Rare moment of genuine drama at FMQs as Anas Sarwar produces evidence which undermines John Swinney’s evasions on the QEUH scandal.

1/🚨The Scottish Government *paid* for the credit ratings obtained last year from Moody’s and S&P. But we are not allowed to know how much it paid, because “disclosure may affect the commercial interests of Moody's and S&P”.

🚨 This is scandalous. £7 million of public money to pay bankers and lawyers for a bond sale which is simply a nationalist publicity stunt. The Scottish Government could borrow at a lower interest rate from the UK Government, and avoid these fees altogether. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This. And it would do the pro-Indy lobby good if they were to make the effort to understand these issues properly and to stop misleading the public on the issue. ("Ewwww, Taylor, he's a yoooooon" is not a good reason for not trying to understand renewables.)

This is the sort of thing that can happen when any party spends too long in power: the boundary between party and government (never 100% sharp, I suspect) becomes far too blurred.

Glib assertions about Scotland having won the energy lottery twice over - first with oil and now with renewables - are not just false. They are actively harmful.

1/ Short 🧵 on how the civil service in Scotland has been corrupted by Scottish nationalism. Last August, Scot Gov published a news release alongside the GERS figures which was so misleading, the Director of @fraserofallander.org called it “egregious” and “out of order”.

The SNP will activate the usual grievances here, but they need to explain this: someone has to pay for the additional grid necessary to make wind farms in Scotland viable. If the SNP want generators to pay less, who do they want to pay more?

The civil servants in the Constitutional Futures Division spent three years working on independence papers, and never made any attempt to estimate the impact of independence on energy bills in Scotland. The reason is obvious: they knew the answer would be inconvenient.

2/ For about the millionth time: renewables are a low return on capital business. The energy transition, and Scotland’s opportunity on that journey, cannot be understood without fully grasping the significance of this point.

1/ RWE was the big winner in the AR7 auction, but what did it win? The right to build assets yielding an (unlevered) return on capital of 8.2%. By funding 80% of the projects with debt costing 6.5%, RWE should be able to squeeze out an equity IRR of 12.5%.

This thread is full of useful details, not least that Dan, a member of Scot Gov’s own Tax Advisory Group, has joined the chorus of significant voices who judge the notorious taxpayers claim to have been false in recent years.

Good piece on yesterday’s AR7 auction.

In the context of yesterday’s AR7 auction result, in which both Scottish projects cleared at prices above the current wholesale price of electricity, this is blatantly untruthful. But nothing will be done about these repeated misleading statements in parliament.

Listen to Gillian Martin’s response when asked to explain how the SNP’s “third off electricity bills with independence” claim is consistent with the actual costs of Scottish offshore wind. “That’s a dissertation question. I’ll need to get back to you on that.”

Sam Taylor clearly explaining how the SNP is misleading Scottish voters on income tax. Important, necessary work in the age of populists👇

Ahead of the budget tomorrow, the full story of the SNP’s statistical chicanery on income tax.

Last week, the Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute made a significant intervention on a notorious claim about income tax in Scotland. Has the SNP’s statistical chicanery finally run out of road?

1/ To understand why John Swinney is so reluctant to admit the notorious taxpayers claim has been false for the last two years, you have to go back to its inception. Watch how delirious the SNP benches were about a boast worth just £20 a year to those who benefited.

Having submitted numerous FOIs asking Scot Gov for information which substantiates claims made in a political context, I have never before received such an emphatic “nothing to do with us” response. But the energy bills claim is unusually dishonest, even by SNP standards.

John Swinney clings to the dodgy taxpayers claim at FMQs by citing forecasts for 2025-26. He ignores the inconvenient fact that the forecasts have a track record of being wrong - the claim turned out to be false in the last two financial years.

Yesterday in parliament @michaeljmarra.bsky.social quoted Mairi Spowage of @fraserofallander.org on the notorious taxpayers claim. No intervention from the SNP benches disputing the point. They are knowingly misleading parliament and the public when repeating the claim.

Longer clip here. Perhaps now this story will get the attention it deserves? John Swinney and Shona Robison have repeatedly misled parliament on this issue, and have refused to correct the Official Report. A familiar story, of course.

Jamie Hepburn today repeated the false claim that more than half of taxpayers in Scotland pay less income tax than if they lived elsewhere in the UK. Douglas Ross used a Point of Order to highlight what @fraserofallander.org has said about this, but Hepburn declined to make a correction.

This is significant. Mairi Spowage of @fraserofallander.org has spoken to BBC More Or Less about Scot Gov’s “more than half of taxpayers in Scotland pay less income tax than if they lived elsewhere in UK” claim. Mairi is quite clear: the claim has been false for the last two financial years.

