Independence would be karmic vengeance for Sturgeon

I have a mean streak. Perhaps my cruellest urge is to give people what they claim to want. When political parvenues disparage capitalism and the unfairness of meritocracy while talking up an ‘equitable’ socialist utopia, I want to stick them personally in a society where work pays the same as sloth, the well-off flee and the left behind expect everything to be free — just so long as the rest of us don’t have to submit to this inert destitution, too. When eco fanatics demand zero carbon emissions by 2025, I yearn for their own Amazon orders to arrive months later by donkey cart. I’d grant their wish: dead phone batteries on windless days and nights that are cold and dark.

This mean streak comes especially to the fore regarding the prospective dissolution of the United Kingdom. As karmic vengeance, nothing would seem more fitting than to give Nicola Sturgeon the Scottish independence she claims to crave. It would be simply delicious to watch this previously popular politician maintain the free prescriptions, elder care and university education that her compatriots now view as their birth right, then break the news that Scots themselves have to cover the bill. Meanwhile down south, we’ll charge Scottish students the far higher tuition fees paid by foreigners — more rough justice, as currently English students in Scottish universities don’t benefit from the waived tuition that their parents help finance.

Two-thirds of Holyrood’s budget is funded by the Westminster block grant. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, thanks to the barmy Barnett Bribe, as of March government spending per head is 30 per cent higher in Scotland than in England: £1.30 for every £1 spent on the nationals whom more or less half of Scots are keen to spurn. Government largesse is funded by the public.