No easy answer

The UK is in debt up to its neck and it's predicted to more than double in the next two years. We are in serious shit. We need to either cut spending or raise taxes, or both. We've already tried printing money via quantitative easing and we're still in the shit, plus the value of our savings is being eroded by low interest rates and rising inflation. That's why Calton has little sympathy with those who are protesting against the latest benefit cuts. Our welfare system is bloated and unaffordable. It desperately needs reform, which is going to be painful. What is being ignored in the current arguments is the pain also being suffered by pensioners who see their life savings being eroded by low interest and high inflation. The pain suffered by workers who have not had a pay rise for years, for whom 1% would seem like a dream. Yes, we should be looking after the old, the sick and the vulnerable but we also seem to be looking after a lot of other people who do not fall into those three categories and that has to stop. The under-occupancy reduction in housing benefit needs to have some discretion built into to it for disabled people and for those who can't immediately find a smaller property but we really need to free up larger properties for families on the waiting lists and that seems to be getting forgotten about in all the hoo-ha. There's no easy answer to our nation's problems but one thing is for sure - spending our way out of debt is not an option.

Squealing about cuts

Forget all the comparisons with the rest of the UK. The bottom line is that Scotland spent more than it earned last year. Even taking the most generous view of income, by splitting North Sea revenues geographically rather than per capita, we overspent by £3.4bn. That is a heck of a lot of money. Calton has always maintained that the SNP would have to raise taxes in an independent Scotland in order to finance their profligate spending. Now it transpires that, secretly, they are planning cuts instead, including cuts to our pensions. The SNP have also started to realise that oil revenues are volatile - nice to see that you've caught up guys. Better late than never. Now that we are all singing off the same page, how about coming clean with the costs of becoming independent, such as setting up our own tax system, foreign office, defence etc etc etc? Or does Calton have to get the claws out before you'll squeal?

Scottish values

So the SNP have set up a team of experts to look at alternatives to the benefit cuts being brought in by the Westminster Government. Nicola Sturgeon, in an interview in the Sunday Herald, makes it clear that the Coalition Government are being unfair and are out of step with "Scottish values" when it comes to welfare. They may well be but they are also trying to cut the deficit racked up by Labour, some of which Scotland will inherit if we become independent. The experts are expected, among other things, to "provide assurance" on the Scottish Government's cost estimates for its welfare plans. Sounds like they have already been told what the answer should be. Will any of them dare to stick their head above the parapet if the SNP's sums don't add up? Calton is sure that most Scots would like things like free personal care for the elderly and free prescriptions to continue but we have to be able to pay for them. Calton wonders if, in her eagerness to distance her party from Westminster, Nicola has forgotten that being careful with the pennies is also a good old "Scottish value".

End of the line for the tax credit gravy train

There's been a predictable outcry today about the tax credit changes which come into force tomorrow but the question Calton wants to ask is how on earth we got into the situation where we were paying child tax credit to 90% of families, including some with a household income of more than £40,000, in the first place? Of course those who are now losing the benefit are going to scream but they shouldn't have had it to begin with. It was part of a big tax giveaway by Gordon Brown designed to keep the country voting Labour and it failed. The great British public are not that stupid. Is it really so unfair to ask that a couple with children work at least 24 hours a week between them in order to qualify for working tax credit? A single parent has to work at least 16 hours a week to qualify and someone without children has to work at least 30 hours. The tax credit gravy train is running out and about time too. It is a fundamentally flawed system, with all or nothing cutoffs, which has grown like topsy and now urgently needs to be replaced. Increasing the personal tax allowance is a good start.

Death by 999 cuts

At last - a Labour politician prepared to come out and admit that Labour would have had to make cuts if they were in power. Calton has a lot of time for Jim Murphy, which is more than he can say for a lot of Labour politicians, and Murphy's comments as reported in the Guardian yesterday only serve to strengthen Calton's admiration for the man, even if he doesn't agree with all Murphy's views (notably those on Europe).

It's high time Labour came clean and admitted that the difference between the cuts they would have made, had they remained in power, and the cuts the Coalition government are making is insignificant, compared to the scale of the problem.