Politics - COVID-19, Scottish independence and Jackson Carlaw.

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It’s been a breath of fresh air, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to see the political parties put aside their differences to work together in dealing with the situation.
This was going fine until (no surprise) a Tory, Jackson Carlaw, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, decided to break the pact. Mr Carlaw decided to try and make political gain out of the situation by suggesting that Scottish independence was now exposed as a non-starter as it was the financial strength of the UK that was helping Scotland fight the virus and the deaths it was causing. I hope the SNP do not reply to this until the virus has been defeated.
At the same time, I am not the SNP so I’ll take this opportunity to debunk Carlaw’s claims. An independent Scottish government would have had it’s own resources and reserves to fight this battle and not need financial support from the UK treasury. Indeed, without having to pay for the support of nuclear weapons, an independent Scottish government might well have had more resources than the UK provided the Scottish government with. Denmark, with a similar size and population to Scotland, have not had to get financial help from the UK - and it appears to have done better in combating the virus than the UK has. Scotland has needed UK support because it does not run it’s own finances (depending mainly, as it does, on the UK government budget grant) and does not, therefore, have the reserves that the UK government has - and that is the only reason Scotland has required financial input from the UK during this emergency.
In short, Carlaw’s claims do not stand up to scrutiny and the case for Scottish independence remains at least as strong as it was prior to this pandemic.

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