Scotland’s net zero opportunities depend entirely on mechanisms which defray costs across a population of 70 million. The idea that Scotland could achieve an advantage by standing alone, with a population of only 5 million, is unserious and dishonest.

This is brilliant from Sam Taylor. And brutal for @snp.org

The Scottish Government’s independence papers were shot through with highly tendentious material, but the civil servants who produced them must have drawn the line at a whole-cloth fabrication. Because that is what the SNP’s third off energy bills claim is.

Do politicians understand the implications of an energy transition from high return on capital businesses (oil & gas) to low return on capital businesses (renewables)? No, says @antonmuscatelli.bsky.social, they do not understand.

“a spokesman for the Scottish Government was unable to explain why the claims had been made without any ability to substantiate them” Hannah Rodger tries (and fails) to get answers from the SNP. The energy bills claim cannot be justified because it’s plainly false.

Angus Robertson’s facile response a perfect illustration of the problem.

This passage from the speech John Swinney delivered in Glasgow today is the most egregious rubbish. I have repeatedly FOIed Scot Gov asking it to identity “low-cost” renewable generation assets in Scotland and it repeatedly fails to do so. Swinney is simply not telling the truth.

1/ Màiri McAllan’s just transition plan for Mossmorran was one of 19 policies announced in April 2024. Scot Gov had just axed its interim emissions reduction target and the 19 policies were meant to show it was still serious about net zero. Earlier this year I submitted this FOI:

Asked what happened with respect to the notorious taxpayers claim *specifically in 2023-24*, Shona Robison pulls another fast one by talking about forecasts for entirely different years, and by moving the goalposts with pension contributions (the original claim was pre-pensions).

Màiri McAllan (then Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero & Energy) announced in April 2024 that a just transition plan for Mossmorran would be developed. Kate Forbes yesterday told parliament she would need to “double check” what has happened to that plan.

1/ 👀 Scot Gov’s “Summary Outline Business Case” for the bond programme identifies one of the key benefits of issuing bonds as “promoting greater fiscal discipline”. It even characterises this as an offsetting benefit against the possibility of paying higher interest rates.

Can Angus Robertson defend Scot Gov’s latest independence paper with anything other than facile “look at other small independent nations” stuff? No. Of course he cannot.

1/🚨The last remaining leg on which Scot Gov was standing has today been cut away by the Scottish Fiscal Commission. An SFC factsheet updates its forecasts, on which basis a majority of Scottish taxpayers paid more tax than they would elsewhere in the UK in 2023-24 and 2024-25.

🚨 For years I’ve been arguing the ScotWind auction was *not* a huge financial scandal and that leases were not sold “on the cheap”. Today, Shell vindicates that analysis by handing back a ScotWind lease agreement to Crown Estate Scotland - literally giving it away for nothing.

Neil Gray participated in just one meeting discussing GP walk-in centres, on a Sunday, the day before John Swinney announced the policy in his SNP conference speech. This is not how a serious government makes serious policy.

Richard Murphy gives the wrongest explanation of the fiscal framework you will ever hear, spiced up with deranged and defamatory accusations about the Fraser of Allander Institute. (Part 1/2)

🚨Very significant FOI. Highlighted text suggests Scot Gov edging towards admitting its flagship tax claim isn’t true. Sounds like SFC will converge with HMRC. Extremely disingenuous to say it was always about what was “expected” to happen, and not about what actually happened.

According to the SNP, independence would allow Scotland to emulate renewables leader Denmark, where residential electricity prices are… higher than in GB. Oh.

If John Swinney hasn’t had enough of experts, he should reflect on what Dieter Helm says here about the cost of offshore wind in Scotland. Swinney’s mantra about Scotland’s “low-cost” renewables is simply false. (Note: the wholesale price in electricity bills today is ~£83/MWh.)

1/ Another appalling front page from the Herald. Scotland is ~64% of *onshore* wind generation today, and that won’t change much by 2030. But offshore > onshore. England & Wales expected to generate ~77% of offshore wind power in 2030, and the clear majority of wind power in total.

some journalists’ thirst for grievance is insatiable, this is egregiously bad reporting: the UK obviously can’t benefit from electricity which *isn’t generated* and Scotland doesn’t “bear the brunt” of these constraint PAYMENTS, it *benefits* from them (ffs) www.heraldscotland.com/news/2558775...

“Don’t mention the currency” going well on @scotnational.bsky.social letters page.

John Swinney gives a very limp response to the Times story on Kate Forbes telling SNP members to keep quiet about currency. He was speaking this morning at the IPPR Scotland conference in Edinburgh.

Kate Forbes discovers the Streisand effect.

1/ 🚨 Kate Forbes says SNP members “must avoid talking publicly about currency”. (According to SNP branch meeting minutes leaked at Tim Rideout’s Scottish Currency Group conference.)