in Hand The Proclaimers)
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
The SNP “strategy” is simply to blame everything on the Conservative British Government while doing absolutely nothing to advance the solution, namely the restoration of Scotland’s statehood and full self-government.
The party members used to ridicule the Unionists and British Nationalists in Scotland who blamed all ills on it by braying “SNP baaaaaaaaaaaaad”. Well the truth is that all the SNP ministers and spokespeople do now is moan and complain – “Tories baaaaaaaaaaaaaad”.
Yes, we bad. And, sadly, for a piece of what’s already ours (as Craig & Charlie would say).
Duncanio
There have a total arse of it by all looks and are going to have to get the begging bowl out while under Salmond there was always a slush fund bigger than the usual. Mitigating all of the cuts was a huge gamble and they are paying the price now big time while falling into the trap that was Smith.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
“I have no idea about economics but it was obvious that mitigation of unionist hatred of the poor was never going to work in the long term”
THIS! Indeed at the time of the Smith Commission David Mundell boasted that it was a fiscal trap (even without the mitigations). The Scottish budget was to fund devolved areas but acts as a mitigation for reserved areas and whilst I understood the desire to help people in dire straits, the more politically savvy thing to do was to point out that it was Westminster policies causing the distress and do nothing.
The rubber has hit the road earlier than expected because the Sturgeon SNP are so incompetent but even the best government in the world would have hit the buffers because the fiscal framework made it clear that the only way to stay ahead of the trap was to grow the economy faster than rUK. Which is virtually impossible because most of the levers to grow the economy are reserved. If I can work that out despite not being an economist, why couldn’t the nuSNP?
PP
The SNP needed to play the English Government at their own game, improving areas such as education, health, and doing what they could with the economy. There was never any need for big projects, they needed to be smart and they weren’t. Sturgeon made an arse of it de to her desire to never be wrong and to be loved, Salmond would have played a smarter game, having been in Westminster for years he knows how it works, Sturgeon doesn’t get it at all and needs to go before indy is dead.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Excellent Bruce. Nobody else has highlighted that the push for independence can be completely derailed simply by pulling the rug out from under the economy. Labour would do the same to preserve the union.
The SNP can’t save us for the simple reason that the party structure is a product of the current political and economic environment. I’m sure Forbes will deliver austerity with just the same conviction as Sunak for the simple reason that she simply does not comprehend there is any other way.
Stuart
I’m no expert in anything but I would have passed on some of the cuts rather than get to this point and I would have stayed away from large projects instead working on the bread and butter issues while highlighting constantly that it was the lack of the real powers that was holding us back. Sturgeon has shown she is not as smart as she thinks and has to be liked, or worshipped, but either way she is a failure and has probably destroyed indy for my life time at least as the blame actually does lay at her door for at least half of the overall mess.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce