Comment seems superfluous, really.
So we’ll just make a couple of the obvious points for the sake of it and then we’re off to the park.
(1) As we told you yesterday, the Scottish Government/Parliament has, by the express and deliberate nature of its design, basically zero control over the economy.
(2) In so far as it does have any minor ability to tinker around the edges, it’s one of the responsibilities of the Finance Secretary (whose official title is “Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy of Scotland”), though now it’s been sliced off and handed to Kate Forbes, who used to do the whole job but now only has to handle a wee bit of it.
(3) With the economy now having its very own dedicated (albeit powerless) minister, it’s already getting extra focus, so why would the role of Minister For Independence need to be abolished? (It’s not to save money, as Jamie Hepburn hasn’t been hoofed to the backbenches, just moved to Minister For Parliamentary Business.)
Hepburn’s role of course was purely symbolic and he was a useless haddie anyway, but the fundamental problem when you create a purely symbolic office to supposedly demonstrate your priorities is that the destruction of it then becomes symbolic too. And it’s not too hard to decipher what the symbolism is this time around.
