THE Office for National Statistics this week issued a regional breakdown of revenue and expenditure that showed that only three regions of the UK generated a surplus in the 2015/16 year. You won’t be surprised to hear that London, the south-east and the east of England ran a surplus and everyone else ran a deficit.

This is an admission that decades of centralisation, over-reliance on London-centric finance and services sectors, and an artificially strong pound (until recently) have hollowed out the English regions, destroyed manufacturing and turned the UK into a net importer with an unsustainable balance of trade and low-value employment largely in call centres and retail (zombie jobs), thus lowering wages and prospects.

London has become another nation, overheating and over-expanding. Ordinary people can’t afford to live there and Westminster sycophant politicians are so infected by London thinking and influenced by lobbying interests that economic policies are made only to suit big corporations, property and financial interests of the London elite.

Their thinking is so isolated they still don’t understand why places like Wales and the North East that rely on the EU single market and profit from EU grants, would vote for Brexit – they think London is the answer but it is actually the problem.

Finally the data proves that London is thriving at a the expense of the regions, with London generating a surplus of £3,070 per head, the South-East £1,670 and the East of England £242 per head. At the same time Northern Ireland ran at a loss of £5,440 per head. My native North-East had a £3,820 deficit, and Wales one of £4,545, with the North-West spending £3,043 more than it raised in revenues.

There you have it, if we use the language of the Unionist press, the industrial heartlands of England are subsidy junkies and have a black hole in their accounts. For a brief moment I naively thought the press would say my God there it is, we need federalism, we need real investment in the regions, not half cocked Northern Powerhouse platitudes and more unusable and expensive powers for Scotland.

I wondered if the lightbulbs would switch on and people would realise that the UK economic consolidation around London and the South East is nothing more than an economic ponzi scheme that is primed to bust.

Alas no, The Guardian headline says “London economy subsidises rest of UK”. The FT states “New figures show how London and the south subsidise the UK”. What?

Not “Dangerous imbalance found in UK economy?”

I could understand one media outlet such as the Economist or Telegraph going that way, but all of them? Don’t they get it – we subsidise London with human, social, material, natural and intellectual capital, they monetise it and hoard it. Many will claim capital city centralisation is natural but for it to happen to this extent takes a generational policy drive.

Does Washington dominate New York? Does Canberra suck the life out of Sydney? Does The Hague overshadow Amsterdam? Does Madrid overwhelm Barcelona? No. As Vince Cable once claimed: “London is becoming a kind of giant suction machine.”

Scotland’s deficit was £2,824 per head, our public finances hit by the plunge in global oil prices, which was compounded by the UK Government to giving tax back to the oil companies, leaving Scotland with £43 million in oil tax revenues in the same year Norway raked in £17,684m. OK, so what can we do about it, how can we change the direction of our economy and fight back against the pull of London and Westminster’s big corporate based failing economic policy and prosper Scotland as best we can to take the Brexit hit?

The Scottish Government’s first priority should be to boost the growth of small and medium-sized businesses through the appointment of a dedicated Minister for SME Growth. The UK Government failed to create a fully devolved Small Business Commissioner’s office for Scotland, so our Ministers should demand the powers to legislate over late payments and create an office empowered to intervene in disputes. SMEs in Scotland make up 99 per cent of the business base and 67 per cent experience late payment difficulties, especially with larger companies, and without late payment the average predicted growth would be 10 per cent per year. Around 33 per cent of Business for Scotland’s members employ EU nationals, and 49 per cent trade with the EU, so during the Brexit talks it is crucial that maintaining Scotland’s membership of single market and the customs union is a priority.

Recently the Scottish Government messed up over business rates and although they made concessions that English based companies would welcome, we need more action to keep business rates more competitive in Scotland versus the rest of the UK, and create a robust set of rates relief measures that protect business from future rapid rates rises in order to promote jobs and economic growth.

Scotland needs more young people and we need start-up companies as our economy is three times more reliant on nascent business for employment that the rest of the UK. A graduate business start-up programme to retain young talent in Scotland by creating a redeemable voucher for all graduates of Scottish universities after graduation to help them return and establish a business in Scotland within ten years would help.

Cutting business rates on incubator and flexible office space, especially in rural areas, simultaneously boosting tourism by reducing VAT for tourism-related activities (as 24 out of 28 EU members have) such as on accommodation in self catering properties, bunkhouse, B&B properties, visitor attractions, hotels and also on restaurant charges would boost tourism and offer entrepreneurial opportunities that might encourage young people to stay and work locally.

There are many other ideas to boost Scotland’s SME business base and create prosperity. That many of the powers required are not held by the Scottish Parliment shouldn’t be a problem: now Labour supports federalism, simply hold a vote in the Scottish Parliment demanding these powers be devolved. If Labour and the Lib Dems don’t support it or the UK Government simply says no, then maybe at last others might begin to realise that London is not subsidising our economy but strangling it.