BBC News Shows SNP Success

The two headline stories on the BBC Ten O'clock News this evening made for interesting viewing.

First up we had news that Council Tax bills in England are set to rise by around 4% in the coming year. This news was of course reported whilst simultaneously pointing out that in Scotland a freeze in the level of Council Tax is very much on the table.

This was followed by news of disgruntled cops have taken to the streets of London to protest the failure of the London Labour government to fully see through their independently agreed pay rise. And this news was also supplemented by pointing out that the pay rise has been fully awarded in Scotland.

Aside from meaning that people in England may soon be asking if the SNP can form their next government, this news will probably have the Daily Mail screaming about how we in Scotland live in a land that is a type of paradise at the expense of all those who live within the area bounded by the M25.

This avoids pointing out some hard truths such as Gordon Brown having relied on Scottish oil revenue to plug the gap in his government's budget over the last number of years, and whilst things are definitely improving in Scotland under the SNP government, I think it would be stretching it to say that we live in a Caledonian paradise.

What the pieces run on the news indicate though is how great a job the SNP is doing, particularly in comparison to the Labour government in London. It is appropriate to point out on the day that the SNP saw through its first ever budget bill at stage one in the Scottish Parliament that this was achieved against the backdrop of the tightest financial settlement ever received by a devolved administration in Scotland.

Just imagine what we could achieve in Scotland if we had full control over all government expenditure and were able to draw upon all of Scotland's resources rather than having to throw a huge slice of this at the illegal war in Iraq, new nuclear weapons or a pointless phony ID card scheme.