by G.A.Ponsonby 
The Scottish National Party has today ridiculed claims published in the Sunday Mail that purported to show that Scots are subsidised by the rest of the UK.
The SNP described the two week old claims by the Daily Record’s sister paper as “insulting” to Scots. The nationalists also described the Sunday Mail as ‘Labour’s paper’ and claimed the article was based on a ‘dodgy dossier’ that contained basic errors that saw spelling mistakes such as “dengerous” and “seperation”.
SNP Finance Secretary, and candidate for Perthshire North, John Swinney ridiculed Labour’s figures saying:
“In their desperation and panic, Labour’s negative campaign goes from bad to worse – this is a recycled dodgy dossier from two weeks ago, which is riddled with basic spelling errors. Before Labour attempt economics, whoever is running their campaign should first learn how to spell.
“Labour are now back to their bad habit of running Scotland down on the basis of recycled, phoney figures. It is complete garbage from start to finish – to take just one example, they put oil revenues at £3.93 billion, when the reality is £10 billion higher this year – a record £13.4 billion.
Mr Swinney pointed to official government figures showing a Scottish surplus and added:
“The most recent, official Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures show that Scotland ran a budget surplus, while the UK as a whole was in deficit – a four-year Scottish surplus of £3.5 billion, while over the same period the UK’s deficit was £72.3 billion.
“And it is economically illiterate on the UK banking bail-out – where Westminster currently stands to make a £3.4 billion profit from its publicly-owned stake.
“Insulting Scotland will get Labour nowhere – apart from rejection at the polls.”