Shell spent 18 months trying to sell the CampionWind lease, and found no takers. CES has told Gillian Martin it is one of the most attractive leases. If that lease has a market value close to zero, will people finally stop complaining that ScotWind was sold off “on the cheap”?

Gillian Martin told parliament yesterday that she wants Scot Gov to start taking equity stakes in wind farms. This might sound nice, but wind farms are far from one way bets for equity investors. Do we really want Gillian Martin punting taxpayers’ money in this way?

Invited today to acknowledge the role of fiscal transfers in funding higher per-capita public spending in Scotland, John Swinney could not tell the truth. He deflected by talking about his income tax decisions, which have made a tiny contribution relative to the fiscal transfer.

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.

John Swinney tells parliament he is going to carry on saying the taxpayers claim is true, even though it was clearly false for the last two financial years, and may or may not turn out to be true this year. This is not a First Minister who wants voters to understand the truth.

You are not going to believe this… well, actually, you probably are. Shona Robison has just (once again) misled parliament on what the Scottish Fiscal Commission said about the notorious taxpayers claim.

On bond issuance plan: John Swinney suggests Scottish independence would be shrugged off by the bond market, with an impact similar to that caused by the Wes Streeting briefing war. Absolutely ludicrous.

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.

3/ It won’t happen again, says Angus Robertson. Well that’s okay then. Nothing to see here. Because nothing is Angus Robertson’s responsibility.

2/ And despite telling parliament last week that he had never been invited to a board meeting, it now emerges Angus Robertson had in fact been invited on three separate occasions.

1/ Angus Robertson’s performance yesterday in parliament was absurd. His entire defence for never attending a HES board meeting is that there was no need to, because his civil servants were keeping him fully apprised of what was going on. Well plainly they weren’t.

5/ And last week, John Swinney told parliament the Scottish Fiscal Commission had *confirmed* that the majority of taxpayers in Scotland are set to pay less than they would elsewhere in the UK this year, and that this was the *judgement* of the independent SFC.

4/ At successive budgets the Scottish Government has *never* caveated its flagship tax commitment by acknowledging that it was uncertain and depended on SFC forecasts. It was always presented as a straightforward and unambiguous fact.