The SNP’s political gifts know no bounds. Mr S has to take his bonnet off to Kate Forbes – Sturgeon’s finance secretary and heir apparent. For no Tory minister could have ever announced the spending cuts which she did yesterday without facing the wrath of the Scottish establishment. Couched in managerial jargon-ese, Forbes’ spending review statement promised a ‘reset’ in the country’s public services over the next five years. ‘Reset,’ of course, is simply a shorthand for ‘real term cuts’, with the funding axe set to fall on a swathe of different areas including local government, higher education, the courts service and cultural affairs. Despite all this, there is still some cash for the SNP’s own vanity projects, with £20 million put aside to plan for another referendum. Truly progressive stuff.
Forbes’ announcement comes days after the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned of a potential gap of £3.5 billion opening up in the Scottish government’s finances over the next few years.
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