The UK budget keeps Scotland in a trap.
Year after year after year, Scots have to tune in to a budget planned in London on the basis of the needs and political impulses of a different country.
The oil and gas industry that did so much to power the UK for the last half-century is being betrayed, pushed into a sudden collapse that will damage the Scottish economy. So much for the green transition.
Scotland is an energy-rich country that is forced to pay the highest energy prices in the developed world. These suck money and opportunity out of Scottish communities. That hurts business as well as households.
Scotland outperforms the rest of the UK in terms of exports. It voted to remain in the EU which was so important for business here. But that democratically expressed wish was contemptuously ignored by a UK government that did what it always does. It did it again in this week’s budget - put London first.
How long will Scotland have to sit and watch while the levers of power are operated in a different country by a regime that has little interest in a country only allocated three per cent of seats in its Parliament?