The political landscape in the UK is in such disarray at the moment it's very hard to pick where the country is going.... The Country.... Even that is a loaded term. When I say "The Country" I mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland the collective "We Brits" if you will allow me to say.
I have always fervently believed the union makes us stronger as an island nation and even lets us have fun with it, especially on the sports field. But politically, globally, trade & positively as a nation better together.
I even tip my hat to the Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands in that; perhaps even as far as the overseas dependencies which have maintained the "Brit" connection and retain their self-determination.
So why am I waxing lyrical about this?
Scotland. I keep seeing John Swinney of the SNP banging on about Scottish Independence and another vote, sure fine, go ahead, rock the boat John; I'm positively sure there's no problems at SNP headquarters anymore... Right? (Queue the Anakin Skywalker Padme memes here).
What is it John Swinney is banging on about which has irked me? Well, it's the way he blindly goes into this independence conversation, seemingly without any thought for the Scottish Public; what he seems to be focussing on is what the big sweeping brush he can achieve for Scotland might be.
Such things as closer ties to the EU, France especially, possibly Scotland rejoining the EU as an independent country from the UK's exit, he bangs on about Industry and opportunity for Scotland.
But he blindly ignores so much of the whole picture and that's what annoys me about the mans position and policies.
He wants to remove the UK Nuclear deterrent from Scotland, so what happens to all those jobs supporting that infrastructure?
What happens to all the Scots in the UK armed forces themselves?
What happens to all the free University places?
All the NHS infrastructure if he took it to being the SHS?
With modern data and searching it's quite trivial to see the baseline numbers on this, numbers he is ignoring and none of it works out for the Scottish public.
Scottish Government Revenue (2025-2026) was £98.3 billion.
Public expenditure for Scotland (2025-2026) was £123.3 billion.
That's a deficit, that means Scotland cannot run the services it currently has to the quality they currently are as an independent country.
This means free further education, adult social care, housing and personal benefits as well as probably infrastructure like the road and rail would all suffer in order to close that hole in the public finances.
Then add to the fact that Scotland needs a defence system of its own, unless the Scots wish to routinely welcome Russian over flights or threats of invasion by Donald Trump.
It's bizarre that the numbers are so stark and there are so many members of the Scottish public ignoring this simple and perfectly understandable situation. And it's one the devolved Scottish government itself puts upon the people, they kept free further education in Scotland, that's all out of the public purse, the revenue from the North Sea fields off of Aberdeen & Dundee, will likely walk off with the private investment owners - which won't be Scottish for the most part.
It's just bizarre that the SNP and John Swinney are rocking the national boat like this, seemingly for their own notoriety. And the current Westminster gaggle are too spineless to address them with the simple reality - Scotland cannot afford to be independent without making the Scottish people very much poorer financially, functionally and fraternally.
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