How much financial trouble is Scotland in? The answer, unfortunately, is quite a lot.

Recently the Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes announced a series of emergency measures to reduce current net spending by around £1 billion. In fact, about half of the money needed was found by raiding a one-off pot of money obtained by selling renewable energy generation licences and which was supposed to help transition to a low carbon economy.

The key point though is that there never should have been an “emergency”. What has happened was entirely predictable and has been largely caused by the Scottish Government itself.

Politicians - and not just in Scotland - always seem to think that their problems are created by somebody else or by circumstances beyond their control. This is rarely true. John Swinney claims in his recently published Programme for Government: “This Government has a record of strong financial management”. Not true.

He goes on to claim “these emergency measures are a product of continued austerity”. Not true either.

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The fact is that most Western countries are living beyond their means. Debt is too high and being added to each year. The position in the UK is bad, the position in Scotland is worse. Despite an allocation of resources from the UK which allows us to spend much more per head on public services than the rest of the UK our fiscal deficit is much higher - if we were a separate state we really would have a financial emergency.

Rather than blaming others and false claims of virtue the Scottish Government needs to recognise not just that it is responsible for the mess but also that it has the means to get us out of that mess, if only it had the will to do so.

The SNP likes pleasing people because it believes that if people feel pleased they will go along with their economically crazy project to break-up the UK. Not only does Scotland get more than its fair share of money from the UK treasury but it taxes its citizens more. We are being bribed with our own money.

There is no austerity, we are already spending too much compared to what we make. The rates of taxes in Scotland such as Stamp Duty and Income Tax which the Scottish Government control are pushing at the boundaries of reason. Borrowing is not the answer and thank god the Scottish Government cannot do much of it or things would be worse.

The Scottish Government has set in train major rises in Social spending. Extra spending on low income families and a new Adult Disability Payment are examples - the latter cost £2 billion in 2022/23 and is forecast to cost £4.5 billion by 2028/29. These may be laudable things but they have large implications for other priorities which the Scottish Government regularly runs away from. Difficult choices have not been made but now they must be.

If the increase in social spending is to be the priority how can we continue with free university education, free prescriptions and free transport for young people and people over 60?

What possessed the Scottish Government to freeze Council Tax last year at a cost which is much greater than that of the now axed universal Winter Fuel Payment?

Just why does the Scottish Government persist in allowing ferries to be specified for the route to Arran which could cross the Atlantic and are grossly overmanned by crews which live aboard the ships rather than in the communities they serve?

Why has the Scottish Government willingly swallowed the fib from public sector unions that their pay has declined in real terms - when that calculation deliberately uses the wrong measure of inflation and ignores the increase in employer pension contributions which are just pay in another form? Instead it pays more and has the gall to boast about how much nicer it is than the UK Government.

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Why on earth are the bloated bureaucracies in the public sector never tackled? Why in particular is the disgraceful policy of no compulsory redundancies in the public sector still in place when the job of government is to provide good public services in an efficient rather than wilfully inefficient way? Why this year of all years are civil servants having the hours they work cut so that what appears to be a 5% pay award is actually over 10% per hour?

Why does the Scottish Government never ask itself why Jordanhill, which is state school but governs itself, consistently performs better than those run directly by local authorities and perhaps roll out the Jordanhill model more widely?

Why does the Scottish Government please the crowd by interfering in the private rental property market in ways which reduce the quality and quantity of homes for rent rather than the harder but necessary task of ensuring more homes are built?

There are so many examples of wishful thinking, cowardice and incompetence in the actions of the Scottish Government. The “emergency” we have is self-created and the current administration should take ownership of the choices it has made and their consequences.