Kate Forbes, Tartan Thatcher

The SNP's political gifts know no bounds. Mr S has to take his bonnet off to Kate Forbes – Sturgeon's finance secretary and heir apparent. For no Tory minister could have ever announced the spending cuts which she did yesterday without facing the wrath of the Scottish establishment. Couched in managerial jargon-ese, Forbes' spending review statement promised a 'reset' in the country's public services over the next five years. 'Reset,' of course, is simply a shorthand for 'real term cuts', with the funding axe set to fall on a swathe of different areas including local government, higher education, the courts service and cultural affairs. Despite all this, there is still some cash for the SNP's own vanity projects, with £20 million put aside to plan for another referendum. Truly progressive stuff.

Forbes' announcement comes days after the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned of a potential gap of £3.5 billion opening up in the Scottish government's finances over the next few years. Her solution is to prune the public sector and trim the civil service headcount which has ballooned at Holyrood under the SNP's leadership. She plans to reduce the overall size of the state workforce to pre-Covid levels, with the aim of keeping the total pay bill, as opposed to pay levels, at 2022-23 levels. This, ironically, bears a remarkable similarity to the policy of the hated government in Westminster, where Jacob Rees-Mogg has pledged to slash 70,000 jobs to cut numbers back to where they were in 2016. Something to bear in mind, perhaps, the next time Ian Blackford embarks on another one of his patented anti-Tory rants...

Amid the gloom however, it has been pointed out that some light relief is being provided by various ‘civic Scotland’ types trying their best to praise a spending review which, if it had been carried out by a Conservative, they’d already be marching against. For years pundits, bag-carriers and third sector types in Scotland bemoaned 'Tory austerity': now they have the chance to see the SNP/Green alternative in action. Naturally, the grievance game has already started, with Forbes complaining on Twitter that 'our spending plans are balanced because they must balance by law' – which begs the question as to why she previously sought credit for balancing it.

Still, at least Forbes – the McMilton Friedman of Scottish nationalism – is willing to address her critics. Over on the First Minister's social media page, there was no sign of any comment on a budget which effectively gave a P45 to five per cent of her country's public sector. Instead, Nicola Sturgeon preferred to retweet an advert for her forthcoming appearance at the Hay literary festival – on the day her colleague announced university funding cuts.

Balancing the books? Cutting back the state? Good to know there's a Tory government in one part of the UK at least...