Ross Lydall: the SNP response to Jim Murphy

Further to my Jim Murphy interview, the SNP Westminster group leader Angus Robertson issued the following statement in response to the Scottish Secretary's claims about the First Minister:

“For Jim Murphy, politics seems to be about personal attacks and he needs to raise the level of his contribution. The Scottish Government is delivering an effective economic recovery programme, and it is vitally important that it is not undermined by Westminster-imposed cuts to public spending in Scotland.
“If Mr Murphy wanted to make a constructive contribution then he should dissuade Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling from slashing Scotland's budget by 500m a year from 2010/11.
“The reality is that relationships between the Scottish and UK governments are generally good, and would be a good deal better without the Scotland Office, which is basically an irritant in the body politic. A much better system would be for the devolved administrations to deal with Downing Street directly via the Cabinet Office.
"Jim Murphy’s typically unctuous attack on the SNP government underlines precisely why the Scotland Office is such an irrelevance.”