What does the SNP's near half a billion underspend mean? • When the SNP say Child Poverty in Scotland is a priority – Voters now know it is a lie. They had half a billion they could have spent on it last year and didn’t – why? • When the SNP say they care about rural communities - Voters now know it is a lie. They had half a billion they could have invested in rural communities last year and they didn’t – why? • When the SNP say the NHS is a priority - Voters now know it is a lie. They had half a billion they could have invested in nurses and the NHS last year and they didn’t – why? • When the SNP blame Westminster for Foodbanks and say they need more economic control to eradicate them - Voters now know it is a lie. They had half a billion they could have used to alleviate demand on food-banks last year and they didn’t – why? • When the SNP say they want to hold Westminster (read; the English ) feet to the fire because Scotland needs more money- - Voters now know it is a lie. They had half a billion from the Union they could have spent in Scotland last year and they didn’t – why? It’s self evidently illogical for the SNP to claim that “Westminster Austerity is hurting Scots and we need more money” when they are held back half a billion pounds from suffering Scots. It’s manipulation of the poorest in society. Was it prudence? Well The “put it away for a rainy day” option won’t wash well with schools, surgeries and services struggling for investment from the Scottish Parliament. Yes, Some level of underspend is desirable but normally it’s well under 1% This underspend is out by hundreds of millions of pounds that Scots could have benefited from last year. As for demanding borrowing powers – any voter will see it would be daft to take out the expense and burden of a loan when you are not spending all your wages! It doesn’t make sense to say “we need the power to borrow money to make investment” when they are not spending the money they have. Was it planned, controlled and transparent? well it’s out by about £150 million pounds compared to the previous figure John Swinney gave to parliament! Of course he does have a track record of getting predictions wildly wrong *coughs* #secondoilboom The SNP said that we needed independence to fund more teachers, more nurses, more infrastructure… we know now half a billion pounds was available that they chose not to spend on teachers, nurses and infrastructure. So it’s fairly simple really – is this underspend the result of deliberate lies for political ends? Or is this underspend genuine financial incompetence and inefficiency? Neither option appeals. It puts me in mind of the Italian saying – they are like the Old woman with the parma ham under one arm – crying because she has no bread.