The UK is in an economic mess.

Scotland, if we were to have full fiscal autonomy - in other words be responsible for raising all our own money and not receive additional funding as we do now as part of the UK - would be in a worse mess.

Separation would not mean new spending programmes but rather deciding which hospitals would close and which teachers would be made redundant. Bizarrely full fiscal autonomy is what the SNP want. This adds to a long list of loopy nationalist policies on things like energy and defence.

Read more Guy Stenhouse:

We must face the Big Four issues, and start doing something

We should start with a simple question. Do we expect to pay for the things we spend money on or do we want to shove the cost onto the national credit card and let our children and grandchildren pick up the tab?

When asked the question like this most people opt for us paying our own way. Is this what we actually do? Of course it isn't. The 21st century has seen a huge rise in public borrowing, most notably but not exclusively attributable to the financial crisis and to Covid.

From the way people feel and the way politicians talk we have been wrestling this debt down first through austerity and then through tax rises. Is this actually what has been happening? Unfortunately not. Debt has continued to rise both in absolute terms and as a proportion of national income. Worse,........

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