Nicola Sturgeon’s Five Biggest Failures

#4 She increased taxes – and raised LESS revenue for public services

Although this is about Nicola’s failures, we really need to remind you, reader, that Derek Mackay was the Finance Secretary who increased tax rates – and actually received £941m less in revenues than forecasted.  

Nicola’s failing here was appointing a Finance Secretary who didn’t know what the Laffer Curve effect is.  If she chose better, perhaps Scotland would have more tax revenues to invest in the public services that have decimated over the past 13 years and Scotland wouldn’t be the most highly taxed part of the United Kingdom to live in.

This wasn’t the first time either. When the Scottish replacement for stamp duty was introduced – the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax – that and the newly devolved Landfill Tax raised £38m less than forecast, again because Scottish rates were set at a more punitive level than elsewhere in the UK.