Viceroy-in-waiting Murray can't wait to get his hands on Scotland
Published in the The National, March 24th, 2024 and the Edinburgh Evening News, March 25th, 2024.
Ian Murray says the UK is a country. He’s wrong. It’s a state comprised of 3 nations and a province. Viceroy-in-waiting Murray pretends to represent Scotland, but his English Labour bosses view it as the UK’s ‘northern region,’ ripe for continuous plunder.
He claims Rachel Reeves will somehow conjure economic growth without spending more money. Impossible. Public, not private, spending always leads economic growth. Expecting the private sector to step up is pure fantasy.
Reeves doesn’t comprehend that a government with its own currency and bank can spend as much as required to fund public services and make the investments the economy is crying out for. Her ignorance about this basic fact is breath-taking.
Presumably with a straight face, Murray says Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan (GPP) will attract private investment, but Starmer has ditched the GPP, like all his manifesto pledges. He boasts that GB Energy, a shell company to be headquartered in Scotland, will be a boon to business, but not to the Scottish People, to whom Scotland’s energy riches belong. The bounty will still flow to Westminster.
The proof? Scotland’s annual tax contributions to the UK have increased by £14.2 billion over the last decade. Its public sector generated annual revenue of £73.3 billion last year with Scotland accounting for 8% of total UK contributions, dwarfing those from Wales and NI.
And here’s the kicker. Oil and gas isn’t included. In 2022/23, North Sea oil revenue was £10.57 billion, up from £2.66 billion the year before. 90% is from Scottish waters, around £10 billion, so Scotland’s total contribution last year was £83 billion. But we got back just £42 billion.
The last thing we need is a preening Viceroy Murray overseeing the unceasing plunder of our resources and impoverishment of our people.
The ‘union’ is a legal sham concocted to justify Scotland’s colonisation by its voracious ‘partner’. We must end it now.
The staggering thing is that every Chancellor of the Exchequer I can remember since the 1960s when I studied Keynsian economics either didn't understand how money is created and how the macroeconomy actually works (in which case why was he appointed?) OR he was lying to the public (in which case why was he appointed?). Rachel Reeves could become the first female Chancellor, but she'll be carrying on a venerable tradition of ignorance in office!
I believe that the ignorance is fake because they believe that most of the public don't understand the economics of running a country. Many don't.
In Scotland we are fortunate, especially those of us who have campaigned for Independence for years. We have so many resources to call on, and we need to keep informed on so many issues. You can't work on a street stall and not have the facts at the front of your brain.