See the video here :

WENDY ALEXANDER has been dealt an embarrassing blow in her first week as Scottish Labour leader after footage emerged of her husband making a case for independence.

Professor Brian Ashcroft, policy director of the pro-Union economic think-tank, the Fraser of Allander Institute, was filmed arguing that Scotland would be more prosperous as a separate country than having full tax-raising powers as part of the UK.

Addressing a private seminar in May, Ashcroft said an independent Scotland would join an “arc of prosperity”, comprising other affluent small European states.

One of his wife’s first actions as leader was to commit to a review of the devolution settlement with the option of giving the Scottish parliament the power to raise all of the £30 billion it spends every year.

Ashcroft told delegates at an Edinburgh seminar organised by Visit Scotland, that full fiscal autonomy was “an absurdity” found nowhere else in the world. “Against that option, full-blown independence might be better, because . . . you can do many more things,” he added. “If you’re being forced to balance your books, then I think the logic is ‘be independent’, don’t do it within the Union. So you heard it here first - the argument for independence.”

Labour yesterday sought to play down the row, dismissing it as a “throwaway remark”. However, Pat Kane, who captured Ashcroft on video, said his comments were included in a Powerpoint presentation. “The reaction in the room was one of shock. People were thinking, ‘Did Brian Ashcroft just say that?’ ” said Kane.

Alex Neil, the nationalist MSP, said: “It must be be the first time in history there’s been a marital row over fiscal autonomy.”

Yesterday Ashcroft said his preferred option was for “fiscal federalism” where some, but not all, tax powers were devolved to Holyrood.

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