Chokkablog Videos
From the archive — published in 2015 on the original Chokkablog, kept as it was written.
I thought I'd try to summarise what I've learnt through chokkablog in simple video format.This summary vlog runs through all of the material as quickly as I could manage. It's for those (like me) who get impatient with people presenting stuff slowly.
The vlogs below run present the same slides in the same order but at a pace that allows more explanation, caveat and commentary. Hopefully you can find bits that particularly interest you if you are left with questions having viewed the summary blog above.
This first vlog looks at relative per capita expenditure levels between Scotland and rUK, explains why we can trust GERS data, shows that there is a £9bn onshore deficit gap between Scotland and rUK and illustrates how offshore (oil & gas) revenues sometimes close that gap.
This second vlog looks at the oil & gas forecasts that were used in the Scottish Government White Paper and demonstrates why even at the time they were clearly misleadingly optimistic. It also looks at data on the North Sea's declining tax yield to explain why an oil price recovery alone is unlikely to be enough to see a return to historical offshore revenue levels
This third vlog looks at the absolute levels of revenue generated and money spent in Scotland over the last 15 years to allow us to put the £8bn defcit gap in context and asks what we'd need to believe to expect tax increases, spending reductions or superior growth to close that gap
Finally this fourth vlog puts the UK and Scottish deficit figures in the context of other EU countries' deficit levels and asks whether Scotland would be able to sustain the deficit level we'd start with if we were to be an independent country
None of these videos suggest that Scotland couldn't be fiscally autonomous or even independent - they simply show the scale of the challenge we'd face, they explain where we'd start from.