SNP’s social media game backfires

If there’s one thing the SNP are good at, it’s spin. But lately even the skill of self-promotion seems to have deserted Holyrood’s rulers, judging by their increasingly shaky grip on power. A perfect example of this was offered yesterday in the form of some shiny new graphics pumped out by the Scottish government’s official Twitter/X account. Run by civil servants, it is supposed to be Scotland’s voice to the world. But in Humza Yousaf’s Scotland, its relationship to the SNP increasingly resembles that of Pravda to the Kremlin.

The Scottish government declared that: ‘Below-inflation funding uplifts in England impact Scotland’s budget. In the UK government’s Autumn Statement, only £10.8 million of extra funding was provided for NHS Scotland for the next year, a real-terms cut. This would fund just five hours of NHS Scotland activity in a year.’ Yet this, er, isn’t quite the case. The point of devolution is that the so-called ‘Barnett consequentials’ are not ring-fenced.