CHANCELLOR Rishi Sunak unveiled his Budget today – or more exactly, he unveiled those parts of his Budget that he had not already briefed to the press, much to the chagrin of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

It was very much a Budget for the alternate reality inhabited by his gaslighting colleague Michael Gove. There was no mention of Brexit and the labour shortages it has caused in the NHS, the care sector and delivery and transport, and no mention of the supply chain issues which have left stores across the UK with empty shelves and my local supermarket without supplies of my favourite sweets and ready meal chicken curry.

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There is food rotting on farms, the NHS and social care are in meltdown, Covid is being allowed to let rip in England by a Government whose chancellor doesn't want to wear a mask in the crowded confines of the House of Commons, and the Conservatives have just voted to allow the water companies in England that they privatised to pump raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters. Welcome to Brexit Britain, an island which thanks to the Conservatives is quite literally sitting in a sea of human excrement.

But apparently this is a Budget for the "age of optimism". Tell that to the struggling families who are facing homes that are unheated this winter and trips to the foodbank thanks to the cut of £20 a week to Universal Credit.

It's not really surprising that the Conservatives prefer to live in a fantasy world where the numerous downsides of Brexit aren't happening: exporters might not have bureaucracy-free access to the European single market any more, we've all lost our rights to live and work in EU countries, acerbic Scottish-independence-supporting newspaper columnists are suffering withdrawal symptoms from dark chocolate coated marzipan bars and chicken curries – but hey, sovereignty! Blue passports! Imperial weights and measures!

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However, what is more surprising and indeed alarming is that a mere few days before the COP26 conference gets going in Glasgow, this was a carbon-emitting, fossil-fuel-encouraging budget that made no acknowledgement of the pressing need to get the world's carbon emissions in check.

There's no money to keep paying the poorest households in the UK the £20 per week uplift in Universal Credit, but there is money available in the week before the COP26 conference to slash air passenger duty on domestic flights, encouraging people to take short-haul flights, the form of public transport that emits the greatest amount of carbon, instead of increasing subsidies to the UK's ridiculously expensive railway network. He's also cancelled the planned rise in fuel duty, doing nothing to incentivise travellers away from the use of cars.

There is also money available to decrease the duty paid on champagne and cash available to slash taxes on the banks which were responsible for the economic crash of 2008, which we’re still feeling the effects of. Bankers sipping champagne in business class as they fly to a destination where they can be met by a chauffeur in a petrol-guzzling limo will be feeling very optimistic indeed.

Meanwhile, Scotland is no longer to receive EU funds that would have gone to the Scottish Parliament. Instead, the Tories are bypassing Holyrood and hollowing out the devolution settlement by spending £170 million on projects that should be devolved matters. Then they will plaster them with Union flags and tell us to be grateful that they are undermining democracy in Scotland.

This piece is an extract from today's REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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