From my post on the Herald - the SNP noise machine tonight is, predictably, saying that any failings in Swinney's budget is, inevitably, all London's fault.
"How can the SNP blame their failure to meet manifesto commitments on the UK government, when:
1) They knew the exact budget increase they would receive for nearly a year before they got it
2) They acquired £900m extra from the Treasury from the budget underspends of previous Executives.
Its silly to blame the decision of Parliament to keep the trams at a cost of £500m, as this was always going to happen, and should thus have figured in the SNP sums. Blaming the trams doesn't make sense when compared with the £900m EXTRA the SNP have got , leaving Swinney with £400m extra to play with when we subtract the tram money. Plus, he has the advantage of knowing how much money they would get from Westminster in advance.
For example, the £70m set aside by Salmond for hiring 1000 NEW police officers was going to be implemented with the budget they already knew they were getting. Now they have failed to provide this (the revised cost of £54m for 500, most of which aren't going to be new, seems like poor costing of the initial pledge), they attempt to blame the UK - who are they trying to kid?"
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