Here's how the UK is leading the world's plunge into recession

The line-up of former prime ministers said it all. No fewer than seven, shoulder to shoulder at the Cenotaph on Sunday, each one looking a more reduced figure than their predecessor.

Not, unfortunately, a sign of rising life expectancy in the population, but of falling life expectancy of British prime ministers in office.

But the collapse of the body politic is nothing compared to the underlying collapse of the British economy. And again, this is symbolised by the revolving door of political office, with Westminster removal vans becoming one of the country’s few remaining booming businesses.

This year has been The Year of the Four Chancellors and probably for the first time in history, the vast majority of the country would not be able to name them all. Indeed, even I am having trouble remembering who exactly was who.

READ MORE: The truth about Ruth Davidson exposed – The REAL Scottish Politics

Tomorrow, Scotland will get a real taste of the economic consequences of being a political prisoner within the United Kingdom. It will not be pretty.

The UK is the worst-performing major economy in the developed world – a table topper for inflation and rock bottom for growth. Britain is still world-leading – leading the rich world’s plunge into recession.

The economy actually shrank in the three months to September, even as every other nation in the G7 managed to eke out growth. On a quarterly basis, the UK had not even returned to its pre-pandemic level of GDP, unlike the rest of the group.

If there was an economic logic to Brexit, then it ran something like this. That Britain was a service-based economy, not the workshop of the world but the pawn shop of the world’s major companies. Thus we should be free not to trade goods but to sell financial instruments short. Brexit was enthusiastically supported by many of the most unpleasant characters in the country – the city slickers who creamed off their billions by exploiting economic uncertainty.

However, in deadbeat Britain, even the rentier capitalists have come unstuck. According to Bloomberg, London has lost its position as Europe’s pre-eminent stock market and, to add humiliation to humiliation, the London Stock Exchange has been pipped by La Bourse.

It marks a huge reversal of fortunes for the London Stock Exchange, which was worth about $1.4 trillion more than its Parisian rival back in 2016. France has been catching up for some time, but shares in the UK’s medium-sized companies have been doing particularly badly this year, as consumers cut back their spending and businesses struggle with higher costs.

London’s FTSE 250 share index – which is made up of medium-sized companies focused on the UK – has slumped by almost 17% in the last 12 months. In terms of the value of traded shares, Amsterdam had already ousted London last year. The reality is if you want to run a small business in Tory Britain, start with a large one.

Of course, some of this grim outlook in both the real economy and the financial world is down to rank bad management. There has never been a prime minister as hapless – and never a prime ministerial term as expensive – as that of Liz Truss, who took the economy on the only roller coaster ride in history which was downwards all the way.

However, she wasn’t all wrong. At least Truss recognised the underlying questions of low growth and low productivity. She was aware of all the mistakes the posh boys had made over the years.

Unfortunately, she pushed forward with some really silly answers.

However, that dullard Jeremy Hunt is not even asking the questions.

Over a period of months, our latest Tory chancellor will do more damage to more people than Liz Truss managed in her hours and days. Truss wanted to inflate the economy into the jaws of an inflationary spiral. Hunt is proposing to deflate the economy into the teeth of a recession.

It could all be very different. Bonkers Britain has shut itself off from its main markets, has restricted the flow of immigration which was keeping public services afloat and is about to further cripple businesses, households and local councils with the deadly combination of rising costs, interest rates and taxes.

In contrast, Scotland would welcome immigration, re-engage with our European markets, has significantly higher productivity, and is overflowing with exactly the natural resources which are at a premium in the world economy.

In other words, every single one of Britain’s weaknesses is paralleled by a Scottish strength.

So, as Scottish households count the financial cost of Brexit, of energy costs, of sky-high interest rates, of Trussenomics, of high-tax Hunt, we should remember that every single one of these represents the economic consequences of the Union.

And every single day that Scottish politicians dither and delay in making the decisive moves to independence will be another day of unnecessary damage to the economic and social fabric of Scotland.