THE appointment of Liz Truss’s new chief economic guru is like “putting a python in charge of the family’s pet hamster”, according to the SNP.
Matthew Sinclair, who was a director and economics adviser at Deloitte bank has reportedly joined the new team in Downing Street to head a new economic unit.
He is best known for his previous involvement in the Taxpayers’ Alliance, a right-wing think tank that does not disclose its funding.
The SNP said that during his time there, the organisation had “made repeated attacks over Scottish public spending and also spread the myth of Scotland being subsidised”.
In 2012, Sinclair commented that the Barnett formula “means higher spending in Scotland at the expense of taxpayers in the rest of the country.”
A report published by the Taxpayers’ Alliance in 2008 said: “The Barnett Formula has a troubled history and has failed to address the extremely unfair situation of English taxpayers heavily subsiding Scotland.”
Commenting on the appointment, SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said: “Appointing Matthew Sinclair as an economic advisor is like putting a python in charge of the family’s pet hamster – and he will have Scotland’s cash firmly in his sights.
“The Taxpayers’ Alliance exists purely to promote the vested interests of the wealthy. If Sinclair’s track record of spreading grotesque misinformation about the Scottish economy is a guide then Scots will rightly fear a Truss premiership is set to starve Scotland of funds.
“With millions of Scots fearing for the future as the cost of living crisis deepens ever further, this appointment could not have come at a worse time.
“The only way Scotland can escape Westminster control is by becoming a wealthier, happier and fairer country through independence.”
Concerns have also been raised over Sinclair’s views on climate change, writing a book in 2011 ‘Let Them Eat Carbon’, in which he argued green taxes and subsidies were a threat to family finances.
He wrote a blog, published on the ConservativeHome website, which called for the abolition of more public sector bodies to save cash, including the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and for Whitehall to be scaled back.
Labour peer Lord Prem Sikka, emeritus professor of accounting at the University of Sheffield, tweeted: “Liz Truss appoints Matthew Sinclair, a director at Deloitte and former head of the TaxPayers' Alliance as chief economic adviser.
“Expect decimation of public services, tax cuts for the rich, low public sector wages, deeper poverty and inequalities. Recession and unrest looms.”
