Scottish Tory Leader to Scots: Drop Dead – Spectator Blogs

These days, alas, the only time the leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party makes it onto the front pages of the nation’s newspapers is if she’s made some almighty blunder. Sadly, Ruth Davidson’s speech to a fringe meeting in Birmingham this week was a calamity. That’s the subject of my latest Think Scotland piece:

Ruth Davidson’s suggestion, made during an appearance at a fringe event in Birmingham this week, that, in effect, most Scots spend their lives suckling on the government teat is not, I’m afraid, a helpful one. According to the Tory leader: “It is staggering that public-sector expenditure makes up a full 50 per cent of Scotland’s GDP and only 12 per cent of people are net contributors, where the taxes they pay outweigh the benefits they receive through public spending.”

It is not clear from press reports – and since Davidson’s remarks are not, at the time of writing, available on the party website, the common man only has press reports to go on – whether she meant only 12% contributed more to the state than they received over the course of their lifetime or whether she meant that at any given point 88% of Scots are dependent, to one degree or another, on the state.