We’ve had no answer from the BBC’s Andrew Neil to the question we asked him at the weekend. There has, however, been an interesting development in the debate over whether there have been severe real-terms cuts to the Scottish Government’s budget since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.

The extremely highly-respected economic analysts Jim and Margaret Cuthbert (the former of whom was Chief Statistician for the Scotland Office) have today written an article for Bella Caledonia seeking to establish the truth of the argument between Mr Neil and ourselves. Their conclusions are expert, detailed and very clear.

The short version is that they find the Scottish Government budget to have suffered real-terms cumulative cuts of around 6%. There now follow some highly selective quotes from their report that we’ve cherry-picked to make ourselves look good:

(Our emphases.) Clicking on the link will, of course, let you read the article in its slightly more nuanced fullness. But the Cuthberts’ findings unequivocally leave us in the position where the opposing teams in the debate are these:

THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERE CUTS TO THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT BUDGET SINCE THE CONSERVATIVES CAME TO POWER

– Wings Over Scotland

– Audit Scotland

– Fiscal Affairs Scotland

– Jim and Margaret Cuthbert

THERE HAVE BEEN NO CUTS TO THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT BUDGET

– Andrew Neil

Readers can decide for themselves which to support.