Government of grievance

Business Editor, Sunday Herald

Sunday 1 July 2012

There are two explanations available as to why Cabinet Secretary for Finance John Swinney did not use HM Treasury's Sleeper grant of £50 million for the kind of "accelerated spending" on infrastructure successfully used in the past.

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By Colin Donald

The straightforward one is that the Scottish Government has genuine cause to be worried about the scale of pressures on its capital programme in the next couple of years. If Swinney can see a build-up of pressure from existing spending commitments, he might have good reasons to believe that he will not have the "headroom" to risk not being able to recover £50m when the Sleeper is ready.

A more cynical explanation is that the Scottish Government regards its repeated demand for an extra £300m for shovel-ready projects as a gift that keeps on giving. It is committed to a political narrative that involves continually asking for something and continually being denied. This latter explanation gains credence from Swinney's odd reaction to an unexpected £50m, furtively passed to a fat government quango with an already well-funded investment programme, rather than assigned to projects which, he rightly claims, could alleviate austerity.More support for the latter version comes from bluster about the conditions attached to the Treasury grant, which appear to cross the line between political spin, which is habitual, and demonstrable untruth, which is unusual. It would be naive to expect any government of any stripe not to put politics first, but at a time when the Scottish economy is struggling, it is hard to see why any regime would not use all available resources to boost jobs and growth. If nothing else, swift and effective actions would speak louder for the SNP Government's central purpose than the repeated words of grievance propaganda that impartial public servants are ordered to produce.

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Government of grievance

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