Nats' Scexit paper No28... paid for by you, the taxpayer

THE Scottish Government really enjoys a “paper”, doesn’t it? To be clear, this does not mean “newspapers”, towards which it maintains stances ranging from thinly veiled contempt to disgruntled collegiality. Rather, it refers to its own ‘papers’, particularly on breaking up the UK.

- Alan Grant

The number of documents published on the SNP’s pet distraction hovers around 28, depending on what one counts as a distinct ‘paper’. Between 2022-2024 alone, the government published its Building a New Scotland series, totalling 13 papers. That’s 797 pages. Surely, we get the point by now.

First Minister John Swinney published his latest paper on independence, A Fresh Start with Independence, recently. This will, presumably, come as a surprise to the more blood and soil element of Scottish nationalism, for whom independence is a matter of restoring a diminished nation rather than dabbling in the “new” or with “fresh starts”.

GOING through Mr Swinney’s latest government-funded paper is a slog. It’s a stout 91 pages and busies itself with flattering the SNP’s record in government, straight out of the gradualist wing of their philosophy, and indulging in speculation about the EU, NATO, and other highly suspect propositions.

The writing is also emblematic of a bureaucratic class that reads nothing but official documents.

Nobody with a fondness for literature, irony, imagination or creativity could forgive themselves for such plodding and turgid writing.