How Scotland will be robbed
As we’ve already noted this morning, today’s newspapers “reveal” something this site told you nine months ago – that a No vote in the independence referendum will see Scotland punished with a massive cut to its budget.
But some voters still don’t really know what the “Barnett Formula” is or how it works, so it seemed worth putting together a concise step-by-step guide to how it’ll be used to steal billions of pounds from Scots, should they vote next month to leave control of their affairs with Westminster.
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1. The Barnett Formula is the system used to decide the size of the “block grant” sent every year from London to the Scottish Government to run devolved services. It’s currently a little over £26bn, and being reduced annually under the coalition’s austerity programme.
(It’s surprisingly hard to actually find out the size of the block grant, as it doesn’t appear to be published openly, but we can deduce it by matching the figures in this Freedom Of Information response from the UK government to Table 8 in this report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.)
The Formula is designed to rebalance public spending (which is focused heavily on London and the South-East) and reflect the higher costs of providing services in Scotland, where the population is much less densely concentrated than in England.
But it’s hugely unpopular with the English public, which has been conditioned by years of media coverage to believe that it represents a “subsidy” from England to Scotland – “extra” money which is then used to give Scottish people privileges not granted to English citizens, like free prescriptions and university tuition.
A poll conducted by the Sun in February this year found that only 13% of English people agreed with the (loaded) proposition that “It’s worth continuing to give Scotland a higher proportion of public spending to keep it in the UK”, with 60% opposed.
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2. The reality is that the subsidy is in the other direction – Scottish tax receipts, thanks largely to North Sea oil, more than pay for the higher spending provided by Barnett. Impartial UK research organisation FullFact calculated that over the last three decades the subsidy from Scotland to London has been of the order of billions of pounds every year:
(The only way of manipulating figures so that Scotland seems to get more back than it pays in is to attribute oil revenue to the entire UK rather than Scotland, ie cheating.)
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3. As a result of English resentment of the Formula – however misplaced – politicians of all parties are under enormous pressure to end it, and have made a variety of veiled and not-so-veiled promises to do so.
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4. Until now, however, it’s been politically impossible to abolish the Formula, as such a manifestly unfair move would lead to an upsurge in support for independence. In the wake of a No vote in the referendum, that obstacle would be removed – Scots will have nothing left with which to threaten Westminster.
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5. It would still be an unwise move for the UK governing party to be seen to simply obviously “punish” Scotland after a No vote. But the pledge of all three Unionist parties to give Holyrood “more powers” provides the smokescreen under which the abolition of Barnett can be executed and the English electorate placated.
The block grant is a distribution of tax revenue. The “increased devolution” plans of the UK parties will instead make the Scottish Government responsible for collecting its own income taxes. The Office of Budget Responsibility has explained in detail how “the block grant from the UK government to Scotland will then be reduced to reflect the fiscal impact of the devolution of these tax-raising powers.” (page 4).
But if Holyrood sets Scottish income tax at the same level as the UK, that’ll mean the per-person receipts are also the same, which means that there won’t be the money to pay for the “extra” £1400 of spending currently returned as part-compensation for Scottish oil revenues, because the oil revenues will be staying at Westminster.
(Don’t take our word for any of this. Listen to Labour MP Ian Davidson explaining how his own party’s devolution plans will lead to a “cash squeeze” on the Scottish budget.)
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6. Holyrood’s only options to make up the shortfall will then be to either substantially increase income tax rates in Scotland – impossible to do in reality, because people would simply move to England in huge numbers – or cut its spending by up to £7bn (depending on the details of the new devolution settlement) to recoup the losses.
£7bn is almost 30% of the entire current block grant. It would be politically inconceivable for Westminster to slash the Scottish budget so savagely under the current constitutional arrangements, but by giving Holyrood “power” over taxation it can be portrayed as simply forcing Scots to take responsibility – a hard position to argue against, no matter how unfairly the dice have been loaded in the process.
What’s more, the UK parties will also still be able to truthfully claim that they’re not altering the Formula itself – it will still apply to whatever small proportion of income tax revenues remain at Westminster. (Although in the case of the Tory/Lib Dem versions of “more powers”, that will be zero.)
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We’ve explained the political motivations behind the move at length before. The above is simply the mechanical explanation of how it will happen if Scotland votes No. The “if” is not in question – all the UK parties are united behind the plan.
A gigantic act of theft will be disguised as a gift. The victories of devolution will be lost, because there’ll no longer be the money to pay for them. Prescription and tuition fees will return. Labour’s “One Nation” will manifest itself, with the ideologically troublesome differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK eliminated.
And what’s more, it’ll all have been done fairly and above-board, because the Unionist parties have all laid out their intentions in black and white. They’ll be able to say, with justification, “Look, you can’t complain, this is exactly what we TOLD you we’d do”. They’re counting on the fact that people haven’t really examined their plans. It might be an idea for voters to remedy that oversight before it’s too late.
Scotland would presumably also be incurring additional costs as it would have to set up a separate system for collecting the income tax.
Under the “devo max” proposals would the Scottish Government receive no grant at all from Westminster? If so, is the idea that all taxes other than income tax would be paid directly to Westminster in order to cover the costs of non-devolved matters (e.g. Trident)?
The annual NHS budget in Scotland is around £12 billion.
If you take a £7 billion cut to the overall block grant, there must be an unavoidable colossal & permanently damaging slice of the NHS that will have to be completely dismantled.
Anyone pretending that the NHS will remain largely unaffected after a NO vote is either lying or suffering from the effects of powerful psychotropic drugs.
Or both.
[…] « How Scotland will be robbed […]
Rev. I’m now scared rigid of a No result. I was wondering does your Sealand publication do the same job as Wings and if so, could it help educate the English on the Barnett issue?
Another one.. link to theguardian.com
Rev, shouldn’t that be stealing EVEN MORE billions from Scots?
Horrific, isn’t it?
So block grant is £26bn, less £7bn Barnett cut, less £2bn per annum Osborne/Balls austerity cuts for next 5 years, leaving Scottish Government budget of just £9bn in 2019.
Scary.
I feel sure that all this dead wood media reportage of the dire consequences of what will befall the Jocks whether they vote YES or NO must simply be a dream.
There was absolutely no mention at all of this in BBC Scotland’s news bulletins today and they would surely have reported such news.
The NO campaign assures us repeatedly that we are Better Together. They wouldn’t lie to us, surely?
@GH Graham
or a lying two-faced unionist politico!
Spread the word – as far as we can…with implications for local projects in your areas such as one in my neck of the woods which is the Nairn A96 bypass project. Money robbed from Scotland, no bypass and continued traffic chaos in Nairn.
“(impossible to do in reality, because people would simply move to England in huge numbers”
My own guess is that this would be less of a likely consequence than the following:
The result of raising income tax would make the Scottish parliament and government so unpopular that people would want to see it abolished.
Wait a minute. Let me see if I’ve got this correct.
You said that Scotland contributes more than it receives “thanks largly to North Sea oil”.
But isn’t it the case that as things stand, the UK Government would consider this to be a UK asset therefore it could argue that Scotland does receives more money than it contributes.
On the other hand, if the people of Scotland vote for independence then the oil becomes a Scottish asset and this is an asset that dwarfs the income that it currently receives from the UK.
If both arguments are true then Scotland is a burden on the UK taxpayer which is indeed unfair. But Scotland votes Yes then wouldn’t that remove this unfairness for both Scottish and UK taxpayers alike?
I have been trying to explain this to people for ages basically vote No to be totally Shagged
Managed to lead someone at work to Wings who was thinking of voting yes. At last I might not be on my own in this place! Small victory.
More Barnett cuts like £7 bn for years to come will seriously damage Scottish economic recovery now and for decades to come.
LabComDems say vote austerity, its good for business look at teamGB growth rates compared to Germany even, but its all just based on dirt cheap credit, free money more or less, Bank of England quantitative easing. Gordon Brown and Flipper Darling tried to pull it off for over decade and look how that turned out.
Norway has several state pension funds and the most famous is actually worth the least $800 bn.
link to ft.com
Oh no, Norway pop 5-million people has too much money.
When he “debated” with Salmond, Flipper made a big deal about how teamGB pensions are really paid in the here and now and not from a UKOK state pension fund. Maybe coincidence but Norway is exact opposite and Norway’s state is actually lower than the UK’s. Thats a joke, can you not take a joke Scotland, come on where’s your sense of humour?
Cutting the money supply would also deliver another coup for Westminster. Cuts would force a currently popular SNP government into making some harsh economic decisions. Many of the progressive policies we have seen could not be sustained.
The electorate would blame the SNP first and that could be the end of its government in Scotland – the SNP could be voted out. The voter would blame the SNP’s push for a referendum for the cuts in public services in the aftermath of a no vote. It would be back to the same old, same old establishment politics from Scottish politicians toeing the party lines from Westminster.
robbed blind, £25bn more cuts promised after 2015ge, so much more suffering to come.
save our nhs march, link to youtube.com south of the border hardly any tv coverage.
treated like mushrooms.
many people i speak to down south, support indy!
there have been many more protests not covered by tv.
welfare cuts since 2010 remove £2bn pa from the scottish economy alone, causing an explosion of foodbanks.
I know the arguements against being see as being ‘negative’, but this is the sort of thing that Salmond should have been raising during the last TV debate, when he had the opportunity of unfiltered access to a large percentage of the Scottish population.
I hope he doesn’t miss the chance during the next one.
Stiglitz intervenes regards C.U. in Bloomberg. Says tune will change after YES. t.co/9APWPOqtc0
Oops duff link sorry.
DWP sanction civil servants in referendum vote –
It is important that, as civil servants, we understand why the Scottish independence referendum is different from elections such as a UK general election or a European election.
This is because the UK Government has a clear position to maintain the Union and so it is legitimate and necessary for UK civil servants to support the Government in this objective.
To help our understanding, a new Scottish referendum intranet site has been launched. This provides all the information and guidance that you’ll need on the referendum in one place, including election guidance.
The Devolution Policy Team is happy to help with any further questions you have or if you need assistance with a specific matter relating to the Scottish independence referendum. Pleas email their team inbox, DWP Devolution Policy.
Yours sincerely,
Robert Devereux
19th August 2014
It looks clear that if we collectively vote no we’ll not only be handing power over our own affairs in Scotland to Westminster, but handing over a huge quantity of money to them. (Permanently, in effect, in both cases.)
This doesn’t take anything else into consideration regarding the reasons we might want to have our country back, but money talks, even if those who scheme to get their hands on it tend to do so very quietly (& pace Darling’s obsessive bellowing, not to mention Megaphone Murphy).
So, Dear Rev, I have a small request. Could you please calculate how much each no voter would be costing the rest of us by voting no?
Not only the rope with which to hang ourselves. The arse about face justification too. In the face of swingeing cuts they will say ‘How would an Independent Scotland coped on its own?’. What I can’t forgive is the ‘Scottish’ Labour Party’s complicity in this! Utterly unforgivable.
Not sure how to put this. Let labour be aware that in the event of a NO vote the SG would disolve the Scottish Parliament on the 20th. The SNP then decline to put up any candidates and labour would win the poisened chalice. Then labour would have to implement all the cuts/savings required by their masters in London.
Sorry could not would.
I’ll get the hang of this yet. I meant to edit ‘the SG could’.
An excellent summary of the trap laid for the ingenues foolish enough to vote No.
As others have said, Salmond must raise this in clear, apprehensible language next Monday.
“Holyrood’s only options to make up the shortfall will then be to either substantially increase income tax rates in Scotland (impossible to do in reality, because people would simply move to England in huge numbers), or cut its spending by over £7bn to recoup the losses.”
But people like Colin Fox want to do this anyway (that is, hike taxes, on the middle class anyway).
We the government of the people for the people. That really should read we the government of the people of the South East of England for the people of the South East of England have the people of Scotland held in deep regard as scroungers of the universe!
Of course we, the UK government will agree to be held to account to everything we promise the Scots. This is why we are promising them all these new tax powers that they will have to raise themselves, collect themselves and redistribute themselves whilst setting up all the new necessary bodies in the process. Whilst they are too busy doing all that we will naturally be cutting their block grant by the amount they raise in taxes whilst also reducing it further by any austerity cuts Messers Osborne or Balls feels fit to introduce!
When we are asked about why we have cut their block grant we can justifiably claim that we mentioned it, in the ultra small print of our offer on condition of a NO vote. Just because the people of Scotland are too wee, too poor and too stupid to read the ultra small print is not our problem.
OK Bunter
Where is the real one?
pleeese
Better Together
Rings pretty hollow by this point.
Not enough information to hand is a bullshit excuse. The information is right there in front of everyone’s eyes, as is a lifetime of experience in how our government systems have affected our daily lives. Voting no WILL result in decades of suffering for the Scottish electorate.
George Galloway is doing a “Just say Naw” at 7.30 this evening in Portobello Town Hall. Tickets at door from 7 pm – claims entry is free. Wings readers might care to raise some of these issues with him.
And who will be blamed? The SNP at Holyrood, naturally. And, as Alan Bissett has told us, SLAB will move in to occupy the ruins.
[Shudders]
The poll makes for interesting reading, 60% don’t want to keep “subsidising” us, but 54% of them oppose us having independence and 35% of them think there it would make no difference if we went.
So basically they want us to stay in the union and let them punish us for doing so.
That will be right.
Ever met a No vote that can explain why austerity UKOK can still afford say the £50+bn for stuff like High speed rail in England? Me neither.
Apparently they need these giant infrastructure spends for all kinds of good things in England and then the GDP boost gets popped into their Barnett hand out for the jocks, after they’ve been punished a bit, and they actually show they are grateful, by just shutting up, is what I listened to at a party.
The more tax powers are a con and completely useless/unworkable on their own. This is a very clever trap (those behind BT are not stupid). The only way out is to vote yes.
@heedtracker
I am not allowed to go to parties, my wife doesn’t like me to be in close proximity to people that might piss me off and make me hurl them round and round by the ankle.
And people with opinions like that tend to do it for me.
Bugger (the Panda)
Here you go.
link to bloomberg.com
@BtP & Bunter
Here’s the corrected link
link to bloomberg.com
@Thepnr – (to myself) “write out 100 lines … I must learn to type faster, I must learn to ty …”
Independence would devastate the BBC – so shouts our favourite state-funded broadcaster. What more incentive could you need guys? They don’t like it up ’em, as some repeat or other might tell us.
But why thon interviewer this morning kept interrupting Good Blair, rather than waiting for his answers is beyond me. Perhaps we should devastate them, rather than try to explain what the future holds.
Good article Rev.
The most disturbing reality is that I can see Westminster punishing Scots, for daring to handle their own affairs, if we vote no.
Here is David Cameron, speaking in Wales in 2010, about the need to replace the Barnett Formula, in Scotland and, change the system in Wales, with a so called needs based formula.
So even back then the Tories, were planning something to cut the Barnett Formula.
link to walesonline.co.uk
O/T Rev, I do apologise, if this has already been posted.
Whitehall sent memo’s to DWP staff in Scotland 10.000 folk I think, urging them to vote no, Alex Salmond is seeking DWP apology, for their underhand tactics.
link to bbc.co.uk
@ Colin, if you’re in Aberdeen, you’ll be immune to it. Also often said out loud is “the jocks will never be able or run this oil industry” which is also taken in and laughed about later.
There is a lot of English people here in Aberdeen and almost all of them are pefectly decent people living a vey good Scottish life too. Actually even the raving Tory britnats are fine too. They just get so het up at you nats and seps wanting to destroy this country, See what I mean. None of the seem to realise that they are talking, sorry shouting at a lot of progressive democrats up here and we have plans.
Embro’s worse apparently.
After three centuries of ‘domestication’, how cowed are the Scottish electorate? Enough to vote to stay England’s cash cow? Pooling and sharing for the benefit of others, FOR EVER.
N.B. That is not an anti English comment, simply recognition that England makes up the vast majority of the rUK.
@P.R.D. and @Andy-B
Do you guys know if the DWP IT network allows access to Wings or any of the other pro-indy sites, or are they all blocked?
@P.R.D. and @Andy-B
Do you guys know if the DWP IT network allows access to Wings or any of the other pro-indy sites, or are they all blocked————————–
Jim.
I don’t know about access to “Wings on DWP networks, but I read on a pro-indy blog(The person claimed they worked for the Job centre) a comment which said, that the Better Together website IS available, this wouldn’t surprise me one little bit.
@heedtracker
There is not much hope for me I am afraid, I was born and raised in Edinburgh, moved to Aberdeen in 1987.
I moved up here for work but only ever had a short term contract and ever since I have worked in England usually for American companies.
I had a bike accident a few years ago which means I can’t fly anymore so I retrained and I am lucky enough now to work from home, so I am pretty well insulated from the direct opinions of others.
I don’t know how you can be so peaceful 😉
And yet Scotland will still be debited with the amount that Westminster spends on Scotlands behalf, on Defence, Foreign Policy, Welfare, UK infrastructure.
And if there is a no, Scotland will have absolutely no say in changing any of it.
Andy, that wouldn’t surprise me either.
Mind you, what on earth are they NOT doing that allows them time to browse such information at work anyway?
They should be administering our Work & Pensions!
;-P
I think the Rev’s vision of what the future holds for Scotland under Westminster’s “Grand Plan for More Powers in Scotland” is absolutely spot on. At the minimum it is a close approximation.
There can be no doubt whatsoever that the following is true.
1. Westminster wants greater cuts.
2. Westminster wants Scotland to fall into line with rUK and abolish free tuition fees, health care, prescriptions etc.
3. Westminster wants to privatise the NHS.
4. Westminster wants to scrap welfare.
5. Westminster needs our oil money to fund Trident replacement, HS2, London infrastructure spending ect.
Put all of this together and you can clearly see why this article hits the nail on the head. As an added bonus the nasty Nats are punished for daring to hold a referendum.
O/T
Good grief what a time to wade in with doom and gloom.
link to energyvoice.com
Bloody hell. So much for our noble and impartial UKOK Civil Service. This is outrageous but even more worrying is what’s actually going on at polling offices accross Scotland. How can conduct themselves professionally like this?
link to heraldscotland.com
Am I missing something?
How is it “punishing” Scotland if its independence means it’s no longer “subsidised” by the Union, I thought that was the point?
The example quoted for tax payments in section 2 compares the average tax paid per person while failing to quantify this against public spend in Scotland, and conveniently avoiding the fact that Scotland has a considerably smaller population.
“Am I missing something?
How is it “punishing” Scotland if its independence means it’s no longer “subsidised” by the Union, I thought that was the point?
The example quoted for tax payments in section 2 compares the average tax paid per person while failing to quantify this against public spend in Scotland, and conveniently avoiding the fact that Scotland has a considerably smaller population.”
It appears that you’re missing pretty much everything.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t quote from the scriptures,
but this does seem to me like a fit.
“You may be quite sure of this,
that if the householder had known
at what time the burglar would come,
he would not have let anyone break through
the wall of his house.” (Luke 12,39)
Scotland is being burgled everyday
by London Thieves & Liars Ltd, Head Office Westminster.
The burglar is already in the house.
The householder (us)has been powerless to stop him, till now.
David Cameron is just the latest name on the swagbag.
On Sept. 18th, we have the ONLY chance we may ever have to put a STOP to the daylight robbery of Scotland’s wealth.
Let’s get this done.
It’s YES – to stop the burglar.
my basic reason for voting yes, is that we have a real chance of curing poverty and establishing the principles of curing global poverty.
building more eco-homes, land rights and perma-culture technologies, is key to that aim.
to do that we must get rid of the root cause, which is capitalist imperialism.
will WM unite around the single issue of curing poverty, no they will not.
link to theguardian.com
in the years after we win indy, people will say, “i wish we had done this yrs ago.”
but, we are no fools and we are not rushing in.
take note of the establishment spanners thrown into the works, and then grow in conviction, that we are right.
They’re no tryin’ to scare us in tae voting NAW are they?.
All this negativity is increasing folks determination of a resounding YES to Waste monster.
link to scotsman.com
The above isn’t exactly news, but worth noting on this forum.
@ Nana Smith,good grief indeed, Ian Woods one of the richest men in the world and here he is telling us to vote no, shock. I thought Scots oil was worthless anyway but billionaire Wood is worried his grand children.
link to bbc.co.uk
@heedtracker
I am disgusted by his intervention. He gave a speech at my son’s graduation just a month ago.In it he pressed them to go out into the world and forge a better world for all.
His intervention today goes against his fine words.
@Willie John
I think if it’s a no vote the SNP should serve the remainder of the current parliament term and not stand in 2106. The major cuts won’t come until 2016 anyway with next year’s UK elections.
I’m voting Labour in 2016 if its a no vote! They can start cutting everything and getting the backlash since they are such fans of polling and sharing.
Just read other half of my own link and thats one hell of a BBC there’s no oil left except UKOK oil frightener from whathisface, who’s disappear now anyway-
“Sir Ian says there could be 24 billion barrels left, but without co-operation on the scale he has in mind, only half of that might be recovered” oh no
One big bettertogetherBBC whopper right here
The numbers are dramatic. Production down by 38% between 2010 and 2013. Costs (per barrel recovered) have risen five-fold in only 10 years.
“And “exploration is at an all time low and is in urgent need of attention”. Only 14 wells were drilled in 2011, recovering slightly since then, but with disappointing results”
This was all bashed out by Fraser 6 months ago but what a difference 6 months makes.
And one for luck, BP etc may just quit and leave the North Sea oil fields anyway, if we vote No. What will BBC shills and liggers think of next
“And if its assets in the North Sea aren’t returning as much as Alberta or Kazakhstan, then the corporate instinct is to pull out, abandon assets and leave uneconomic oil and gas under the seabed.”
Save our British billionaires, vote No.
His words will (hopefully) only appeal to the No voters who’s votes are already cast in stone.
Let’s keep the grassroots campaign rolling!
@ Nana Smith, he’s a knighted British billionaire and a miserable old git too. Right time, right place, deregulated oil patch frae Aberdeen, pay’s shite for the crews, top guys make a fortune and the last thing these guys want is any change, or anyone taxing him properly.
thanks for this rev
it is clear and simply put and hits you over the head like a baseball bat…now when im trying to explain this to people i can just send them the link as you have explained it a lot better than i ever could
i also agree with horacesays though..alex salmond has to be talking about things like this and stop going on about aliens..i understand what he was trying to get at but in the time allocated to him he needs to help people like you by highlighting these things
@ Nana Smith link to standard.co.uk
Check out CEO’s like Ian Wood pay gap with the workers and then ask why is Ian Wood bear hugging David Cameron, who only went to Shetland for the first time ever to witness the end of Scottish oil expro, ofcourse he did.
Here’s another shocking fact.
The Scottish NHS budget is £12 billion per year.
London is taking our taxes to help fund a tunnel that costs £16 billion so that some folks can get from Heathrow to London 15 minutes sooner than before.
If we vote NO we really deserve to keep getting mugged.
Does anyone have a valuation for Scottish Water? I asks since this would probaably be the first to go in these circumstances
Tory boy Cameron goes to Shetland and now Tory boy Severin Carrell takes the Graun up there. Without reading this, im guessing its everyone in Shetland thinks AlixSamin is a liar and a fool and everyone is voting No up there, at a Guardian guess.
link to theguardian.com
Bunter: at 2:08 pm
Bugger (the Panda) says: at 2:29 pm
I may be wrong but I think this is what ‘bunter’ meant to link to:
Primarily Stiglitz is talking about the Austerity in the Euro zone, but the question about Scotland is raised at about 04:34 minutes into the vid:
Stiglitz: Austerity ‘Dismal Failure,’ New Approach Needed.
If we are stupid enough to vote NO, I wonder what London will spend this windfall they are going to take from us?
Maybe we could get Trident 2 a bit earlier?
Or, miles of high speed rail going nowhere near Scotland?
Or, perhaps buy some aircraft to fly from those big new aircraft carriers?
Or, maybe a new motorway to the South East of England?
Or, cover the costs of a quick war somewhere? Anywhere would do. They are never very particular who they attack.
Some Whitehall Mandarins could be showing £-signs in their eyes already.
Nah … it will just go on paying the interest on the debt!
Just vote YES and end all this once and for all!
O/T but good stuff here from Stiglitz re currency union and iScot on Bloomberg.
link to bloomberg.com
@heedtracker
Thankfully we are not reliant on oil. It is a bonus after all for us.
Westminster needs every drop to keep their gravy train rolling along. So lets stop them in their tracks by voting YES.
I had my twice-yearly trip into Aberdeen today. Saw quite a few Yes stickers in the limited time I was there. No U-KOK ones.
About an hour ago an undecided mate of mine announced his support for Yes on Facebook. 15 likes so far…
We’re going to win this.
Here in Nairnshire, oil field workers say that senior managers in the industry are not that bothered about the prospect of independence. One contact said that a senior manager for BP thinks that the oil reserves in Scottish waters could go a long way to making iScotland one of the richest countries on the planet. What really hacks these guys off is the constant threat of Westminster windfall taxation…All anecdotal stuff…but sentiment is important in this debate.
@ Nana Smirh, oil and gas isn’t a bonus though. It’s the last and biggest private sector heavy indusrty in the UK. It’s a shame because just as UK.gov, BetterTogetherBBC, Ian Wood etc downplay the real value of Scottish oil and gas, Yes has to do it too, trying to counter the UKOK “too volatile” fraud but such is the nature of this whole thing.
Must admit that BBC thing from Feb that oil co’s will just up and leave Scotlsnd is really bad, even for that Fraser con man.
link to bbc.co.uk
Oh no, he isn’t taking sides AT ALL.
This is maybe why the SG have asked their to be reviews done on the west coast…as he doesn’t mention new discoveries.
i think they have derailed there own gravy train by lying
only a matter of time now before everybody wakes up to it
I spoke to someone today who runs a small business in Nairn – recently moved from undecided to Yes based on business thinking. ‘If the UK was your business partner, would you want to remain in business with them judging by the way they behave?’ was the reasoning.
At the Nairn Games Yes stall this weekend past, increasing numbers of people, many undecideds and some soft no, expressed their real concerns at how nasty the Better Together campaign has become. It is proving to be counter-productive, there is no doubt!
link to nairnyes.wordpress.com
Just read Ian Wood’s piece. Very North Sea, isn’t it? Funny how there’s a total lack of mentioning the report in the Press and Journal, which is, after all, one of the biggest papers in Aberdeen and the north of Scotland so he’s unlikely to have missed it, which publicised expansion into the Atlantic and Firth of Clyde.
Oh aye, we all know the North Sea is going to diminish. But the rest, as he must well know while proclaiming proudly that he has no affiliation to any party but he’s ‘proud to be both Scottish and British,’ is untapped and isn’t in the North Sea.
Sir Ian Wood is just about as full of crap as any other prominent Brit but he will inevitably get more credence because he’s a recognised oil industry figure. I would just note that recognised oil figure or not he is no more to be trusted than any other person pronouncing doom. Not when he comes out information which is blatantly not giving the whole picture.
Seen these Scare stories about the Barnet formula every two years leading up to elections and yet no major changes have been made to it so far.
Under DevoMAx I am sure Scotland would get a like for like share of the Oil revenues, if not it would be a major Scandal, another referendum would be called and a YES majority would be easy to obtain.
O/T
Wee Blue Book Distribution:
Team Wings is getting there, but we still need a bit of help:
If you stay in or near any of the following places, and can act as a hub (storing multiple WBB and taking requests in and seeing orders out) it would be great to hear from you:
Dundee
Perth
Lockerbie/Langholm/Annan/Dumfries
Fife (Kirkcaldy/Cowdenbeath/Dunfermline?)
Motherwell/Hamilton area
We’d probably be needing you to take at least 10,000 or so (that’s a 1.5m x 1m pallet with stacks of boxes 4 deep). Delivery would be somewhere around 28th.
You’d need to have adequate space for turning & loading cars/vans & be prepared to be relatively available for Wingers to pick up stuff.
If you can help, email: kininvie (at)gmail (dot) com. If you can leave me a phone number, so much the better!
Moving the NHS in England to Private healthcare. An update. Note very carefully. Cameron will be signing off the TTIP agreement very soon. The Scottish government would be wise to view just what treaty is to be signed, since if includes the, “UK” in it’s terminology this will commit the Scottish NHS in the agreement, which is binding.
A few views from senior NHS medical staff
An NHS England spokesperson said: ‘Under the GMS regulations there is scope to enter into a temporary contract but this is AT CLEAR ODDS WITH PROCUREMENT LAW and the 2013 regulations so best practice would dictate that this should not be used when APMS effectively does the same job and does not come with the same risks attached. “GMS can still be entered into upon reversion from PMS and the new form of PMS contract may be entered into by way of renegotiation (ie variation) but in respect of procurements, yes they should all be on APMS.”
GP leaders are warning that, with practices under increasing workload and financial pressure, strict tender requirements could exclude smaller practices from primary care and drive the invasion of private providers and they are advising practices to seek alternatives to contract termination, for example by merging, when partners reach retirement in order to avoid losing, “invaluable” GMS and PMS contracts.
GPC chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said he was surprised to hear about the national policy that would, “spell the death knell of the whole ethos of long-term, continuity of care in the way general practice operates”. He said the GPC was seeking urgent legal advice on whether NHS England was correct in asserting that APMS contracts were the only way to satisfy international procurement law. He added: “It’s extremely unfortunate, and highly ill-advised that area teams should be undermining secure, long-term sustained provision of general practice through APMS contracts. There is nothing to stop an area team choosing to use a PMS or GMS as a contract, on the grounds that it offers a local population the best mechanism for the provision of general practice services.”
Dr Tony Grewal, Medical Director at Londonwide LMCs said they were worried about the moves in the capital that would replace family doctors with, “short-term, profit making ventures that went against the ethos of primary care”. He added: “APMS is only for five years, potentially renewable, which means that you cannot invest time, you can’t invest in the long term. It’s designed for people to go in, to make a profit, and to go out again. Which is not, in my opinion, what general practice is about.” “What it means is, over a reasonably short period of time, given the rate at which practices are closing at the moment, you are going to have significant proportions of general practice services in London, being run by the commercials or big conglomerates.”
Dr David Jenner, GP contract lead at the NHS Alliance and a GP in Cullompton, Devon, warned that the move would mean that independent GPs would struggle to compete with larger healthcare corporations. He said, “Often minimum requirements of IT, quality, financial backing, in practice can make it difficult for small providers to effectively compete”. “It can be a very inefficient way of procuring a service of limited value. There is also the danger of providers bidding low to win the contract and then being unable to meet the terms of it.”
BMA Council member and Lewisham GP Dr Louise Irvine said, “I’m worried about that becoming the new model of care, we’ve already seen new models of private companies bidding for these APMS contracts, some of them have been successful and it’s hard for ordinary practices to bid against them.” She added, “It’s very much part of a trend, it’s part of this big push to privatise, to commercialise and bring in private, for profit companies to run more and more, not just primary care, but community and secondary hospital care.”
Peter, yep, he mentions North Sea, let’s hope the Scottish Government get their review of West coast etc done and released asap.
@Nigel
I was in Nairn at the weekend and stopped by your stall.
I stood next to the Beer Tent all day and was an interested observer as the BT tent was only a few feet away.
The Yes stall was completely mobbed all day while the activity at the No stall couldn’t be compared.
And the Yes stuff around the town was great to see.
Keep up the good work!
It may also have escaped minds that the oil is not the only rip off from Scittish assets. Here’s a few more. Every fine levied in Scottish courts or on-the-spot-fines goes direct to the Westminster treasury. The Scottish Crown estates profits are rolled into the English crown estates and the English Crown Estates include Wales & N. Ireland. The National Grid charges North of Scotland energy provider, for example in Peterhead, £20 per kw for a grid connection while London-based energy providesr are subsidised by £3 per kw. It is estimated Scottish based companies pay over £100 million more than they should as a result. Westminster has many such nice little earners at Scotland’s expense.
@kininvie
I don’t live in the areas you mention but if you need any help with this in the Aberdeen/North Aberdeenshire areas please let me know.
I’ll drop you an e-mail that says Hewitt83 so you know who I am.
I have just come back from a ‘fill in, contact everyone possible’ final canvassing effort to finish a working class area. One thing we noticed is that the more people in the house the more likely they are to be Yes, all of them. Single elderly people are largely but not exclusively No. But those with families they have a lot of contact with are Yes.
So it would seem that the more you talk things over with more folk the more likely you are to be Yes. So over the last few weeks, talk to people, initiate conversations. Wear your badges with pride.
Oh and be universally courteous to Noes.
BTW Severin Carrel of the Guardian was out and about with us today. So look out for the report, maybe in tomorrow’s Guardian. I will be looking carefully for misrepresentations. We were at one door with a large family and he was taking notes. He does shorthand btw.
Oh we were witnesses to a de novo raising of a Yes flag too. Photos were taken. Perhaps going up on the RIC Dundee facebook page.
And don’t talk to loners : )
Sir Ian Wood made his fortune off the backs of workers who his company fooled into thinking they were working for a decent company. I should know I was one of them.
Every time there was a project on going offshore we were promised a bonus if we finished on time, but guess what happened? Yes we were shafted one way or another.
Any undecided voters out there readings wings at this moment?
Time to give us your opinion.
Get involved and let us know what you think?
Personally I’ve heard 3 undecided voters come over to YES this week alone, realising they are Scottish after all.
This article shows what is in store after a No vote but gives legitimacy so the UK Govs. cooked spending figures, quoting the 1400 addition for Scotland in Section 5 above.
Gers figures are also not worth the paper they are written on.
Scotland simply does not have valid national spending figures. Some Uk spending is partly split into regions then given pseudo-regional estimates eg. London is taken as one Region and Scotland another. These figures are not audited, they have layer upon layer of obfuscation and the resulting dodgy data is then falsely published as Scotlands National expenditure.
Charges are added to the Scottish region whether or not there was any spending here. Also some spending is allocated wholly to Scotland even if it is related to UK national spending not wholly spent in Scotland. Eg. Policing for UK events in Scotland.
This practice impacts all other UK regional totals too but since much ‘non identifiable’ spending activitiy and departments are concentrated in the South East it is a good way of bumping up spending estimates of other regions compared to the South East.
It isn’t the main point of the article but The Rev also doesn’t detail the practice of withholding consequentials at a whim of the UK Gov or taking it out of the equation by allocating a regional spend as UK national interest eg. London Sewers. This begs the question of why the New Forth road bridge is a Scottish only infrasturcute expense, but HS1/2 and the Sewers is UK wide. Note: from memory I think the UK Gov offered some up front cash but this would be deducted from future block grants, so was essentially a Loan.
The answer of accountability and visibility lies in full fiscal control but we all know why that is not on the table… Or independence.
After a YES the problem will still be that Scotland would still not have any real accounting of our complete revenue and expenditure prior to the negociations.
By the way Rev, a concise demolition of the unionist reality as they see things.
It’s not going to happen…but it will.
Well done.
Aye IAN WOOD -Former head of a company that dodged taxes….then sets up a new agency which also, dodges taxes.
Best of Both worlds indeed.
When does the Jim Murphy ‘Please save my Westminster Expenses’ tour finish.
For anyone wanting to comment on this guff…
link to eveningexpress.co.uk
Privatisation of the NHS in England.
First you bring the Doctors to Heel. Then you bypass them through the widespread use of private healthcare contracting using large conglomerates with their place of business registered off shore, Bahamas, Switzerland etc. This ensures profits are maximised but the UK taxpayer is well and truly ripped off, and we talking big money. Over ten years around £1trillion profit.
The undernoted information provides evidence of the privatisation. Be assured where the NHS in England goes the NHS in Scotland will surely follow, by fair means or foul. There is so much at stake for Scotland. A, “no” vote in the September referendum will bring the changes to Scotland. A, “Yes” vote will free Scotland from the clutches of Westminster. Vote not for your father. Vote for your children.
GPs across England face being fined if they don’t make use of a new e-referral system that is due to be launched by the end of this year, according to plans being developed by NHS England.
The e-referral system, which has been modelled off popular flight-booking websites, is central to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s plans to create a paperless NHS by 2018. It is hoped that if this target is met it could deliver the government savings of £4.4 billion a year.
According to specialist health publication Pulse, NHS England has set its sights on getting 100 percent of practices using the new system by 2017 and that it is considering penalties for Gps that don’t use it to make referrals.
Speaking to MPs on the Public Accounts Committee this week, chief executive of NHS England, Sir David Nicholson, said that they were looking at an “incentive stroke penalty system” to maximise uptake.
The system will allow ‘anyone to anyone’ referrals, with GPs able to refer to any NHS service and diagnostics. It will also be designed for mobile and patients will be able to book follow-up appointments via the system.
Sir David told MPs: “GPs, of all our clinicians across the NHS, are probably the most technically advanced. They’ve got more digital systems than almost anybody. So it’s not that they’re frightened, they just don’t like the way the system works and it affects their patients they think they don’t want different ways, and we’ve been unable to persuade them of that.
“But I think we’re getting to the point here, where we’ve heard from e-referrals implementation, is that we want to get a system where we can make it a mandatory system as we go forward.”
He added: “The question we’ve got to ask is, in a sense – to get as wide a support for it as we can – and then: What is the incentive stroke penalty system we want to put in place to ensure that it actually works?”
By March 2015 everyone in the UK should be able to get online access to their health records held by their GP, according to Jeremy Hunt, and there should be a clear plan in place to enable secure linking of these electronic health and care records wherever they are held.
The NHS Commissioning Board will be leading the implementation and it has set a clear expectation that hospitals should plan to make information digitally and securely available by 2014/15.
link to computerworlduk.com
@Hewitt83.
We are doing our level best here in Nairn – I hope you enjoyed the Games. The opposition left early on Saturday whilst we were busy from start to finish. We managed to get a lot of signatures on the declaration – not bad for a town which was always going to be a tough nut to crack.
Our Yes team spent this last week and Sunday putting up the Yes boards on lamp posts around Nairn, Cawdor, Audern, Ardersier and Croy…in the rain which was fun. More to go. Some have been taken down already, but replaced and pushed as high up the posts as possible to prevent theft!
The other campaign whose name I have forgotten temporarily but have the letter N and across in the O that looks like a dead cartoon character’s eyes in its slogan have had a contractor out we think – the very few boards put up locally are barely 6ft off the ground and only loosely attached. Sloppy job from a bunch of BritNats ;-)) Not really committed…
Anyone neara telly, get yourself over to BBC24…not long now before our “lets go back to Scotland” piece from Gavin Esler. Gavcs doing a tour, yesterday The Kelpies ( where Denis Canavan was cut off!) and this time he is in Peebles where we have already had a Yes guy pleading for a fairer society and better future against a NO voter who declared “I employ 15 people and dont want to end up on wrong side of a border”.
No I had no idea either but tune in and see how shitty todays segment can be!
So now the corrupt media are out to push Wood’s doom…
link to holdthefrontpage.co.uk
This Ian Wood…Labours best pal all of a sudden….
link to eveningexpress.co.uk
That isnt this Ian Wood is it?
link to snp.org
I think we all now know what Johann, Ruth and Wullies FMQs will be tomorrow.
Thought you might appreciate knowing the opinion poll data that’s generating today’s headlines in the MSM across the UK is 4 months old and detailed results for us in Wales wont be revealed till later in the year – sounds a bit suspect to me!
link to dailywales.net
The entire No ‘argument’ consists of either odes to sentimental mythology or thought-terminating cliches. This would be laughable if it wasn’t such a threat to Scotland’s well-being/welfare.
In Feb Sir Ian Wood was suggesting there were 20 billion barrels left in the North Sea which could possibly be maximised to 24 billion – link to tinyurl.com
Now he seems to be saying it’s 15-16.5 billion. I wonder what’s changed in the intervening months?
Ballot Box Rigging :-
Got a reply from SNP Govt this AM and am really depressed.
The reply totally FAILS to mention stolen ballot boxes in Glenrothes,FAILS to mention tracing or tracking systems or anything.
INSTEAD it supplies the same useless guff that you would expect from a real banana republic –
“The Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013 sets out detailed rules for the referendum to ensure that it is run in an efficient,transparent and fair manner that will be familiar to voters and to those electoral administrators running it.
The process has been designed to ensure public and political confidence in the legitimacy of the process and the result.
The overall operational management of the referendum is a matter for the Chief Counting Officer.
Counting officers have been appointed in the 32 local authority areas of Scotland.
The Electoral Commission will be operating a scheme under which individuals and orgs may apply to be accredited as observers for the REF.
The Commission also has a statutory duty to monitor and report on the running of the ref.
In light of the above arrangements, the Scottish Govt has every confidence that the ref will be conducted to the highest International standards to produce a fair and decisive outcome for the people of Scotland.” ends naming NATASHA GRIFFITHS.
I fucking despair.
David Mundell now on BBC 24 telling us how The Ian Wood Damnation is a wake up call.
Yip, only negative Oil Stories matter folks!
Nana Smith
good thing about oil the scarcer it is, the higher it’s price.
he also states that is without other discoveries being made. so what oil fields was he actually considering?
when clair comes on stream 2016, full flow expected 2020 of well over 100000boe/day.
there are new fields being discovered all the time.
pinch of salt me thinks.
Chitternlicht says
“This is a very clever trap (those behind BT are not stupid). The only way out is to vote yes.”
Dont you kid yourself
anyone who cant seen through the wafer thin veneer of this silly little ruse, deserves everything they get,
they’re like the guy with the three cups and a ball,
so basically they’re saying you keep giving us all your money we’ll keep more of it and we’ll let you raise your taxes to pay for the shortfall, meanwhile the government you betrayed will be forced to reintroduce Prescription charges and tuition fees and introduce privatization in the NHS and you’ll blame the one party who would have saved you from all that and end up with the very people who told so many lies to ensure thier own little nest eggs were protected and they will lord it over you for ever more and you’ll be able to do bugger all about it.
thats the choice, good luck with that one Scotland.
Iain says:
In Feb Sir Ian Wood was suggesting there were 20 billion barrels left in the North Sea which could possibly be maximised to 24 billion.
Now he seems to be saying it’s 15-16.5 billion. I wonder what’s changed in the intervening months?
Ermine Speedy Boarding?
@desimond
says:
This Ian Wood…Labours best pal all of a sudden….
Maybe Ian wood should have read this
link to tinyurl.com
@WantonWampum.
What exactly are you wanting here?
The Scottish Government to declare “We are stamping all over the electoral process due to unsubstantiated accusations in an email regards a recent election to the Scottish Government in which no illegality has been proven or charged”?
I think your aiming your hopes rather high there and it would only feed into Dictator Eck fears. If the process is devolved as stated, maybe youre aiming at the wrong audience. Have you asked for an investigation into Glenrothes?
Mr Wood should have read this.
link to tinyurl.com
Woods knows on what side his bread is buttered.
For a fleeting moment I thought he was a good guy, but this new intervention comes just when BT need “something”
He has obliged them, and shows his true colours. The is far from stupid, he knows and is happy too, give Westminster support. Aye, another Proud Scot!( Lord Woods maybe !)
However, this has put him in the spotlight and we are beginning to hear more about this man, his motives and his business ways. That will not serve him well.
All these ‘mortal blows’ to the Yes camapaign. EU, currency, price of a first class stamp, Sir Ian Wood..
Isn’t one ‘mortal’ blow supoosed to be sufficient? Why continue delivering more mortal blows to the corpse?
A whiff of necrophilia about BT..
Anyone who is asked about the Oil, it all comes down to 1 question
Is 100& of something better than 0% of Nothing?
Jim Sillars meeting tonight in the Paisley area.
The meeting is in
Linwood High School,
Stirling Drive,
Linwood,
Starts at 7.30pm
I haven’t got a link with more details for it, but it is definitely on.
Looking for a lot of undecided voters to attend.
Anent Ian Wood. Anybody who stresses that they are ‘Scottish and British’ has an agenda agaist Independence.
If we are looking for neutral advice then Prof Arnold Kemp is your man and the last time I heard him speak, he was in agreement with the estimates for NS oil in the White Paper.
The way the MSM are handling these forays is now verging on the comedic. They must be worried.
Just to clarify regarding Sir Ian Woods
He claimed in his report earlier this year that you could extract more oil, quoting 12 – 24 billion could still be extracted from EXISTING fields in the NORTH SEA
link to woodreview.co.uk
There is NO mention of new fields as new field was not part of his remit, it was only regards utilising new technology to extract further oil from existing old fields that were considered passed economic usage.
What Woods and other unionists are playing with is talking about NORTH SEA OIL, using existing NORTH SEA OIL FIELD data
but ignoring ANY new developments such as the Clair Ridge, which is NOT in the North Sea, its West of Shetland
This use of talking about ‘North Sea Oil’ for all oil exploration and production, really annoys as its a manipulated discussion, trying to describe all of the Oil as being ‘North Sea’ oil.
Woods should have been pressed on new and developing fields , not just in the North Sea , that is East of Shetland. But about the Atlantic fields, west of Shetland and beyond, as well as down Atlantic seaboard of Scotland, including the Clyde Basin (you would not say that the Clyde Basin and the Western Isles are in the North Sea, would you?)
Caz-m is the meeting on live stream any where.
As expected the BBC webpage is headlining some “I’m Scottish and British too” multi-million £pound millionaire’s doom laden message that Scotland’s oil will run out sooner than the SG predicts unless new oil finds are made.
No mention of the fact that exploration, finding and developing of new oilfields is a routine integral day to day part of the oil business and always has been, and no mention of the fact that there are vast swathes of Scotland’s offshore territorial waters up and down the West Coast still to be explored.
Wood also says that that voters need to be made mire aware that oil will eventually run out and asserts that SG will have to make hard choices in order to deal with thst eventuality.
No mention of the fact that there will be even harder choices to be made by the Westminster Government that is bereft of oil revenues after Scottish independence but with a £1.6 trllion debt to pay off and no mention of the fact that one of the the main planks of the SG campaign for independence is so that it can have the tools and the money to grow Scotland’s economy so that deoendency on oil is a thing of the past.
Perhaps Rev Stu could do a piece on this just to demonstrate that the long term economics of staying within the UK is actually a far worse choice than independence.
Also no mention of the Opinion poll claiming that England wants to punish Scotland economically if it is stupid enough to vote NO – I wondef why?
Oh,re Woods,
and he says this just in time to give Darling something else to crow about, coincidence? I think not, Woods knows fine what he is doing.
@Laura Vivanco
Scotland would presumably also be incurring additional costs as it would have to set up a separate system for collecting the income tax.
Under the “devo max” proposals would the Scottish Government receive no grant at all from Westminster? If so, is the idea that all taxes other than income tax would be paid directly to Westminster in order to cover the costs of non-devolved matters (e.g. Trident)?
There would be no grant from Westminster under Devo max. However, that it kind of irrelevant as it is almost certainly never going to happen, given that Devo max is far too close to full independence.
Well friends before the doom and gloom trolls come out to play, here’s what I saw this wk-end.
On thursday the 14th my family and I drove from Keith to a campsite halfway between Fort William/Oban to meet with my friends from Yorkshire for our yearly camping trip. And the route had YES flags and stickers and signs everywhere, and I have to give a special mention to Aviemore for their YES signs on every second/third lamp-post, a 10 out 10.
My favorit was seeing sheep with yes sprayed on them just outside Newtonmore, and I said hello to the Yes campaigners x (4) doing the main drive in Fort William on a rainy Saturday afternoon (great work). We saw plenty of people with YES badges and loads of cars with YES stickers, and how the hell someone got that big YES sign up on the cliff at Ballalhulish I dont know, but it looks brillent.
After driving back on the Sunday with my friends, they even commented it was the same driving up south to the campsite and that on the drive back to our house they had only seen two better-together signs and had lost count of the YES signs.
Stuff the press and the BBC, just keep talking face to face, person to person, we are hammering them on the ground.
4 weeks to go, yeehaa.
Just look at a freakin map of Scotland’s territorial waters
link to scotland.gov.uk
I would much rather have the support of somebody like Tom Devine than Ian Wood. Wood is a diehard Tory, and we all know what their rule of Scotland has done to our nation. SLAB can hardly crow about Wood supporting No, given that Devine is a Labour man. Much better to get the support of prominent SLAB supporters than neoliberal Tories.
Surprise Surprise, Biased STV News at 6pm tonight, headlining with the latest Ian Wood scare story.
I am convinced all these scare stories are sitting there in a cupboard somewhere in Better Together HQ and they are wheeled out when the YES campaign show any hint of getting the upper hand.
ie. The NHS story being pushed by the YES campaign was beginning to bear some fruit, so what do Better Together do, they release a big scary story to counter it.
I think the scary impact that they were looking for is starting to wear a bit thin now, the punters are starting to see right through.
Jesus – I despair at the negativity created by Westminster. We are getting a second bite at the cherry with oil and gas and this time if we’re smart we can put together a fund that can stand us in good stead for the next few hundred years.
Anyone looking objectively at the long game can see with absolute clarity how we need a Yes to secure that.
No-one said it would be easy but imagine the opportunity to become a modern, vibrant and successful small country. The only thing we lack is self confidence as a nation and if we can just nail this Yes the future is a blank page for us to write ourselves.
Asset stripping doesn’t appeal to me. Nor does being told Scotland cannot succeed. Scotland is every single one of us and when they tell us every aspect will fail they are really telling every single one of us that we are inferior – not genetically programmed to succeed.
Fuck all that – we can do this thing and by God we will. Punishment from Westminster? They’ll be singing another ditty when the chips are down.
WBB sent to manager. Result: “I’m voting Yes”
These are great times we live in – everything is possible. Vote Yes
John O
“is the Jim Sillars meeting on live stream any where”
John I am not sure.
I just know that the meeting is on at Linwood High School 7.30pm.
If the UK security services routinely suborn the UK press, why not oil barons?
The latest threat to Scotland if we vote YES …
link to twitter.com
The unionists are obviously on the ropes
They failed with the pound argument. They are running away from the NHS argument.
So now they are trying on the oil argument, tried and tested, after all its worked for the last 40 to 50 years, with the ‘it will not last long’ or ‘wrong type of oil’
So now we are getting the ‘it will not last long’, but their argument is based on EXISTING old fields, the very ones that we were told in the 1960/70’s that it would only last 30 years tops. But they are ignoring the new fields and are hoping that if the shout loudest, we will also forget the new fields.
No doubt Lamont will bring this up and I will expect Alex Salmond to skewer her by telling her that she doesn’t appreciate that the oil is not running out as there are NEW fricking fields!
link to therichest.com
1. Mahdi al-Tajir, Oil / Metals / Water – £1,600m
2. The Grant and Gordon family, Spirits – £1,400m
3. Alastair Salvesen and family, Transport / Plant hire – £1,300m
4. Sir Ian Wood and family, Oil services / Fishing – £1,187 gazillion!
5. Jim McColl, Engineering – £1,000m
6. Lord Laidlaw, Conferences – £745m
7. The Thomson family, Media – £700m
8. Sir Brian Souter and Ann Gloag, Transport – £665m
9. Joanne Rowling, Novels, Films – £560m
10. The Duke of Sutherland, Land / Art – £525m
Hey look at rich the creeps that own the Press and journal are too. Who’d have thought that ultra ring wing Fit like Times in Aberdeen was owned by such greedy people.
Should have mentioned a while back during the CBI stramash that I saw Wood Group on it’s list of members.
The anti-Scotland campaign will be organising street parties if there is some negative news about the future of the North Sea oil industry.
Maybe the thrust will be that we need Westminster’s knowledge and expertise to run the industry into the ground?
Either way I’m sure it will be the usual standard.
A favour has been called in by Westminster on Ian Woods, with a promise if its a no vote, it will be Baron Woods
It was nice of Sir Ian Wood to offer Aberdeen 50 million quid to destroy the heart of Aberdeen, although to be fair unionist Aberdeen cooncil held a city wide referendum to decide on the offer, City folk said YES, cooncil said no, thankfully. If its one thing oor unionist cooncil’s good at, its pulling down beautiful buildings and throwing up garbage monstrosities, famous throughout the land.
I posted this about a year ago; the words were not written by me, but I wish they had been. So, for all you Don’t Knows, and Soft No’s, read these words and remember.
If you vote no, never EVER complain about Westminster policies again. You voted for it. You voted for the next UK war lead by Washington, you voted for continually seeing the wealth of the nation being pooled and sent to the top 1 or 2 percent while politicians in red pretending to be socialists tell you they are sharing resources across the UK.
You voted for retention of Trident and other weapons of mass destruction, you voted for the continuing decimation of our industries. You voted for an agenda lead by the bampot fringe of UKIP blaming European immigration for the decline of the UK, you voted for wicked taxation like the next Poll tax or the next bedroom tax and you voted for food banks.
You voted for seeing the continuing redistribution of wealth to one section of these islands over all others and you voted to be looked at by the world at large as the most cowardly, subservient and gutless nation on the planet. Never call yourself Scottish ever again if you vote no – because decades of self-doubt, the Scottish cringe and increased negativity are your future.
You’ll be asked by your children and grandchildren how you voted when they see the devastation of the country you and they live in – (where it will be 1 in 2 children in some areas living in poverty, or worse, thanks to the pocket money of the block grant being reduced further, or the Parliament being taken away as it is not a permanent institution.
You’ll be asked – “is this all there is?”
I keep picturing a cartoon with 2 folk, one No, one Yes.
No: Your tea’s nearly done
YES: Its awright, I’ve got a kettle but your champagnes went flat and the shops shutting doon.
AARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!
The DWP debacle and what is BBC Reporting Scotland’s headline on the 6pm news.. some auld bloke telling us yet again that the oil reserves are much lower than the SG’s predictions!!!!
After all the Clair Ridge and West Coast news lately… where do they wheel these idiots out from?
Unbelievable!!! These people need to be held accountable after a Yes vote!
packhorse pete
the questions are; who has an interest in the redistribution of wealth and who does not?
Ian Wood is Neutral. Yes SIR. I take it he got his Knighthood for being NEUTRAL. He is part of the Establishment. Oh and he is Wrong. Vote Yes.
Caz-m thanks for heads up re linwood meeting staying paisley tonight so thats my entertainment sorted
O/T But the BBC are really grinding my gears at the moment.
Just what exactly is a British Accent? It would seem that it’s an English accent, but owned by a terrorist suspect.
compare & contrast with the ‘Scottish terrorist suspect’ from a few weeks ago. He was Scottish by virtue of having lived in Aberdeen BEFORE moving back to England & becoming radicalised.
Ian Wood has no more kudos than anyone else. The Oil predictions always been lower than than the reality. They been saying the Oil would run out since the 70s. Scotland could invest in Renewables which would be more beneficial than Oil & Gas. Coal could be used with CC projects.
No Trident/redundant weaponry and illegal wars would increase revenues and a tax on cheap ‘loss leading’ drink would save £1.5Billion.
These STV scary stories are having a real impact on our YES group.
It has made us even more determined, more committed to getting the message out.
I just posted another few hundred posters and stickers through doors today and will do the same tomorrow.
Our YES group is working harder than ever and this will continue right up to polling day. We are also getting new people in wanting to help out.
We got delivery the new YES newspaper today, so they will be winging there way around Scotland shortly.
Onwards and Upwards, as we say on Wings.
If the BBC don’t at the very least mention new oil discoveries etc. in response to Ian Wood’s (not using his title – I don’t recognise it) rubbish then I may well just spontaneously self combust with utter rage.
If the No campaign moves onto the NHS they lose on trust.
Darling personally took tens of thousands in payment from privatising healthcare firms.
If the No campaign moves onto Oil they lose on trust.
The McCrone Report conclusively proves that the scottish public have been lied to about Oil for decades.
Let the No campaign move on to core Yes issues because westminster has dug it’s own grave and laid the foundations over decades for the extreme distrust in which they are held by the scottish public.
Independence is all about who scots will trust to best look out for scotland’s interests now and in the future.
London and westminster or an Independent scottish parliament?
Be in no doubt, Miliband, Cameron, Clegg and Darling are completely fucked if enough scots realise that is the stark choice they face.
Last November Ian Wood told the BBC in Scotland-
‘Move swiftly’
The equivalent of 41 billion barrels of oil have already been produced from the UKCS, with estimates of production still to come varying from 12 to 24 billion barrels.
Sir Ian concluded: “It is essential for the UK’s future growth and prosperity that we maximise recovery of our offshore oil and gas resource.
link to bbc.co.uk
Now, Ian Wood tells the BBC in Scotland-
link to bbc.co.uk
The figure of 24bn barrels is quoted in the White Paper as an estimate from industry body Oil and Gas UK.
But Sir Ian Wood said that figure was 45% to 60% too high, and estimated production would be down to a sixth of the current levels by 2050.
He believes there are about 15bn to 16.5bn barrels of recoverable oil left.
They know Scotland will vote Yes, and they’re turning themselves into historic liars. These liars will never be forgotten no matter how much they enrich themselves.
Its oor oil.
The only livestream I can find is Teachers for Yes at the back of seven tonight.
link to new.livestream.com
test
@Tam Jardine (5.52pm)
I know its lazy posting on my part but,…
…hammer, nail and head.
Got offered a new job – salary around the same as my present job. However I’ll also get a Christmas bonus.
Trouble is they can’t say how much – could be double the salary, but might just be half.
Also the company I’m with hasn’t been doing to well recently and there’s been redundancies.
Sounds a bit risky to me – think I’ll play safe and stay where I am.
What do you think?
Reasonably new research from the states. I tried posting the abstract, but…
Social Class, Solipsism, and Contextualism:
How the Rich Are Different From the Poor
link to socrates.berkeley.edu
Reporting Scotland opened with Ian Wood chumming up to the tory PM Cameron.
I somehow doubt that will be the effect No were hoping for.
WantonWampum.5.24.
I think we can assume that the Scottish Government have made their own plans regarding ballot box security in the referendum.We can hardly expect them to share them publicly.Have faith.
Ian Wood and his amazing changing forecasts as another astute poster highlighted.
He seems to know different things than he did 6 months ago.
Then:
‘Oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood has led the biggest independent review of the North Sea oil and gas industry in its history, and said yesterday that production could increase by four billion barrels over coming years if major changes to the operation of the oil and gas sector are made.Such changes would put the UK in a “stronger position” to extract nearly all of the estimated 24 billion barrels still remaining underneath the North Sea….
At the high end, he said, total commitment to a new strategy by government and industry “will put the UK in a much stronger position to reach the 24bn boe potential”.’
Now:
‘The figure of 24bn barrels is quoted in the White Paper as an estimate from industry body Oil and Gas UK.
But Sir Ian Wood said that figure was 45% to 60% too high, and estimated production would be down to a sixth of the current levels by 2050.
He believes there are about 15bn to 16.5bn barrels of recoverable oil left.’
Using my psychic powers…give me a minute while I concentrate…Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Lord Wood in the New Years’ Honours List
Thank you, pay me what you want, folks!
Thought I would watch Reporting Scotland for the first tome in ages, big mistake, they are going with the old ‘the Oil is running out’ chestnut. They conned us in 1979 and are now at it again.
They must think we are zipped up the back.
Better Together Broadcasting Corporation are majoring on Sir Ian’s coming out as a Better Together person (the BBC just get more stridently anti-independence in my view). Quelle surprise.
I think Sir Ian has over-egged the plausibility pudding by trying to make a clean sweep on the energy front. Fracking is not yet clearly viable yet, many people in England don’t want it and exactly how would Scotland benefit from the misery of the poor sods sitting on top of fracked gas sites? It is the gas companies that will benefit and Westminster will take in any tax.
@ Edward 5:42
Thanks for your post re existing data and new oilfields. I plagiarised and posted it elswhere. This method of plagiarism and posting has served me well, 6 peeps have let me know they have decided on YES in part due to my posting over the course of the last couple of months.
O/T a fair explosion of YES posters in the main street around the corner from me, a busy bus route, I counted no less than seven new YES houses today, some with multiple posters, very encouraging and that street is now a bonnie sicht for us saddo’s who count YES posters and will hopefully encourage others to be getting theirs up.
It would not surprise me, that if Scotland is still in the UK after 18th September, Sir Iain Wood will take his place in the House of Lords.
heedtracker
bp have developed new oil recovery methods (cost @ $3/barrel), to get @ even more oil.
this method, i would speculate, can also be applied to “old spent” already known fields, therefore significantly increasing yields.
all we actually know is what has been recovered from existing wells.
we also know new wells are being discovered all the time.
there is massive coal deposits, wind, wave, tidal, solar capture, etc etc.
link to youtube.com
the no camp’s technique is now to try to shake people up, by sending out mixed messages.
is it, vote no single whammy, vote yes double whammy, from them?
but; when ever they do, what ever they do, this only increases the number of yessers.
ball of confusion, that’s what the world is today, hey, hey.
we already know that there is enough oil to tide us over, whilst scotlands economy is given a makeover.
BBC been giving it laldy all day.
They don’t even bother pretending fairness anymore, after all, there’s no one rapping their knuckles,is there?
Wall to wall unionist bias and comments.
They still think we’re thickos.
I only watch for fun, but this will NOT be forgotten.
Damn them…they keep digging their own grave!
They don’t receive a single penny from me anymore.
It’s time more did the same.
Only another month of this bile,then we’re free!
Salmond vs Darling debate coming up.Oil likely to be on agenda after new discovery and cover ups.No campaign quick call to Sir Ian Wood to make up a story about oil that goes against petroleum UKs own projection of 100 years more oil.Who cares about facts when the wealthy are in your pocket.Shameful and desperate stuff.Darling will press Salmond on two things.You admired Sir Ian Wood a few months ago quote quote why not now.Next oil is running out ………The question is will Salmond be given a chance to expose the lies?
Is it purely coincidence that billionaires like Ian Wood makes one thousand four hundred million quid from Scots oil, so far, and Norway has a state oil pension fund while Scotland has none.
No
Yes I heard them saying that Ian Woods comments were a blow to Yes.What the feck he is one guy who is a unionist and 80% of the oil workers are pro yes.He is also full of absolute crap.All his comments are simply opinions with a no twist and full of holes.BBC want Scotland to fail remember that.
O/T Flipper’s new single..’I’m your Muppet’
I can’t imagine what a £7bn cut to our block grant will do. This is the money used to pay for our NHS, police, schools, arts sector etc. It is the equivalent to over 200,000 jobs in nursing, teaching, police…
And if that many jobs go what is the knock on effect on our retail/entertainment/pubs/restaurant sectors when an extra 200,000 people are out of work, on benefits and have no money in their pockets to spend in our economy? It will be a downward spiral of recession, poverty and business closures for decades to come.
No-one will be immune from this, anyone who thinks their job and livelihood is safe in the event of a no vote needs to think long and hard about what a no vote really means.
@ fred blogger, as a fresh faced roughneck at 18, us drilling crews were given first oil production beer tankards from Shell on the Fulmar A. They said then 30 years ago that the wells would be dry by 1999 but the whole Fulmar field’s still producing oil and gas by the shit load. Even Fulmar’s neighbour the Auk is still producing. Shell lied to us 30 years ago, they are all lying to Scotland now.
Even Shell’s commemorative tankards were cheap pewter, the miserable gits.
Neutral Ian Wood.
As I have said many times before HMG, EBC Mr Wood et al all contain their reports on oil to the “NORTH SEA”. The North Sea is a pretty flexible definition that they use to prevent any mention of other areas in the Atlantic margin. Telling lies and not telling the truth aren’t the same thing as all politicians know. If you don’t ask the right question you won’t get the correct answer.
HMG ARE PLAYING POLITICS & WORSE, using their friends to mislead and trick by not telling the whole truth.
The question how much oil is left in the North Sea? Is entirely different question to how much oil is there in Scottish waters.
As for mr Wood he is entitled to his opinion, and Bernard Ponsonby is entitled to seek a honour by whichever means he chooses.
Personally I don’t believe any of them, I am also entitled to my opinion, and I know the smell of shite when it is being spread about.
The establishment in action!
Big Jock
Yes I did a double take at the “blow to Yes” thing. That really is Better Together speak. I often wonder if McTernan or similar just provide the script and the BBC read it.
Mind you, my fault for turning the radio on too early, I usually skip listening to the news and wait for Get it On to start. I rarely go near BBC News these days. Not fit for purpose.
I’m pretty p*ssed off at Sir Ian Woods comments, he claims that the oil will run out in 50 years and then what will we do, well Sir Ian what the hell do countries, that don’t have do just now.
We however have the benefit of at least 50 years worth of oil revenue, mind you watching Sir Ian Wood sucking up to David Cameron on the BBC news, answered my question.
Meanwhile the Great Tapestry of Scotland is to housed in a purpose built building in the Borders near Melrose, it opens on September 6th 2015.
Hopefully we’ll e able to extend the Great Tapestry, with an illustration of independence.
Fracking is safe if its not near water that’s used for drinking. Scotland has a lot of frackable oil and gas and its extremely cheap to produce.
All Sottish fracking income should be nationalised by Scots.gov and used to build Scotland’s state oil pension fund. Its oor oil but it also explains why Ian Taylor of Vitol oil company is one of the biggest Bettertogether donors.
BettertogetherBBC will be toasted by dudes like Taylor this evening.
I don’t want to feck things up by saying “when”…IF Scotland says YES, what’s old Woodsie-boy’s standpoint and comments likely to be?
Somewhat O/T but certainly relevant is the news that brilliant Scottish scientists have recently developed “smart” small-calibre ammunition. Apparently, at the manufacturing stage, bullets can be “pre-programmed” with DNA markers to target specific racial and ethnic groups. There is suggestion that it can be made to differentiate between native “yes” and “no” voters. Incredible stuff. On the downside, it is not yet small enough to fit standard 5.56mm NATO weapons, but CAN be used in wartime, Nazi, 7.9mm calibre, and, more importantly, in the old NATO and current WARPAC 7.62 round, as used in the good ol’ AK, of which MILLIONS are available worldwide. Talks are now commencing between Scottish manufactures and possible/probable buyers and military forces, including, amongst others, China, Iran, Russia and North Korea. More jobs, more revenue…
heedtracker
yeah, they’ll be enough oil to lubricate scotlands needs for decades yet.
i used to love going to shell-mex bp and get my 5p dinner, in the canteen, ours cost 25p. 🙂
“But it’s hugely unpopular with the English public, which has been conditioned by years of media coverage to believe that it represents a “subsidy” from England to Scotland”
Of course what hasn’t been mentioned here is salience. If you ask people a loaded question in an opinion poll like “Should Scotland get more money than the rest of the UK in spending?” it’s hardly surprising that people are likely to say No. You could ask that question in almost any country in the world (substituting “Scotland” for some other constituent part of a territory) and it would receive the same response. That doesn’t mean the issue is actually important, however, or that there’s a large bloc of opinion pushing for something to be done about it.
What Barnett represents is an issue which has high salience in Scotland and relatively low salience in England. It’s the salience that is the key point because irrevocably destroying your appeal in one of the largest blocs of constituencies in the UK to gain some minor kudos in the rest of the country doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense from a campaigning perspective.
So while this is a nice “vote No and the sky will fall in” style argument, it’s not likely to be any more successful than Better Together’s scaremongering.
It has got to the stage when you can now confidently state when an anti independence story is completely false – such as the Ian Woods ‘woo the oil is running oot, be afraid’ one we have tonight. You see, in the last few weeks, we have had two major oil find announcements, one related to the Clair Ridge, which has masses of potential, and the other being the Bentley field, which the oil company involved describes as capable of running until 2050. Anytime we have real good oil news in Scotland, we very soon after it will have a UK Government inspired fake story about how awful the oil is, and how it’s all going to run out yesterday etc..
Fact is, I regard what Ian Woods has stated as part of the same pattern. notice the prominence given to the negative story tonight, whilst the recent very good news regarding Clair and Bentley has hardly been reported at all.
Honestly, Scots hardly notice it, but in no other country in the world would having oil, regardless of how little, be regarded as a problem, and in NO other country would the state broadcaster be complicit in covering up and under reporting new massive oil finds. Blatantly biased anti Scotland, BBC at its very propagandist best.
Let’s remember, Labour and the Tories have both LIED to Scots for over thirty years about the true oil wealth in Scotland. This was admitted by the former LABOUR Chancellor Dennis Healey, who admitted “..the value of oil to the UK is a prime motivation behind Westminster’s opposition to independence now and in the 1970s.” He then stated “I think we did underplay the value of the oil to the country because of the threat of nationalism..” And “I think they [Westminster politicians] are concerned about Scotland taking the oil, I think they are worried stiff about it. I think we would suffer enormously if the income from Scottish oil stopped but if the Scots want it [independence] they should have it and we would just need to adjust but I would think Scotland could survive perfectly well, economically, if it was independent. Yes, I would think so… with the oil.”
Source :link to holyrood.com
Then there is the outright deception by both Labour and the Tories regarding the McCrone report.
What we know then, is that both Labour and the Tories have continually and openly lied to the people of Scotland for decades regarding the oil wealth. So why would anybody believe what they or their supporters say now?
Social class determinism (i.e. social Darwinism) is very much with us. Just think of Boris as the next UK PM. ;(
Essentialism Goes Social: Belief in Social Determinism as a Component of Psychological Essentialism
Individuals tend to explain the characteristics of others with reference to an underlying essence, a tendency that has been termed psychological essentialism. Drawing on current conceptualizations of essentialism as a fundamental mode of social thinking, and on prior studies investigating belief in genetic determinism (BGD) as a component of essentialism, we argue that BGD cannot constitute the sole basis of individuals’ essentialist reasoning. Accordingly, we propose belief in social determinism (BSD) as a complementary component of essentialism, which relies on the belief that a person’s essential character is shaped by social factors (e.g., upbringing, social background). We developed a scale to measure this social component of essentialism. Results of five correlational studies indicate that (a) BGD and BSD are largely independent, (b) BGD and BSD are related to important correlates of essentialist thinking (e.g.,
dispositionism, perceived group homogeneity), (c) BGD and BSD are associated with indicators of fundamental epistemic and ideological motives, and (d) the endorsement of each lay theory is associated with vital social-cognitive consequences (particularly stereotyping and prejudice). Two experimental studies examined the idea that the relationship between BSD and prejudice is bidirectional in nature. Study 6 reveals that rendering social-deterministic explanations salient results in increased levels of ingroup favoritism in individuals who chronically endorse BSD. Results of Study 7 show that priming of prejudice enhances endorsement of social-deterministic explanations particularly in persons habitually endorsing prejudiced attitudes
link to konradlorenz.edu.co
Please shake off the cringe Scotland. Stand on your hind legs and vote Yes.
To all my fellow countrymen and women we must stop pandering to the unionist bate. By all means search and find counter arguments or facts that neutralises the lies. Stay strong and united, do not flinch the prize is within our grasp.
I am going to find my favourite poem and get it on here as soon as I can.
Keep the faith.
If—
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Papadox,
I wholly agree with what you say. They are talking ‘North Sea’ oil, which of course does not include other Scottish waters and their oil. It is quite mendacious and deliberate from the paid liars in Labour and Tory parties together with their self serving minions reading out their rubbish on the blatantly biased, anti Scottish, BBC.
NB. I no longer refer to those in the BBC as Journalists, as that is not what they do anymore. They are merely UK Government propagandists. They are no better than those who spun lies to the USSR for Pravda during the cold war. I do hope they are being very well rewarded for their subservience.
The No camp must be really worried by the NHS debate and the prospect of cuts to Barnet after a No vote to have thrown Sir Ian wood under the bus.
I actually believe him when he says he wanted to stay out of it but I think he was told by No camp HQ that he had to come out to put a finger in a very leaky dyke. His statement whilst on the negative side of forecasts is hardly a ringing endorsement of the Treasury forecasts and he was clever in saying “North Sea” and unless “significant new discoveries are found” has tones of Obama in its qualifications
To sum up – forgot the oil story, keep pressing the NHS and cuts after a NO vote its is clearly working!
@ James Caithness, its a great poem apart from this bit. Don’t risk everything, ever.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
laukat
yep, they are running scared of the nhs revelations mine field.
it exposes them on so many fronts.
everyone has a stake in the nhs, and they can be easily quoted.
Well that was a surprise.
NO Thankers at the door just as i got out the bath. Didn’t have time to chat but he asked who i voted for the last elections and i said Labour , he then asked why i won’t vote labour now and i could not help myself . I burst out laughing and asked him if he was kidding. I told him i will vote YES and ANY OTHER party than Labour in the following elections.
“So you’ll be voting YES then ?”
“Aye too bloody right ah will ”
Next door neighbour told him to forget it (She’s 83) sick oh the Labour promises
No joy in the whole flat. It seems i have prepared them all well, they chapped 6 doors got 6 answers all against the NT message.
That’s Mayfield out by Dalkeith being chapped. They are in for a surprise. This place was a mining place and they all have long memories.Everyone a YESSER bar the odd 2 or 3 tops. Anyway sorry should have spied their pamphlets but as i said . I’m dripping all over the keyboard.
Gone to get dried.
The poem is all about The Jamieson Raid (Boer War) alledgedely.
Them four lines could have equally applied to Robert the Bruce. albeit a few hundreds years apart.
Anyhoo I like the poem it speaks to me.
It is interesting to note, that despite all their blanket media support, all their Tory money, and all their scare stories, the anti independence campaign has done nothing but lose support.
We are definitely winning the argument, and as others have said, we are winning by talking one by one to ensure people know the truth. As soon as folks know the truth, they become YES voters.
Better together and Westminster is getting very scared now. All their nonsense about currency/plan B and what do we have? An increase in the YES vote and a decrease in the NO vote.
I think the wee blue book will be the final nail in the coffin for this odious, undemocratic, unwanted and quasi-colonial, union with England. Not before time.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Just had another delivery of vote no turds through the letterbox. handy that they wear those (pretending to be Scottish)blue jackets so you know not to answer. not in the mood for a fight so I let this one live.
No uk means no pound. Interest rates will go up and our pensions are not safe. Same old shite.
Lovely picture of celebrity Billionaire neighbour from hell JK (know your place Jocks I live in a castle)Rowling. I given more money to charity than she does as a % of my income. Why don’t I get to scare people in the media?
BBC & MSM bias is going into hyperbole. What next, vote yes and we won’t be allowed to share the English language ?
Votez ‘Oui’.
I think the clue is actually IN what Ian Woods is saying
and its very clear when you see the headline in the Herald
Read this very carefully!
“Sir Ian Wood: iScotland will run out of oil and gas in 35 years if new sources are not found”
Do you see it readers?
IF NEW SOURCES ARE NOT FOUND
What Woods is on about and what his Westminster commissioned review was about, was the old existing and in some cases clapped out fields
What he is stating for the benefit of the UK Government and Better Together is that EXISTING fields have a life span of 35 years, he is not talking about any new or planned fields.
But the media, who are all over this like a rash, are playing up the bit about it only lasting 35 years, but ignoring the bit about EXISTING fields.
Quite clever, as Woods gets away with telling the truth, except not all the truth is given.
There has been and there will not be any mention of new and planned developments , especially in the Atlantic sectors, which Clair Ridge is part of, or any potential all the way down the west coast or the Clyde Basin. That will be ignored by the media.
It is also being ignored by Ian Woods
The other bit, is why Ian Woods is playing down his own review. Cant he remember what he wrote in it?
So there you have it Woods talks about existing and not fresh finds, but the media will play this as meaning everything when its clear that it is not
link to theguardian.com
Severin Carrell of the Graun monstering Scots oil and gas reserves. Wish britnats would make their minds up. Either fearmonger Scots oil’s worthless and running out so vote No, or fearmonger us Scots oil is not important economically, so vote No but make your minds up please.
Why is attacking Scotland running Scotland turned into a bettertogetherBBC avalanche today.
I suppose I should thank folk for not correcting me that Boris and his ilk are actually genetic determinists. Or were you just no interested? 🙂
During the depressed 80’s when our oil was being flogged off at $10 a barrel and workers were being killed and maimed in the process there was reputedly a car sticker which went along the lines of “Please God send us another oil boom and we promise not to piss it all up against the wall this time.” Well it looks as if He’s going to give us another chance. Will we waste it again by listening to Ian Wood and his merry men?
Progressive liberal Guardian really detests Alex Salmond. Severin Carrell’s certainly grown up to be a ferocious British propagandist too. eg
“Wood is also a dominant figure in Aberdeen, the centre of the UK’s oil industry, where he offered to donate up to £75m for a public park redevelopment in the city centre, which was heavily backed by Salmond’s Scottish National party.
Watched a program months ago about Ian Wood his life and his retirement plans
He was asked then about the vote and he said then that he had no doubt that Scotland could make it as an independent country
AND if managed correctly the oil would be a good base to build from.
He also cautioned as oil would one day run out it could only be used as a starting point,but never the less a good one.
He then said he would only comment on the debate if he thought it would help.
Seems to me posters further up are correct something must have changed
Maybe we are not supposed to be talking about the NHS anymore.
[sorry if this program has been mentioned further up have not caught up with all the posts yet]
Wear your YES badge.If you don’t like the big round ones,get a little one.It really makes a difference and encourages people you meet to engage in chat about Scotland’s future.Its the little,one to one,conversations that give people the confidence to do what they,deep inside,want to do.To vote YES.
liz g
this is a good vid about how labdemtories “accidentally” brought in legislation to privatize the nhs.
link to youtube.com
One more open threat from so called quality journalists in London toon. We are voting for or against new social democracy in Scotland, not the end of the world as we know it.
link to theguardian.com
“After 18 September, things may begin to get nastier than most of us would prefer to believe, in Scotland as well as in England.”
@heedtracker
Methinks some private polling somewhere has caused a panic and not just RIC’s either. This smacks of real hysteria now – doubt they believe themselves anymore and are just desperate to hold on to what they have by any means. They have lost sight of the future – crazy stuff.
James, if you go on Youtube, there is an amazing wealth of art/music on independence. A good search in youtube is “Scottish independence songs”… Yew Choob, Stanley Odd to mention but two.
Also the ‘Songs for Scotland’ project promoted by Bella Caledonia.
It really is an artistic creative movement. Here’s one of my fav’s…
link to youtube.com
BBC:
‘Sir Ian Wood says, “blah, blah, blah…” but on the other hand the nationalists say….’
Hold on a minute?!
‘Nationalists?’
Surely it’s the Scottish government. When Labour’s in power does it automatically become a ‘nationalist’ administration? Or does the media restrain itself from using that description because Labour invests its entire political commitment in Westminster?
Is this the BBC yet again indulging in thought control by suggesting all dissidents are by nature nationalists, even when elected to government – twice – with a mandate to put into effect a democratically approved manifesto?
@Edward,
I was just about to write the same thing.
Assuming NO new finds completely destroys any credibility from what was a respected oil man.
I think he has put a bit of a dent in his reputation over this, because he is using a ridiculously conservative viewpoint in order to make a political point.
Especially when his announcement comes on the heels of the ‘game-changer’ Lancaster well by Hurricane Energy.
Using modern horizontal wells to produce highly commercial flowrates from shattered basement rock for the FIRST TIME in Scotland, opens up the potential for billions of extra barrels all the way down the west coast !!
This type of reservoir was previously considered uncommercial. Not any more..
Right away it has the potential to double or treble the size of the monster Clair Ridge field nearby, which sits on a huge proven 750 metre oil column in its underlying basement rock, which is NOT included in the current conservative estimates !!
Then you have to account for improving technology that constantly extends the lifespan of existing fields. Statoil is estimating 70% recovery rates for some new fields!!
It’s one thing to be conservative, but this is just ridiculous.
He also fails to mention the enormous potential for green energy to replace oil, when it finally does run out.
Scotland has SIX times more sea territory than land area !!
Huge wind turbines could generate enough power to run Scotland many times over, and use the surplus to produce hydrogen gas to power future fuel-cell vehicles and generators.
Again, price and technology is improving all the time.
We should take a leaf out of Norway’s book,
Taking a share of their own resources has made them TEN times wealthier than Scotland with a huge £520 billion oil fund.
I imagine this is his real fear.
A state company taking more of a share in Scotland’s natural resources, and competing with private companies.
Let the No campaign fire off all their guns now, or at least their remaining ones. You want your campaign to peak on the 17th September, not now. The fact is they are running a campaign that is right wing in both words and actions. This does not go down well at all with a significant section of the Scottish electorate, in fact just the opposite. They have the support of the uber rich establishment in London, big business, the MSM in the UK. These groups are not popular in Scotland at all, in fact most are unpopular.
heedtracker 8.12.
Did you notice the Alex Salmond squeezy stress doll advertised next to the article you linked to?Oh how they hate him. 🙂
So in conclusion to my last post, fuck ’em… 😀 😀
When a journalist ( i use the term loosely) questions the YES boys why don’t the Yesboys say well if there isn’t that much oil they may as well just let us go.
You know I would not trust anything the BT campaign came up with. If I heard one of them saying snow is white. I’d google it.
If I am asked about Wood and oil, I intend to mention Gordon Brown and organ donors as well as sick Scottish bairns not getting treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital, not once but twice.
James
Me too . Loved the words.
link to youtube.com
Many of those voting No will do so in the expectation of either the same or more money and powers for the devolved Scottish parliament.
What we will actually get will be less of both.
In other words, we will get the WORST of both worlds if we vote No.
O/T
Leith debate for undecided women voters….standing room only
link to twitter.com
Compare and contrast on STV.
First story gives us a Sirs point of view on the billion , trillion , gazillion profits that may or may not be in the North Sea. ( lingering shot of Mr Wood)
Second story tells us how a Mother with 4 kids unable to get a council house , is living in a house with damp rising up the walls, another lady can’t afford her heating to be on all the time when she needs it, a gent buys from charity shops( lingering shot of dilapidated ill fitting windows).
That first scene is everything that is wrong with UK PLC.
That last scene is Scotland’s priority.
I
How does “Sir Ian Wood” justify saying 24 billion barrels of oil reserves just six months back !! then says 15.5 billion barrels of oil reserves just now? Does he not realise his credability has just went out the door.
Still he may become Lord Wood in the future but it will mean fuck all in an independent Scotland, a liar no matter what his title is, is still a liar.
The McCrone report says it all, never trust the unionist’s with Scotlands oil.
Scotland’s oil has been running out since 1974 and it will still be running out in 2074. Let’s set up an oil fund now and stop wasting it on patios in SW1.
I agree with comments above. We’ve been talking about the NHS and Barnett settlement. Taboo! Scary oil-running-out story to the rescue.
The effect of privatising the English NHS and the consequent reduction in bloc grant to Scotland also needs to be spelt out. No voters are not aware of what the consequences will be.
Ian Woods comments are not as bad as reported.
While he has reduced what he thinks is the expected production it is still a long time scale for the EXISTING fields and in the North Sea area, as others have mentioned.
However, this totally contradicts Darlings lies about oil lasting to 2017. Darling should be called out on this, even though he will claim he did not say that.
