Is the SNP's flagship 'one-third off energy bills' pledge realistic?

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“ONE-THIRD off your energy bills.” That was the SNP’s flagship pledge to Scottish voters, launched by the First Minister on Monday under the slogan “It’s Scotland’s energy”.

A 21st-century reframing of the “It’s Scotland’s oil” campaign, the SNP ’s messaging leaned heavily on a comparison between the UK – and Scotland within it – and a fully independent Norway over the past 50 years.

The general message was this: Norway used its oil boom to invest in people, infrastructure, and a sovereign wealth fund; the UK used its to fund tax cuts for big business and cover for the economic damage of Margaret Thatcher’s Tories .

At the launch of an SNP paper – and short film – outlining the thinking, John Swinney insisted that the UK was heading down the Thatcherite road once aga