AS has become typical with Budget announcements from chancellors in recent decades, the day of the announcement and the day after see the ruling party pat itself on the back and congratulate itself on how it has stuck it to its opponents. 

This was very much on show during Anas Sarwar's performance at First Minister's Questions, when he didn't so much ask any questions as use the occasion as an opportunity to grandstand about the supposed achievements of Rachel Reeves's distinctly underwhelming Budget. 

It's time that the Presiding Officer dealt more strictly with this kind of abuse of parliamentary process. 

It's called First Minister's Questions for a reason, it's not Anas Sarwar's Smug Pontifications. He has BBC Scotland for that kind of thing. 

Yet what is also typical with Westminster Budget announcements is that it all begins to unravel in the following days as various interest groups take stock of how the measures in the Budget negatively affect them. This is the pattern being followed by this week's Budget. 

There is already a question about whether the extra funding in Barnett Consequentials for Scotland is in fact what it seems. 

There is no certainty about whether Scotland will be compensated for the extra £500 million which the public sector will have to find in order to cover the increase in the employers' national insurance contributions which was the central plank of this week's Budget. 

More than 20% of all workers in Scotland work in the public sector. That means that, ultimately, the Scottish Government pays for the employer share of their national insurance contributions. 

There have been suggestions that the Treasury will compensate the Scottish Government for the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions, but this has not been confirmed as of yet. If this compensation is not forthcoming then the much-touted extra funding for Scotland is £500m less than the figure Anas Sarwar was crowing about, a significant difference. 

Strathclyde University’s Fraser of Allander Institute later said its understanding was that the £3.4bn did not include the £500m and that it would come on top of the former figure to offset the higher tax burden on the state as an employer. 

However, on Thursday, Rachel Reeves insisted on Good Morning Scotland that the headline figure of £3.4bn did take into account the pressures of the additional cost of employer national insurance contributions, Westminster giveth and Westminster taketh away. 

It is understood that Treasury officials are working on the details of the cost to public bodies of the national insurance rise on public sector workers behind the scenes – but are not in discussion with their Scottish counterparts. 

The question is urgent given that the Scottish Government is currently working on its own Budget, due to be announced on December 4. Clarity from the UK Treasury is much needed. 

In the meantime it looks very much like the Labour Party is back to its old tricks of promising all sorts of good things but then turning around and shafting Scotland as soon as it has got its favourable headlines in the press. 

Reeves needs to find another £9 billion

Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that the Chancellor may have to find another £9bn in tax increases or risk a fresh round of austerity and spending cuts. 

Government borrowing costs have risen sharply in the City of London's financial markets as traders reacted to Reeves’s tax and spending measures. The response is not on the scale of the melt down which greeted the disastrous mini-budget of Liz Truss but ought to be a warning to the Government that the reception received by the Budget is not as universally rosy as some (that would be you, Anas) would like to pretend. 

Following the Budget the yield on 10-year Government bonds, effectively the interest rate the Government must pay for borrowing rose to the highest level this year before falling back slightly yesterday evening. The higher the yield the more expensive it becomes for the Government to borrow money. The pound also fell against the US dollar to its lowest level for two months. 

Higher government borrowing costs make it less likely that the Bank of England will cut interest rates, resulting in higher mortgage and borrowing costs for consumers. 

Another day, another Labour betrayal

Labour is continuing the Conservative tactic of undermining the Scottish Parliament by allowing the Scotland Office to spend directly in Scotland on devolved issues without consulting with or seeking the approval of the Scottish Parliament. 

On Friday the UK Government announced plans for £1.4bn of so-called “direct investment” in Scotland over the next 10 years. 

Many of the announcements relate to "levelling up" funding promised by the previous Conservative Government. 

In the Labour manifesto, Keir Starmer’s party pledged to “restore decision-making over the allocation” of those funds “to the representatives of Scotland”. However, they have actually moved control to the Scotland Office, rather than restoring it to Holyrood. 

So they've given control to Labour's "representatives of Scotland" and not to the Parliament directly elected by the people of Scotland themselves. Another day, another Labour betrayal. 

Labour has said that the £1.4bn investment over the next 10 years will come “in addition to” the increased funding levels for the Scottish Government as a result of the Budget on Wednesday. 

However, £1.4bn over 10 years works out at a paltry £140m annually, that's a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed in order to update Scotland's infrastructure after 14 years of Conservative austerity. 

While the projects which will receive funding will certainly benefit, this announcement signals that Starmer is determined to continue to undermine and neutralise the Scottish Parliament just like the Tories before him. 

That's the punishment Scotland gets for daring to vote for a Parliament which is not to the liking of a British nationalist government in Westminster. 

Starmer as much as the Tories wants to ensure that the uppity Caledonians know their place.