IT the most hotly debated publication in the Scottish Government's calendar, with enough ripe cherries and rotten apples for everyone.
The Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) report is such a mixed bag of inputs, outputs and estimates it can be used to prop up any argument - and in the age of neverendums it is usually presented as a damning indictment of Scotland’s economy if it was independent, or as part of the UK, or in the EU, or after Brexit.
Many call it “fake news” but, as Nicola Sturgeon herself pointed out, it bears a Scottish Government stamp, so those who dismiss it as Unionist propaganda or completely irrelevant are misguided.
“I’m not quibbling about the essence and the reliability of these figures,” she said at a GERS briefing in Edinburgh.
However she said it did have “inherent limitations” because figures which apportion Scotland’s share of UK-wide spending in areas such as defence or debt interest are based on estimates.
She acknowledged that, as things stand, “an independent Scotland would be dealing with a deficit” but she insisted it would have the economic levers “to grow our economy and take different decisions”
She said: “I’m not going to look forward and predict what all of these decisions might be."
The Scottish Government did that once, in its White Paper on independence, and some of its forecasts proved to be wildly inaccurate.
“The figures we put forward were reliable…at the time,” she said.
“Circumstances changed. My opponents were saying it was some kind of con, and that I absolutely refute.”
In the absence of an impossibly pure forensic analysis of where money is raised and spent in the UK - or a crystal ball - GERS is a pretty fair assessment of Scotland’s fragile economy.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel