Far spookier than Halloween lanterns or the Chancellor’s budget that is being widely briefed in advance was the publication last week of the SNP Government’s figures for Scotland’s trade exports.

It cannot be said often enough that no central economic case for a Scotland divorced from the country we have built over 300 years of political union currently exists, not in terms of financing the massive fiscal deficit nor the challenge of finding a currency that does not cause wholesale pain, if not ruin, to many Scottish families.

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