Gordon's big lie

Gordon Brown argues that the UK is better for Scots than independence because 63 million people sharing their resources according to need is better than only 5 million. He points to greater funds for the Scottish NHS and Scottish pensions because their need is greater than other areas across the UK - only available because the Scots are in the UK.

This argument is a rank lie and Brown knows it. He bailed out the banks. He was the first to give the banks the £3 trillion that they ended up with, courtesy of the UK taxpayer. 

Brown knows that the issue for Scotland, indeed for Britain and the West as a whole, is not how state funding is distributed between welfare priorities and between different areas, regions and, as in the case of the UK, countries. It is how state funding as a whole is raised and who it is raised from and then it is about what the priorities for state spending are. 

Brown knows full well that the diminishing budget for health, education and welfare is unevenly distributed across Britain - but not according to need rather mainly according to political priorities. He also knows that the costs of his bail out of the banks are being paid from the health and welfare budgets, especially in frozen wages, and that there is an enormous shift underway of wealth from those who work for their living and the main beneficiaries of his bank bail-out, the super rich. 

Tomorrow 5 million Scots have the opportunity to break away from Brown's vicious circle and start something different.