Sorry, Sir Tom, but Scotland is nothing like Ireland

However this romantic image of Ireland, of the quaint and the slow side of life, belies the reality that it is a powerhouse. It is an economic powerhouse - as the paper released by Sir Tom Hunter this week told us, nine of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world and 14 of the 15 top medical technology companies in the world are based in Ireland.

And, whilst over the Irish Sea in Britain, we might be aware of the Celtic Tiger economy, we are probably less aware that it has significant ballast. TIMSS (the international study of maths and science performance in schools) has Ireland in the top 10 in both, producing the highly-paid workers for these high-value sectors (the British nations do not appear). They can read too; they’re fourth in the world in the sister-study, PIRLS, which focuses on literacy.

It is no accident that the Irish are also pretty handy at delivering healthcare. From broadly the same investment in their health service as us Brits, they have four doctors for every 1,000 people; we have just over three. They have 15 nurses per thousand, compared to fewer than nine for us. And they are training double the number of medical graduates as us.

The outcomes are good, too. The Irish have lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy than us. They have fewer smokers and less obesity.

Once we discard the lazy British stereotypes about the Irish, none of this should surprise us. What we are dealing with just a few dozen miles to our west is a country which is unapologetically laser-focused on outcomes, not inputs.

When it comes to the economy, this translates to a laser-focus on growth and wealth creation. It matters little whether the Dail is controlled by Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, because the rules of the game are the same. You "put on the green jersey", as they say over there, and you maximise economic growth. They are all in it together.

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This provokes no social crisis. The Irish are crystal clear that a low-tax, business-friendly environment which attracts inward investment, creates economic growth and maximises the tax take is the best way to fund public services and protect their most vulnerable people. There is no moral ambiguity about celebrating the presence of large corporations and very rich individuals, because they pay the most tax.

In Scotland, particularly in the nationalist community, we have spent years comparing ourselves to the Irish and implying that we could be just like them. What utter codswallop. We are absolutely nothing like these people.

Scotland, instead, is the land of such concepts as "progressive taxation" and the "wellbeing economy". These invented platitudes have been created to instil a sense of moral superiority; a sort of "People Make Glasgow" applied to economic policy. But, of course, they do not represent economic policy at all, because they exist simply to send a high-level political smoke signal.

The outcome is a political culture in which the Scottish Government and all of the parties of opposition huddle in a circular firing squad to increase taxes and generally make life as difficult as possible for the individuals and organisations which create the wealth and provide the tax base for the funding of public services, while simultaneously complaining that the pocket-money system of funding from Westminster does not confer a payment large enough to run the country.

This is the saddest, most dispiriting, most dismal and yet inevitable outcome to the intervention by Sir Tom. Because while other struggling, anaemic economies would hold one of their most successful wealth creators close and ask him to help make his vision a reality, we in Scotland will shun Sir Tom. We might even mock Sir Tom, because the limits of our moral superiority are far beyond anything he might advise.

The hard, grim, depressing truth is that our politics - dominated by constitutionalism at the expense of policy - are simply not wired to make any of this happen. Let us put ourselves in the room of the leading politicians and policy wonks of each of the main parties and imagine they are reading Sir Tom’s recommendations.

The SNP will like Sir Tom’s comments on immigration powers, but it will dismiss the lower-tax agenda wholesale. It has signed the "progressive taxation" agenda in blood and, even if it were tempted, its Green coalition partners would not allow it to reduce any tax, on any company, at any time.

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But what about Labour, freed from the extreme grip of the Corbynistas and ready to govern from the sensible centre under Sir Keir Starmer? Ah, but no. Labour, you see, believes in devolution, but it does not believe in competition. So, whilst in theory it may have no qualm with the devolution of corporation tax or immigration, it would vehemently object to those tools being used to maximise Scotland’s economic advantage over other parts of the UK.

Surely the Tories, then? After all, this is the most natural territory for a party of centre-right, liberal economics, is it not? Yes, but not when it requires the devolution of powers from Westminster to Holyrood. That is, by instinct, beyond the pale for a party which has a highly emotional antipathy to taking any steps which they worry might improve the case for an independent Scotland. That this approach has left them as the only primary centre-right party in Europe which has never been, and can never be, in power, is not seen as relevant, or even interesting.

This is Scotland. If you could make a living from cutting off the nose to spite the face, we’d be world-leading. Alas no.

This is not Ireland. There is no blue jersey. Thanks, Sir Tom, but we’re not interested.