Sorry Nicola Sturgeon, the revenue numbers do matter

The latest government expenditure and revenue statistics (GERS) paint a grim picture for Scotland, says Merryn Somerset Webb – and Nicola Sturgeon knows it.

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Nicola Sturgeon is desperate to distract your attention from the figures

No one in Scotland's SNP has much been looking forward to today. That's because the new official government expenditure and revenue statistics (GERS) have been published and they are absolutely awful. The last lot showed Scotland spending an average of £1,400 per head more than the rest of the UK and having a horrible budget deficit of just under £15bn (nearly 10%) of GDP. This lot are no better you can have a look at them here.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.