A pre-election Scottish Budget notable for what was not there
And so the Scottish Budget has been delivered with just months to go until the Holyrood election and what was most telling was perhaps what was not there, rather than what was.
Shona Robison had no pre-election rabbits out of the hat to help the SNP's election prospects, perhaps taking the view that looking at the polls none was necessary. Instead we got a reasonably pedestrian affair which - to take a snapshot of the reaction so far - has been received with 'welcome moves but not far enough'.
The headlines? Perhaps the planned mansion tax on properties over £1 million by creating two new council tax bands. How that works in practice is difficult to know. The council tax bands have notoriously not been updated in Scotland since 1991 and so a revaluation of only part of the market raises some interesting questions. And by interesting, I mean complicated and controversial.
No changes to income tax save increasing the threshold in lower bands. This enabled the party to claim 55 per cent of people pay less tax in Scotland than the rest of the UK. Technically true but we are talking about something like £25 a year - nice for an election leaflet but in reality of little consequence. The fact the thresholds did not change for the higher rates is far more significant as thousands more are dragged into them. And Scotland's higher earners pay thousands more in tax than their English counterparts.
And keep an eye on council tax. A rise of two per cent is below inflation and will put local authorities under real pressure when they are setting their own budgets. Might bumper council tax rises be on the way across Scotland?