Also Wood stated that while the Yes campaign’s estimates are overly optimistic he also criticised the No Campaign for their pessimism. Why is that not a blow to the No Campaign?
The strange aspect of the report is the restriction to one just the North Sea and existing exploitation only. It should also be noted that the viability of the North Sea is linked to Norways industry too, because everyone shares associated infrastructure and support to reduce costs. To state that there is up to 50 years of diminishing returns in the North Sea would still be a huge boon for Scotland.
A major flaw in Woods argument was what would happen when the Oil resources finally reach the end of life. He states we would then depend on English shale Gas. This fails to take account that the UK has depended on our resources for decades and that is somehow acceptable but only in that direction. Secondly, with all the other resources at Scotlands disposal what is the change that Scotland can prepare our economy post oil compared to what we would be left with within the UK. Since the UK invests absolutely nothing, almost literally, in Scotland that is a horrifying prospect.
@ John H. I did indeed. Plus an added teamGB bonus is the first few hundred bought get a free signed Steve Bell post card of this no doubt.
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
English people I know say its all bullshit, the English don’t like many countries but they really hate each other.
Cheers Brian Mchugh. Liked the song.
Found a vid of Jim Murphy in Nairn. Now in Shawlands Jim told some guy ”his arse was bigger than his argument”.
In this vid in Nairn I thinks he actually puts hands on a couple of people. There is also a point where he steps forward and sticks his head towards the guy, then he checks himself. I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into it.
link to youtube.com
Below are the references to the 24 billion boe in Sir Ian Woods report published on 24th February 2014. All references in regards to the amount of oil focus to how to get near the 24 billion boe number. Now Ian Wood thinks that the likely best outcome is 15-16.5 billion. So was his government commissioned review flawed from the start or has something else happened in the intervening months for the about turn? Why was he not asked to comment on the recently found, surprisingly large, verified oil wells? These post-date his review.
“This review provides the opportunity for it to face it’s next 30 years and beyond supported by a better resourced, more capable and more involved Regulator that, working with greater industry collaboration, will help take us closer to the 24 billion boe prize potentially still to come”
“..it is estimated that a further 12 to 24 billion boe could be produced”
“The Review believes that urgent and full implementation of the recommendations in this report will have the potential to deliver, at the low end, an additional 3-4 billion boe over the next 20 years, worth approximately £200 billion to the UK’s economy at today’s prices, and at the high end, will put the UK in a much stronger position to get closer to the 24 billion boe potential”
“It is estimated that a further 12 to 24 billion boe could be produced with ultimate recovery in a large part dependent on how well the UK manages the overall development of its remaining resources”
“At the high end, HM Treasury, the Regulator and Industry fully committing to the new strategy will put the UK in a much stronger position to get closer to the 24 billion boe potential.”
The UK is skint and they need our money.
Our oil money and all the rest of our money will be needed to fund Trident renewal, HS2, HS3, Crossrail, rebuild London sewage systems, and just generally rebuild London and the South East of England.
We must be the only country in the world that hands over it’s vast wealth to a neighbouring country so they can rebuild their infrastructure, while we actually get poorer.
I think its fair to say that we can expect more lies daily from now until the 18th September.
As regards this dubious piece, I saw a vid from You Tube posted on here about BP and the new more efficient way to get the oil. I think they even made a prediction of how many barrels was there and it exceeded Wood’s figure.
I didn’t notice the date when the vid was released. But I am pretty sure they (BP) would not have Wood into their new innovative procedure.
Anyhow I am also pretty sure the people are sick of the lies and scaremongering and have become immune to it.
to caz-m
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.
@James Caithness says: 20 August, 2014 at 8:22 pm:
“If I am asked about Wood and oil”
James, read the report again and consider what Wood actually said. He said, “If no new fields are found”, but new fields are being found regularly just now and the only firm information we have about them is that they are way above expectations. We could only expect that old fields will be running out and that is all that Ian Woods has said.
Ian Wood has a completely neutral and unbiased opinion in the Independence debate, he is not for YES or NO.
It must be true, because the completely neutral and unbiased Bernard Ponsonby told us so.
ephemeraldeception says:
‘He states we would then depend on English shale Gas.’
Of course, it comes as no surprise that Shale gas extraction is the new investment for Ian Wood, being involved in the US market.
No doubt he’s looking for a backhander for some favourable licensing.
To Robert Peffers
I know what he says. I also would not care if there was no oil, it matters not a jot to me. (The fact there is oil is a bonus) .
They (BT, media, establishment etc) is to just say enough to create doubt and fear.
John O says:
“Mr Wood should have read this.”
link to tinyurl.com
Good one John, I’ve tweeted that , hope you don’t mind 😉
caz-m
According to Severin in the Guardian he is a No which would jive with all the waffle about fracking.
tartanfever
devolved powers removed by peers
link to yes2014.net
Ian Wood: lying capitalist, tory, unionist, self-seeking ("Tractor" - Ed). Only 24 million barrels left?…sorry 12-16 million. Well by my estimation that means an Indy Scotland gets 90% of the 12 = 10.8 million…which is 2 and a half times more than we have been allocated via Barnet formula up until now.
Still a better deal aint it? plus add in the new fields this lying tory toad left out…East and West of Shetland, the Clyde etc.
Honestly, this is Groundhog day….1970…1979…1997 the mantra: The oil is running out. The names change but the lies don’t!
Didn’t this pompous bastard not state that 20,000 new jobs were being created and there was a shortage of labour in the N.E.? If he was so wrong he is either a fool or a knave.
This ‘philanthropist’ ( so appropriately a Victorian phrase) tried to destroy Union Gardens with a monstrous vanity project..fortunately vetoed by the Council.
Surely Scotland wants rid of ‘big men’ like this imposter?
Self Important interfering ermine grabbers like him and Tom Hunter? True democracy and a written constitution can wipe these people from our landscape.
Let them take their carpetbags and scuttle off to Westminster land and suck the remaining fat of the land up their ugly proboscises.
People..don’t believe the hype! they are collectively lying to us! There is no goodwill in any of their messages…only malevolent glee at how useless and exploited they want us to be and to remain.
We must grasp this one and only chance to cast these parasites into the deep and dark hole to which they crawled from….. End of rant.
An OT observation if I may?
Just driven from Aberdeen to Glasgow and am rather surprised at the count of big banner signs in farmers fields
Aberdeen to Dundee, No Thanks 8, Yes 2
Dundee to Perth, No thanks 7, Yes 1 huge one at Glendoick
Perth to Glasgow, No thanks lost count and no Yesses.
Are all these farmers totally oblivious to the CAP shafting they are getting or are they all wanting out of EU?
Westie
These will be the same farmers that put up Tory signs come a General Election. I haven’t seen any No signs in my neck of the woods but I am expecting a couple of the farmers to put one up because they usually put up a Tory one, despite the Tories always coming near the bottom of the pile.
westie7 – out of curiosity were the fields cultivated?
It may be that some of these were in shooting estates rather than farmland, and quite possibly some of them are not down to the tenant farmer but the landowners’ side of the debate, namely they’re shit scared of land reform forcing them to make their estates work for the good of the locals rather than the huntin’ shootin’ fishin’ fraternity, a la Dan Snow’s father-in-law.
PS
I drove the length of the country a couple of weeks back and didn’t see a single No sign but I saw several Yes signs, especially on the A9 heading towards Perth.
Westie 7
I noticed 2 last weekend at the Broxden roundabout just outside Perth and I could not tell if they were on private ground or actually in the grounds of the travel lodge at Broxfden .
I was hoping to have a walk round the travel lodge to find out if they had came out for no but unfortunately circumstances overtook me .
If it was on private ground it probably belongs to Dupplin estate .
@westie7
There is a big difference between the “landowners” and the tenant farmers. Check out this site for more informed opinion.
link to farming4yes.com
Wood and BT claim that Scotland will be a basket case when North Sea oil runs out but Clare plus Bentley fields come on stream next year with expected 1 billion barrels of oil over the next 30 years plus the Laggan-Tomore field off the West coast with 20% of the known UK gas reserves and also has a 30 year lifespan. After this other West Coast oil will come ashore and up to 24 billion barrels to be extracted which means that more than half of the revenues are still to come.
When drilling for oil in the 1970s, geologists found enough gas generating coalfields at the bottom of the North Sea to power the whole of Europe for the next 2000 years.
At the time it was impossible to extract, but advances in underground coal gasification (UCG) make such an ambitious project feasible within the next five to ten years or so.
In 2013 the UK government granted licences to start offshore drilling for gas generating coal off the Fife coast and in Firth of Forth areas.
UCG could enable us to extract clean energy and INEOS at Grangemouth wouldn’t need to import gas from the USA or frack for shale oil in the central belt.
Supporters claim that UCG could enable us to extract clean energy from coal seams too deep to mine. What’s more, it would do so with reduced carbon emissions and without the toxic by-products of conventional mines.
More seams lie within the 6000 square miles secretly transferred by the Labour government to English jurisdiction in 1999.
link to newsnetscotland.com
I have just looked at the BBC report on this.
“No” claims revenues will be £61.6bn.
“Yes” claims £365bn – six times higher.
MSM screams “Yes” overstates by 60%. (The detail states 45% to 60% too high). That would mean Wood is claiming £228bn to £251bn.
Why isn’t the headline that Wood’s figures are four times what “No” is claiming?
Why does Darling think this undermines Alec Salmon, and vindicates the “No” position?
There’s something I don’t get about the oil debate that you never see get asked or commented on.
We all know oil is finite it will run out. It might be 50 years or 100 years but it will end. However only the Yes side have explained how they will ensure that after oil Scotland continues to prosper by creation of an oil fund and moving to green energy.
What I would love someone to ask the No campaign is how in the event of a No vote Scotland will prosper and continue to be a net contributor to the UK treasury? Are they seriously saying that rUK will see us ok after the oil is gone? We get called subsidy junkies just now, what will it be like if it was actually true?
Well it looks as if they are trying hard to change the subject. NHS privatisation is a nippy sweetie to them. Lets hope the First Minister holds Darling’s feet to the fire on this vital matter
@westie7
I’ve noticed the ‘No Thanks’ notices along the A90 and they really rankle; not because they represent the opposition, but because of the cowardice they represent.
We claim the word ‘Yes’, because that is what will be on the voting paper. ‘Better Together’, however, doesn’t have the courage to claim the single word ‘No’.
Why ever not? That’s what they are advocating, after all – voting a big, fat ‘No’ to their country; not ‘No Thanks’. I’d have more respect if they stopped trying to smooth the abrasive edges of what they are really trying to do.
This oil scare has managed to deflect from Stiglitz announcing that Westminster is bluffing on a C.U.
I could be wrong but I can see no mention of his interview and statement on BBC.
That was the union terrace gardens project, and some of the idea’s for the gardens were terrible.
@heedtracker says:
“Wood is also a dominant figure in Aberdeen, the centre of the UK’s oil industry, where he offered to donate up to £75m for a public park redevelopment in the city centre, which was heavily backed by Salmond’s Scottish National party.
Lochside
You nailed it – beat me to it.
I was just about to reveal the secret of multiplying the value of oil revenues by a factor of 10. Simply vote Yes and 90% of tax revenues are divided between just over 8% of the population!
Sir Ian Wood’s report on maximising the barrels extracted pales somewhat in comparison.
Talk about oil all day if you like BTUKOKNOBNOMUCHOILTHANKSERS – it is one of your many achilles heels.
The Scottish people are too savvy to buy what you are selling.
As for Sir Ian’s disappearing billions of barrels… tricky stuff oil – volatile and hard to manage, difficult to get out of clothes, complex stuff. A pain in the arse if truth be told. Wonder why Sir Ian has devoted so much of his life on the bleedin stuff?
Ffs don’t let the bastards get us on the back foot with this pish. Get intae them. Gloves aff.
Yes did not see any reports on Stiglitz announcement, but I think we now know why the oil scare was a planted story just in time as if by magic.
@bunter says:
This oil scare has managed to deflect from Stiglitz announcing that Westminster is bluffing on a C.U.
I could be wrong but I can see no mention of his interview and statement on BBC.
All the no signs appear to be very similar and “just” inside each field whether in use or not, I would even go as far to suggest all the ones from AB-Dundee could have been flung up in one night as I’ve never seen them until very recently.
At least in my neck north of AB there’s not one no to be seen and that’s even where I know there are Tory fairmers’
No Thanks. Very very few people will be thankful if it’s a No win, a couple of years down the line.
In fact, I predict in two year’s time, no matter what the outcome, few will admit to having voted No. An iScotland will be successful. On the other hand a Scotland continuing within the UK will be a distaster.
Most will be utterly ashamed of their choice.
Anyone know where we can get large signs for fields etc. I’ve got just the place, on private ground, and can think of a good few others though if recent experience in Moray is anything to go by they may not last long.
Interesting piece over on NNS on Bad Blair’s role in vetoing the Scottish Six back in 2007.
oops I see Nana’s already been to NNS
After the massive BP Clare 640 million barrels oil field and huge Total Laggan Tomore Gas field which has 20% of UK’s known gas reserves, both of which due to come on stream within the next 12 months, a third massive oil field announced to-day due to begin production east of Shetland and could produce oil until 2050, it has emerged.
Notice that the BBC did not cover any of these announcements by the oil companies concerned.
Xcite Energy announced on 14th August that its Bentley find – one of the North Sea’s largest untapped resources – could produce more than 300 million barrels of oil over 35 years.
The firm plans to use enhanced oil recover techniques right from the start to maximise recovery.
Bentley – one of the North Sea’s largest undeveloped discoveries – could begin production next year, with an estimated 57,000 barrels of oil per day output.
A trading update yesterday revealed that the field has proven, probable and possible reserves totalling 317million barrels.
link to energyvoice.com
Bentley – one of the North Sea’s largest undeveloped discoveries – could begin production next year, with an estimated 57,000 barrels of oil per day output.
