Scotland is heading into one of the toughest fiscal periods in the history of its devolved parliament and the political parties that spent weeks wooing voters largely avoided telling them that.
Three dead and ship stranded: The hantavirus scare gripping a polar cruise in the Atlantic
A cruise ship carrying nearly 150 people has been drifting in the Atlantic for days after a suspected hantavirus outbreak killed three passengers and left several others seriously ill. The MV Hondius, a Dutch vessel operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, had been on a weeks-long polar voyage from Argentina to Antarctica and remote South Atlantic islands when the outbreak began.
The ship is now anchored off Cape Verde, the island nation off the west coast of Africa, after local authorities refused to let passengers disembark over public health fears. According to footage obtained by the Associated Press, the ship's decks were largely empty. Passengers were confined to their cabins, common areas sat deserted and at least five people in full protective gear including white overalls, boots and face masks were spotted leaving the vessel on a small boat.
Cape Verde sent a team of doctors, surgeons, nurses and laboratory specialists to the ship to provide medical support. The country's National Director of Health, Angela Gomes, told state radio that every precaution was being taken to protect the local population.
The World Health Organisation confirmed passengers were told to remain in their cabins while disinfection measures were being carried out. As of late Monday, the WHO said no new cases had been reported on board but stressed the situation was being "carefully monitored."
The ship set sail from Ushuaia in southern Argentina on April 1st . Argentine health officials cleared all passengers before departure but noted that hantavirus symptoms can take up to eight weeks to appear after exposure, a detail that complicates tracing exactly when or where the virus was picked up.
WHO director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness Dr Maria Van Kerkhove told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that the plan was for the Hondius to continue to the Canary Islands. Spanish authorities said they were in close contact with the WHO but had not yet confirmed the ship's arrival. The Spanish health ministry said the decision on port of call would be taken in coordination with international health bodies.
Oceanwide Expeditions said in a statement that the mood on board remained calm and that response protocols were operating at their highest level, covering isolation measures, hygiene controls and continuous medical monitoring.
Hantavirus is a rare rodent-borne illness. Person-to-person transmission is possible but uncommon according to the WHO. The fact that multiple passengers appear to have contracted it on a single vessel has raised questions about the source of the infection and how quickly it spread in a confined space at sea.
Senior economists say whoever wins the May 7 Scottish parliament election will face a spending crunch that demands hard choices almost from day one in office. The Fraser of Allander Institute, based at the University of Strathclyde, says the scale of the problem has gone largely unaddressed throughout the campaign.
According to a report by The Guardian, Professor Mairi Spowage, director of the institute, described the situation as a collective round of "fiscal denial" by the parties. She said every major manifesto was loaded with spending commitments while failing to honestly set out how the books would balance.
The numbers behind her concern are stark. Since 2019, Scottish public spending grew at an average of 3.9 per cent a year in real terms. Income from taxes, the UK government's block grant and one-off energy revenues grew at only 3.6 per cent. That gap was papered over with windfalls including fees from the ScotWind offshore wind licensing round and payments from the Treasury that will not repeat.
The Scottish government's own estimate put the funding shortfall at 5 billion pounds by the end of the decade. The Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts that day-to-day spending growth will be held to just 1 per cent a year over the next five years.
Public sector pay sits at the heart of the problem. It accounts for nearly half of Scotland's 59 billion pound annual budget. The previous SNP administration set a pay policy capping rises at 9 per cent across three years but actual deals with unions consumed 8 per cent of that within two years alone.
João Sousa, deputy director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, said the next government could "only paper over things for so long." He pointed to rising health and social care costs and a social security bill forecast to run 1.2 billion pounds above Scotland's share of UK welfare spending by 2031 as further pressures waiting to detonate.
Despite all of this, the SNP, Labour and the Conservatives each pledged not to raise income tax and spoke of cutting it when finances allowed.
Three economists from Glasgow and Strathclyde universities wrote in the Economics Observatory journal that the next parliament's central challenge would be economic and fiscal. They noted that an ageing population, sluggish growth in living standards and rising spending pressures would make budget choices difficult throughout the term.
