Annabel Goldie saves the day in the Smith Commission

By Auld Swit Sherou, our Dirty Tricks Correspondent

smithPlans to give Holyrood complete control of taxation and spending appear to have been struck out of the Smith Commission's report in the final days before publication.

The BBC has seen a draft of the commission's recommendations which implemented the full powers of Devo Max as had been promised by the leaders of the Better Together campaign in the final weeks of the referendum.

The Draft was from 11:00 on Tuesday and this was the version signed off by the 5 political parties.

These proposals did not make it into the final version although a few of the less controversial provisions survived.

Substituted in extra time

Since the publication of the document, the BBC has learned that the final revision was the work of Conservative peer Annabel Goldie, working under the instructions of self-styled "Hitman to the disabled" Ian 'Dignitas' Smith MP (IDS).

swinneyedMs Goldie told this reporter: "On Tuesday evening, I was shocked to discover that John Swinney, that sneaky wee devil, had bamboozled the rest of us into signing off on full fiscal autonomy. I thought we were just agreeing to vary the colour of traffic signs.

"When I told IDS, he was furious and threatened to send me for a work assessment interview, which is Tory code for being chucked out of the House of Lords and forced to get a job.

"Well I wasn't risking that, so I managed to get hold of a copy of our old Calman II proposals from a few years ago, and slipped them into the file in place of the real ones. And that was the report which was published on Thursday."

Sick as a parrot

John Swinney added: "I thought I had been really clever by reading out lots of difficult numbers, week after tedious week, until the others were so bored and confused they would have signed up to anything.

I was shocked when I read the published report because so much we had agreed was missing from it. But what could I do? My signature was on it and I would have looked like a right numpty if I had spoken up at that point, so I just pretended nothing had happened and started slagging off the whole process.

"I should probably have spotted the Calman document but, after it had been savaged by Westminster, it looked so little like the original proposals that I just didn't recognise it.

"I guess, if history repeats itself, that means we will end up with exactly the powers we have right now. Except without Antartica. What a mess!"


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