The oleaginous Michael Gove was caught with his pants down at the Covid Enquiry in Edinburgh. After charging the Scottish Government with political opportunism, KC Jamie Dawson brandished Gove’s Cabinet paper, delivered just before Johnson parachuted into Scotland, where he said the UK’s primary concern during the pandemic was the risk of Scottish independence. Gove’s recommendation to the English cabinet? Wait for it – to politicise its response in Scotland by strengthening its case for the union.
The supine BBC Scotland omitted any mention of Gove’s paper. Scotland’s secession from the failing UK is England’s worst nightmare. It will do anything – lie, steal, obfuscate and even politicise!! – to prevent an independent Scotland.
Without Scotland’s wealth and resources, this sham of a union is toast. Scotland has buttressed the UK economy not only since the discovery of North Sea oil, but for well over 120 years.
From 1900-1921, the UK government produced a set of accounts, Revenue and Expenditure for England (including Wales), Scotland and Ireland (the reports are available at the National Library of Scotland – see below). During this period, Scotland provided the UK Treasury with £762.3mn and received back just £211mn, or 27.7%. Converted from 1911 prices, this is equivalent to £2.5bn a year, more than the £1.5bn oil-rich Scotland sent to Westminster between 1979-97.
The UK government ceased publication when Ireland became independent, not wanting Scotland to get any ideas.
Gove and the UK establishment including Starmer’s Labour in Name Only (LINO) party are keen to keep Scots in the dark about their wealth and how it is keeping a sinking UK above the water line. It’s time we opened our eyes. We’re being robbed blind.
Here’s how to access the data: If you have a National Library of Scotland membership (it’s free), go online (NLS.uk), login and and click on Eresources. Under ‘Browse by resource title’, go to the letter U and type in UK Parliamentary Papers. Scroll down and click on the hyperlink to accessthe papers (https://auth.nls.uk/eresources/goto/36). Then in the search bar type, “Revenue and Expenditure (England, Scotland and Ireland) 1901” or any year up to 1921, and you will get a link to the parliamentary papers. From here you can download the pdf of that year’s report. There’s no composite set of accounts for all 21 years, so you need to go year by year. I’ve included some screenshots below for the 1910 report, showing total revenue collected and the contribution by each nation to ‘Imperial Services’.