JOHN Swinney was confronted at Holyrood on Thursday with slam-dunk evidence from his own Scottish Growth Commissioner that the SNP knew fine well in 2014 an independent Scotland could not rely on oil tax revenues to plug the deficit that, it turns out, would have been £15 billion every year. To put it bluntly, they never told us the truth.

His response was to wave his arms, rehash old “It’s Scotland’s oil” beans and try to humiliate Kezia Dugdale for standing with the Tories and Liberal Democrats in Better Together in what is now clear was a heroic, bullet-dodging campaign (“Mouse squeaks as John takes the Nationalists’ acclaim with the cat away”, The Herald, March 10).

Brian Taylor of the BBC’s view was he contrived to “sidestep a question. Twice. But he did so with such panache and chutzpah that he had them roaring”.

Less fawning critics might replace these words with “menace”, “malevolence” and “obedient braying”, and ponder the lengths the SNP will go to drag Scotland out of the UK against its will.

Mr Taylor did make one point which will come back to haunt the SNP junta. Scottish Labour will not join a Better Together 2. Next time the independence camp will face several campaigns, all supporting different versions of the United Kingdom.

And each, every day, putting different arguments and citing different examples of how the SNP’s dire track record and dreich nationalism will be the death of Scotland.

After yesterday I hope that, for Ms Dugdale, revenge is sweet.

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.

AS a rare opinion poll suggests as many as 50 per cent of us may support Nicola Sturgeon’s independence ambition (“Swinney upbeat as poll reveals 50-50 split on independence vote”, The Herald, March 10), nationalists are understandably cock-a-hoop.

But this raises a question: after 10 years of SNP government, why have only a small handful of polls ever been in favour of separatism?

The SNP establishment works tirelessly every minute of every day towards its principal goal – not managing Scotland effectively, but breaking up the UK.

There are the softer cultural issues, such as an iterative refocus of the education curriculum from British to Scottish, Gaelic signposts in parts of Scotland where no one has ever spoken Gaelic and the eradication of “British” from public institutions and services – British Transport Police being the current target.

Then there’s the daily blame game. Nearly 20 years after devolution commenced and in power since 2007, the SNP’s risible response to its track record of failure is “it wisnae me”; it’s the UK Government’s fault.

Conversely, until recently, we’ve heard little from the UK Government about Scottish independence – unsurprising, as it is focused on getting on with the day job.

Ms Sturgeon’s hesitation to commit to a second independence referendum is well-known. She knows full well she has a great deal of work to do before the majority of Scots buy in to the massive economic risk that is her teenage UK break-up dream.

Martin Redfern,

Royal Circus, Edinburgh.

I NOTED a comment on your front page attributed to Alistair Carmichael. It reads: “It is the SNP in La La Land” (“May unable to defend Union, says ex-Scots secretary”, The Herald, March 10).

May I remind Mr Carmichael and your readers of the undoubted success of La La Land?

George Kay,

25 Kirkbank Road, Burntisland, Fife.

DAVID Crawford’s letter (March 10) on the crippling levels of personal debt in the UK brings to mind one I had published in another broadsheet in May. 2004.

The first thing Gordon Brown did when Labour was elected in 1997 was to transfer responsibility for inflation to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England – that was compatible with its playing at central banks in preparation for joining the Euro.

The tool for controlling inflation was the use of interest rates, which were comparatively low at the time. However, warehouses were choc-a-bloc with foreign consumer goods which meant demand did not exceed supply, so prices did not rise, so interest rates remained low. The unforeseen circumstance was that there was a 300-year record balance of trade deficit. But Gordon Brown was able to bask in the glory of his Exchequer receipts pouring in, giving a false impression of the state of his GDP – just as Mr Crawford identifies now.

However, the MPC remit did not cover house price inflation, so the availability of cheap borrowing led to unprecedented rocketing of house prices, and the effects are still with us – first-time buyers being particularly hard hit. The only concern Mr Brown had was to provide “affordable” houses for public sector workers.

In the same letter, I identified that if Labour’s £30bn per year borrowing continued for six years, the accumulated debt would be about £180 billion. The first estimate at the start of 2010 election campaign was that the figure was £178bn. Within days of that it was reduced to £158bn – a £22bn error in its monitoring.

Is it any wonder that Labour is in the state it is – but it took a long time for its incompetence to be recognised. And that fed into the success the SNP have had.

Douglas R Mayer,

76 Thomson Crescent, Currie, Midlothian.

SINCE quotations from Gilbert and Sullivan have become stock currency among your correspondents in recent days, may I offer for the Westminster Government's consideration these lines from the opera that provided George Murray (Letters, March 9) with his passage this morning: "Once again thy Vows are broken– Thou thyself thy doom hast spoken."

Derrick McClure,

4 Rosehill Terrace, Aberdeen.

ON the heels of Spreadsheet Phil’s clunkily delivered one-liners during his Budget speech and Theresa May’s inexplicable and terrifying Edward Heath impression, should our seat of political power be renamed Clowning Street?

Wilson Maitland,

Rhuvaal, Shore Road, Cove.