Nonsense, both. However, my eye is drawn to the section of last week's pre budget report (page 27, table 2.3 as it happens). Here, you can learn that projected UK government borrowing will peak at over 8% of GDP in 2009/10. And there's every prospect it could be higher than that.
Normally, to get these kinds of figures, you have to treat an independent Scotland as being saddled to UK spending commitments and leave out the oil. These UK figures, remember, include 100% of North Sea revenues. Leave them out, as is traditionally the case when calculating the supposed Scottish 'borrowing requirement' so beloved of unionist barrack-room economists, and there isn't a single year from 2003 onwards where the UK would have operated within the 3% deficit limit (see right hand column - positive numbers indicate a deficit).
Of course, allowances can always be made and I've no doubt that just as an independent Scotland would find a path smoothed for her in terms of EU membership, so too would the UK in terms of Eurozone membership. However, as the pound slides towards parity with the Euro, and even with 'the people who matter' apparently in support, the possibility still has to be acknowledged that the UK might not be allowed to join the Euro even if it wanted to.
Fun and games. Anyway, to end on a positive note, with all this government debt, it might be time to buy shares in companies which make scientific calculators. My bog-standard desk one has already run out of zeros trying to keep track.