BP is in the process of investing £4.5 billion to unlock around 640 million barrels of oil from the giant Clair oil field
Some of the oil projects under way are:
link to energyvoice.com
• BP is in the process of investing £4.5 billion to unlock around 640 million barrels of oil from the giant Clair oil field (Clair Ridge phase two), which was discovered back in 1977 and is said to hold reserves of seven or eight billion barrels.
Oil is scheduled to start flowing to the Sullom Voe Terminal in late 2016. Peak production is expected to be in the region of 120,000 barrels per day, although some say it could be more.
• BP and its partners are also in the middle of a two-year appraisal programme for Clair Ridge phase three which involves drilling a number of appraisal wells.
• Total is investing well above £3 billion into the Laggan-Tormore project to tap into the huge gas reserves out west (equivalent to 20% of UK’s total reserves) . Part of the project is the construction of the Shetland Gas Plant, which currently employs 3,000 workers.
Laggan-Tormore is now due to come on stream in 2015, and there are plans in place to also develop the nearby Edradour and Glenlivit gas fields.
• BP is also redeveloping the Schiehallion oil field at a cost of around £3 billion by upgrading sub-sea infrastructure and replacing the floating, production, storage and offloading vessel with a new 270metre FSPO. The field is due to come back on stream in 2016.
• American oil company Chevron is meanwhile said to make an investment decision to develop the Rosebank reservoir in 2015. This could be in the region of £6 billion.
The company plans to link into existing pipeline infrastructure, but there is also talk about Chevron looking at building its own infrastructure in Shetland.
• Meanwhile, BP received planning permission to build a £500 million gas sweetening plant at the Sullom Voe Terminal. This investment is in addition to a £250 million refurbishment of the 35 year old terminal to serve the West of Shetland oil and gas developments.
• Hurricane Energy is looking to develop its light oil Lancaster and Whirlwind reservoirs, discovered in 2009 and 2011 near the established Schiehallion and Foinaven fields. Production tests using a pump achieved a flow rate of 9,800 barrels of oil per day, well above expectations.
• Premier Oil is currently investing £830 million to bring its Solan field on stream before the end of the year. Daily production is expected to be in the region of 20,000 barrels.
link to businessforscotland.co.uk
BuckieBraes
Talking of cowardice, was visiting a relative at the weekend. Get this: his neighbour had a ‘No Thanks’ poster on display on his back windae – looking out onto his large secluded garden, completely invisible from the front of the house! Honestly, if you can picture the most affluent cul de sac in leafy Edinburgh where no one ever goes!
So he could hardly be afraid of having a brick pit through his window. Ashamed? I don’t know. Talk about hiding your light under a bushel!
OT
Might be worth spreading this video to the undecided, saw it linked on EU Citizens for Independent Scotland facebook.
link to youtube.com
There is something decidedly repellent about a vastly wealthy man telling the population they will be poorer if empowered.
Ian Wood offered ip to £80million for the UTG project which would have predestrianised the City. UTG the black hole in the centre of Aberdeen. It was supported by SNP and Unionists. 45,000 people voted in favour. SNP have majority of council numbers but as usual the Unionist ignorantly combined to reject the Project. Labour got 16,000 votes. The one Green 600? votes ( voted in to stop the AWPR) is now running the City.
B. Crockett has been demoted by his own collegues for his ignorance. While the most unpopular politician in the NE Willy Young continues with his ignorant plans to create traffic chaos and try and bankrupt the City. The plans to block off Broad Street are now being contested by the major retailers who realise their business prospects are being jeopardised by the ignoramuses. Who incidentally voted against the AWPR for 30 years, putting two hours on to many people working day and causing traffic chaos.
The ‘new’ plan is to create offices in the city centre (with a square) on lease from a construction company for thirty years, which will be 30 times more expensive. Ie Knock down one monstrosity to build another.
Many visitors can’t stay in the City because of a lack of hotels. The Art Gallery is being vandalised for £33Million. The Council premises were refurbishes at a cost of £65Million. Nothing but the best for ACC dunderheids or some neeps in the Shire. The millionaire councillors do not inspire.
the Ian Wood oil splash is a deliberate and desperate distraction from the NHS story which is getting the wind up a lot of people both North and South of the Border
We need to keep pushing that one because it is working…..lets keep the focus and keep the faith and we will win….
Jim Murphy on STV now ….shouting in a High Street again and talking to Bernard Ponsonby ‘its great politics’ he says…
Rona has just advised that they tried to get an interview with Flipper but he is unavailable! FFS the leader of the No camp is unavailable Jeezo Ponsonby’s talking tae Skull
@ Jim Murphy
As a Labour Friend of Israel, how do you see Zionism progressing human civilization?
link to mondoweiss.net
The Wood review can be seen here and it’s well worth a read:
link to woodreview.co.uk
The review takes the low estimate of 12 billion barrels, although it seems Mr Wood has found another 4 bbl since February. The 24 billion barrels figure that the Scottish government gives (and is currently getting panned for) is the mid estimate and the high estimate is 35 billion barrels.
The Wood review (page 5 note 4) takes these numbers from er:
link to gov.uk
Another excellent source from his report is:
link to cld.bz
although I recommend downloading and reading as a pdf. It goes some way to explaining the reasons for the current low levels of production and revenues from taxation.
To be fair the BBC quotes verbatim from page 9 of Mr Wood’s report here:
link to bbc.co.uk
although interestingly it stops before the bit that says:
“To-date HM Treasury has received more than £310 billion in production taxes…”
or the bit that goes:
“In 2012-13 the industry paid £6.5 billion in corporate taxes on production, over 15% of all corporate taxes in the UK, and made a contribution of £39 billion to the UK balance of payments.”
Another reason why we are “better together” perhaps?
progressing = advance (give me a break 🙂 )
All of Scotland should refuse to pay the BBC tv licence.
They don’t deserve a single penny from any Scottish viewer.
Shame on you BBC.. your time will come!!!
Of course, if they dare try to pull that “oil is a UK asset” nonsense, then the Scottish government will just insist on the immediate removal of Trident, forget about paying UK debt, insist on the UK honouring their guarantee of pensions, and not bother with the currency union that is far more crucial to England’s finances than to Scotland’s.
That’s the crazy thing about the SNP’s pro-EU, pro-NATO and pro-currency union stance: these aren’t for the benefit of Scotland, they’re for the benefit of the rest of the world. Scotland outside the EU would be a nightmare for the EU, especially Spain for the fishing and Germany for the oil; Scotland outside of NATO would be a nightmare in leaving the North Sea unpatrolled; Scotland outside of a currency union would be a nightmare for the UK’s economy and any other country that utilises the pound. If Scotland did take this hyper-isolationist route, then we’d be in an extremely powerful position. But we don’t, because that’s not the sort of nation we want to be.
While I’m confident of a Yes vote, I do often wonder in a “what-if” sense what would happen if there was a No vote.
In that case, I think the SNP (and SSP, Greens, and any other pro-independence party, or perhaps a whole coalition) should just put UDI in their 2016 manifesto, under the proviso that everyone who voted No was ultimately lied to and betrayed by the UK government and their friends in Better Together, and that Westminster’s further cuts will ultimately endanger the wellbeing of the entire population. I sincerely doubt anyone voting No is voting in favour of more deaths and impoverishment brought by austerity, a possible repeal of the Human Rights Act, and a *weaker* Scottish Parliament.
What’s going to be worse for Scotland, the considerable risks inherent in UDI, or having a budget slashed to £9 BILLION, thousands more pushed into poverty and death, and the possibility of the Scottish Parliament being neutered entirely? If Westminster wants to play hardball, we should play hardball right back. And once again, even if UDI risks our place in the EU or NATO, it’s simply too risky for both those organisations to just freeze Scotland out.
You know things are bad when UDI seems the less dangerous option.
This is what happens when the government lies about Scotland being subsidised: the eventual backlash from the English and promises of a “heavy price” can’t do anything BUT push more people to Yes. Who on earth would want to remain in a union where your far more numerous southern neighbours want to see you impoverished because they’ve been told your free prescriptions/tuition/elderly care is funded by “their” money? This lie of the Scots receiving an “extra” £1,400 per head in spending has come around to bite them in the erse.
Because the UK government has managed to convince the rest of the UK that a currency union is not in the UK’s own interests. The UK government has successfully convinced the people of England that a currency union would be a favour to the Scots, when the reality is the reverse. Thus, if Scots go independent, the English will “punish” them by denying them a currency union – even though such institutions as the Adam Smith Institute think sterlingisation would be BETTER for Scots, while ruinous to the UK. They’ve thus managed to get the English to vote against their own interests.
@bunter
Here is the link to Stiglitz’s comments:
link to bbc.co.uk
@Andy-B
“The Tory leader said he would deliver a referendum on wider Assembly powers if that was in line with people’s wishes.
“What we’ve said is that if the people of Wales want to have that referendum we won’t stand in their way.
“That will be granted and that’s exactly what would happen.”
________________________________
Why then was it stipulated that the question of more devolved powers for Scotland would not be allowed on the referendum ballot paper?
Undernourished, cold, worried people get sick. Poverty causes higher NHS spending.
The Herald running a totally dishonest article suggesting Professor Joseph Stilgitz is an ‘SNP Expert’:
link to heraldscotland.com
Gardham knows no shame.
The Adam Smith Institute has released this:
link to adamsmith.org
Can only be good for our campaign.
Or will they start shouting Plan C!
There is currently only one way for you as an individual to punish the BBC; do not pay the propaganda tax or as the Establishment likes to dress it up; the TV Licence. I stopped paying it after deciding not to watch “live TV”.
“Live TV” includes all channels on any main TV platform, including Freeview, Virgin or Sky or any +1 rebroadcasters.
Internet-only services such as YouTube or Netflix don’t count though, so you don’t need a licence for those.
If you only watch content AFTER it’s been shown on television for example, you do NOT need a licence. This includes watching TV programmes downloaded or streamed after broadcast using a catch-up service like BBC i-Player.
But you can’t get around the anachronistic tax by simply recording “live TV” using TiVO on a VCR or digital recorder & choosing to watch it later. You’ll still need a TV licence if you record “live TV” content at the time of broadcast.
Many wrongly believe that you need a licence if you have the ability to watch “live TV”, even if you don’t watch it. This is an urban myth.
The other option you may have is to vote YES next month & then begin the process of lobbying for a new state broadcaster.
heedtracker writes, “English people I know say its all bullshit, the English don’t like many countries but they really hate each other.” Really? Is that sophisticated judgement based on any evidence or just on prejudice?
If a unionist wrote that “you Scots really hate each other”, I’m sure he’d be accused of prejudice, if not worse.
Let’s, please, try to keep the level of debate above generalisations about ‘national characteristics’.
This is what you scots get for trying to break up the union. London will punish you.
John H. says:
20 August, 2014 at 8:21 pm
heedtracker 8.12.
Did you notice the Alex Salmond squeezy stress doll advertised next to the article you linked to?Oh how they hate him. 🙂
That bloody thing makes me twitch every time I look at a Guardian article now. I am trying to work out if it is a studied insult or just tactless marketing. I notice there isn’t an equivalent squeezy Darling 😛
From left to right… Laurel and Hardy… Oddjob…John Cleese… Stein from the Avengers…. knew I recognised those bowler hats…
[…] link to wingsoverscotland.com […]
[…] IT WORTHWHILE? No. It’s a massive trap that will cost Scotland billions. And Labour knows it, which is why it’s so feeble compared to the more extensive Tory […]
Here is a quote from elsewhere on your website,
DR IAN DUNCAN MEP (Conservative)
“If you look back over the last 50 years, the answer to your question is ‘sometimes’. The answer of course depends upon oil. If you look at the Scottish Government’s Expenditure and Revenue Report (2011/2012) you will see that excluding North Sea oil, the Scottish Government’s revenues were £46.2bn.
Add on the oil revenues on a per capita basis (Scotland’s share of the UK population) and revenues are £47.2bn. Add on the oil revenues using the reports ‘illustrative’ geographical basis and they are £56.8bn. Spending in that year was £64.4bn. So without the oil, Scotland would have had a deficit of around 11%. With it, one of 2.3%.
Alex Massie has recently written on this subject, which you may find useful (link)“
A factual AND honest answer. Not bad at all.
The last line is your own comment. I’m confused now – in this report you say Scotland contributes more than it receives from the UK government yet the above statement, admittedly this is for one year it shows it didn’t. Also, as someone has already pointed out costs to run Scotland will go up following independence as it will be necessary to run all our own government agencies.
“admittedly this is for one year”
That’s the key. Last year was a freak one in which HUGE investment in the North Sea was offset against tax. For something like 28 of the last 30 years Scotland has contributed more than it got back. Dr Duncan is technically correct, but somewhat disingenuous.
Came to the article via Smith Commission article today.
I’m confused, which maybe isn’t difficult, but should we be going after more or fewer powers in order to avoid this apparent trap?
I do appreciate lots of issues are made up from competing but balancing factors but sometimes it’s hard to get your head around them and some advice/guidance that helps fix some, which Wings does help provide, is often required.
I guess that “plea” applies to lots of things.
TOO LATE, TOO LATE!!
AH, but there’s a Holyrood election in 2016. If there is a massive rebellion against what the Tories are doing with the collusion of Labour and the Lib Dems we we must demand that the SNP include another referendum in their manifesto. We must vote for the SNP and for the second vote, vote for the Greens from the list candidates. and We must also act to get the information Stuart has given out to the general public.
horacesaysyes says:
20 August, 2014 at 2:06 pm
“I know the arguements against being see as being ‘negative’, but this is the sort of thing that Salmond should have been raising during the last TV debate, when he had the opportunity of unfiltered access to a large percentage of the Scottish population.
I hope he doesn’t miss the chance during the next one.”
Could not agree more with this, the SNP as the party in government, the ones responsible for running this country & finally hopefully leading us to INDEPENDENCE, must do of a better job of talking to the people of this country.
Taking every chance they get, to enlighten the people to what is really happening now, and what it could all mean for the future.
As much as I enjoy WINGS & use it for most of the information about our fight for INDEPENDENCE, surely if Stu can explain the ins and outs to us, then So MUST the SNP..