Reprinted with kind permission of Rev Stu Campbell, Wings over Scotland

Everywhere you look there’s a “Proud Scot” screaming about how the figures destroy a case for independence

TODAY saw the publication of the 2017-18 GERS stats, which are again triggering a convulsive orgy of “BLACK HOLE!” articles across the media, as every Unionist in the land falls over themselves to portray their own country as a useless scrounging subsidy junkie without actually using the exact words “too wee, too poor, too stupid”.

And once again, everywhere you look there’s a “Proud Scot” screaming about how the figures destroy a case for independence that those same people have spent most of the current decade stridently insisting never existed in the first place.

So let’s recap the truth about Scotland’s financial books. Because for all the complex arguments, mad graphs ludicrously pretending Scotland is a less viable nation than Greece or Latvia or Cyprus or Malta and endless arrays of incomprehensible charts and tables, there are (now) only six things you really need to know about GERS.

KEY FACT 1

GERS is a really, really terrible advertisement for the Union. Scotland has been part of the UK for 308 years. It’s had its own parliament for just 5% of that time. Even now, almost all of its key economic levers – taxation, welfare, immigration and many more – are directly controlled by Westminster, as is roughly half of “Scottish” spending.