James Knightley, senior economist at ING, was damning of the Scottish National Party at last week’s My Home Move Conference at The Belfry.
A global economist has written off Scotland as a viable standalone country – and he hinted that even Nicola Sturgeon’s chief economic adviser admits as much.
James Knightley, senior economist at ING, was damning of the Scottish National Party at last week’s My Home Move Conference at The Belfry.
He said: “Scotland is not a viable country economically.”
He added: “I spoke to the chief economic adviser to Nicola Sturgeon the other week and he said ‘James I know but it's politics, economics doesn’t matter; it’s all about the politics’.
Knightley pointed out that Scotland is running a deficit of 9.5% which is worse than Greece, while he spoke of its plummeting oil and gas output.
He also quoted government figures that Scotland’s economic output fell by 0.2% in the fourth quarter of last year while the rest of the UK grew by 7%.
He asked: “Why is that? Alex Salmond said ‘it’s the nasty English; they’ve upset the Scots and the Scots have stopped spending’.
“And he’s an economist apparently.”
Knightley also questioned the SNP's desire to be in the EU, as aside from the UK Scotland's biggest trading partner is the USA rather than a nation from the European continent.
