Hugh Hendry brands Scottish Parliament a total waste

Published on Saturday 28 August 2010 14:51

A LEADING hedge fund manager has hit out at the Scottish Parliament as "a wanton waste" of taxpayer's money.

In an interview with Scotland on Sunday, Glaswegian Hugh Hendry, who runs the 338 million Eclectica Asset Management fund but is no longer based in Scotland, said: "There are a lot of elements of Scottish society which cause me to tear my hair out, indeed I rejected it when I left.

"The independent parliament is a wanton waste of a poor country's resources."

The financier also criticised Alex Salmond's ambitions for Scotland to join the former "arc of prosperity" that included countries now bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy such as Iceland and Ireland.

"If you look at the political class, they pursued this notion Scotland could be a Celtic tiger. Just how wrong could you be," he said.

"Salmond's proposals were all based on HBOS and RBS being these profound money makers and Ireland was the model we should pursue. How he got away with it and escaped the collateral damage from that is extraordinary."