By Rab Bruce’s Spider

It’s no real surprise that Unionist politicians are pushing the line that Scotland is only coping with the Covid19 pandemic because of financial support from our generous benefactors in England. It’s simply another version of the Too Wee, Too Poor narrative we’ve heard for as long as most of us can remember.

It’s hardly less surprising that the BBC are also pushing this narrative as evidenced by Naga Munchetty telling Ian Blackford that an independent Scotland would have had no money to combat the pandemic at all.

It seems our media are incapable of understanding that other medium-sized independent nations have managed to tackle the threat of the virus because they have their own central banks and control their own economy. If that were not true, every small or medium-sized country in the world would have been begging Westminster for handouts.

It also seems that nobody in the media is able to understand that some people in Scotland do actually pay taxes, and that many taxes paid by businesses registered in England make their profits through selling goods and services in Scotland as well as in England.

The real question here is why Scotland needs to go cap in hand to Westminster to ask for some of our own money back. Normal, self-governing countries don’t need to do that.

All around the globe, countries have reacted to the pandemic in different ways. Some have been very successful in minimising deaths, others less so. The UK’s pathetic handling has resulted in thousands of deaths, and Scots have also suffered because the Scottish Government was compelled to go along with the delays in imposing Lock Down. That’s because, not being a normal, self-governing country, we did not control the economic levers which would have allowed us to go our own way. If we had been able to control our borders and introduce financial support measures like other countries, the chances are we’d have seen far fewer deaths.

It is, quite frankly, disgraceful that UK politicians are crowing about the amount of support they have given to Scotland when every country in the world has been supporting its citizens. What the UK Government has done is the bare minimum we should expect any Government to do.

So please let us here Scottish politicians pushing back a lot harder when this sort of ludicrous, ill-informed and offensive accusation is levelled against us. Because, farcical as the claims may be, far too many people still believe what they hear on the TV News. Unless pro-Indy politicians push back a lot harder, that’s not going to change.