SNP annual conference: 'There's nothing to show we would be better off separate'

FIRST Minister Alex Salmond rallied the faithful at the end of the SNP's annual conference yesterday with repeated attacks on Gordon Brown, blaming him for the financial crisis in general and the collapse of HBoS in particular.

He hit out at "London's boom and bust", branded Mr Brown the "Sub Prime Minister" and accused him of presiding over "the biggest economic reverse for a generation". He toughened significantly his line on HBoS and the proposed merger with Lloyds TSB, saying said no deal should go ahead until there were reassurances about jobs and decision-making being kept in Scotland.

He also boasted of the Scottish Government's achievements, announced new investment in shared equity schemes to help first-time buyers.

But Mr Salmond failed to answer the question which many people have been asking and spell out how an independent Scotland would have fared in the current crisis.

He did point out that the latest growth forecasts from the International Monetary Fund suggest small, independent Ireland is and will remain 40 per cent per head more prosperous than the UK; and other small countries like Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are expected to escape recession.

But the social and economic situations in these countries are different from each other and different from Scotland. There is no automatic read-over that relative economic strength in self-governing Scandinavian countries means an independent Scotland would end up defeating recession.

Even if his attacks on the UK government were justified, there is nothing to show Scotland would be better off if we were a separate state. With such huge sums of money being ploughed into bail-outs and rescue packages, common sense suggests an independent country with a smaller budget would find it harder to do what was needed.

Mr Salmond won his most enthusiastic applause from the delegates in Perth when he extended his attack on Gordon Brown's "Age of Irresponsibility" to cover political as well as economic matters, specifically renewing Trident, signing PFI contracts and keeping troops in Iraq.

But the economy was rightly the main thrust of his speech. And he called for three specific measures – further and deep cuts in interest rates; lower tax on energy bills this winter; and investment in expanded public works. These were the sort of actions a Scottish Government with full economic powers would take, he argued, and it's what he wants the UK government to do.

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