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.)

Really good thread on the SNP’s risible energy policies.

1/ In today’s Mail, @stephendaisley.bsky.social mentions a conversation we had about the SNP’s energy policies. Short 🧵 with sources and a little bit of additional explanation…

1/ Tim Rideout has a new website. He believes a stampede of people will rapidly convert their sterling life savings into his new currency, while those with sterling liabilities will be much slower to act on converting their debts. This is not just implausible. It is preposterous.

Just catching up on Kate Forbes interview with Colin Mackay on Monday. How does she defend an indefensible currency position? By arguing that nobody cares about currency. If people care about their wages, I’m pretty sure they care about which currency those wages are paid in…

1/ This is a very carefully worded statement from Scot Gov, responding to accusations that John Swinney has misled parliament on tax.🧵

1/ This is outrageous. John Swinney misled parliament by falsely claiming that more than half of taxpayers in Scotland pay less income tax than if they lived elsewhere in the UK. Scot Gov says this is perfectly fine because his remarks were based on SFC forecasts for 2025-26.

The video which ran before John Swinney’s speech showed this wave energy converter as he claimed independence would reduce energy bills in Scotland. The cost of wave power is £360-£380/MWh - about 4.5x higher than the wholesale cost in bills today. His rhetoric is utterly false.

Surely nobody could be dumb enough to claim “Scotland has 25% of Europe’s offshore wind potential” at this year’s SNP conference? Step forward Bill Kidd MSP, who makes the even more ludicrous claim that Scotland has 25% of *all* the renewables potential in Europe.

How does John Swinney respond to a very fair question about the GERS figures? In the most facile way imaginable: “the UK has a deficit too, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, blah blah blah…”

Independence is not simply a one-way bet for Scottish households, Martin Geissler points out. And John Swinney has no answer, except arm-waving talk about other nations. Not credible and not serious. #BBCSundayShow

Another mauling for John Swinney on his ludicrous currency proposals. This time, all he can do is accuse Martin Geissler of being overly gloomy, and suggest that Scotland’s renewables will somehow come to the rescue. Desperate and embarrassing stuff.

Pressed by Peter Smith for answers on his independence paper’s currency proposals, John Swinney simply doesn’t have them. All he can do is retreat to his comfort zone of magical thinking on child poverty.

The most serious failure of the SNP’s latest independence paper is that it completely ducks the question of how an independent Scotland would get its public finances onto a sustainable footing.

1/ Assuming John Swinney hasn’t had enough of experts, he might want to reflect on what they have had to say about the currency and fiscal proposals (or lack thereof) in his latest independence paper. @t0nyyates.bsky.social was unimpressed.

The ferries debacle and the future of Ferguson Marine have been massive stories in Scotland. So you’d think the First Minister might remember when he last visited the yard. You’d be wrong.

1/ John Swinney has not only misled parliament. His government has also broken repeated budget commitments, made firstly by him as acting Cabinet Secretary for Finance, and subsequently (twice) by Shona Robison.

1/ Update. The data cited below strongly suggested that John Swinney misled parliament yesterday, but it wasn’t quite definitive. Because all taxpayers in Scotland benefit from the 19% starter rate, the tipping point at which taxpayers paid more in 2023-24 was about £2k above…

1/ Shona Robison tells the Finance & Public Administration Committee she hasn’t yet raised a particular issue with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, at which point a civil servant pushes over a laptop to remind Robison that she has in fact reached an agreement on the issue.

1/ Shona Robison gave evidence yesterday to the Finance & Public Administration Committee, and did not know what the government’s target for reducing civil service headcount is. The convener of the committee had to tell the Cabinet Secretary what her own target is. 🤯

Does the Scottish Government have any information which substantiates the First Minister's claim that energy bills would be cheaper in an independent Scotland? Of course not. None that it’s prepared to share, anyway. Apparently it’s “material in the course of completion”.

Using the latest GERS figures, @kevverage.bsky.social compares Scotland’s fiscal position with independent EU countries and argues that a fiscally autonomous Scotland would need to dramatically reduce investment in public services.

1/ John Swinney used yesterday’s Ofgem price cap news to once again claim that independence is the solution to high energy bills in Scotland. Coincidentally, Dorenell Windfarm Ltd published its accounts yesterday, and those accounts expose the vacuity of Swinney’s rhetoric.🧵

John Swinney is not telling the truth. Wholesale costs are actually down vs the prior period, but bills are up because of “network and policy costs” - costs disproportionately *caused* by Scotland. Independence would *increase* Scottish household’s exposure to these costs.

This is why Scot Gov opposed zonal pricing. It would have jeopardised many renewables projects. But zonal pricing would have been a very mild form of independence for the electricity market in Scotland. Actual independence would kill the Scottish renewables pipeline stone dead.

John Swinney’s rhetoric vs reality. The wholesale cost of electricity in the current Ofgem price cap is £85/MWh. Every renewable technology in which Scotland excels costs more than that. Some, like floating offshore wind (ScotWind is mostly floating) and tidal, cost *way* more.