Different challenges
Norway is a country with a slightly smaller population than Scotland, with more difficult territory and climate. It discovered oil in its territorial waters at the same time as Scotland, and in broadly similar quantities. While Scotland’s standard of living is in freefall, like that of the rest of the UK, due to Tory austerity cuts brought about in large part by Labour’s spectacular failure to tackle inequality in “boom” times, this is how our neighbours across the North Sea are doing:
“Norway, which goes to the polls tomorrow, faces a strange problem: too much money. The Nordic country, an island of prosperity in ailing Europe, faces an embarrassment of riches as it tries to figure out how to spend its huge pile of oil money without damaging the economy in the long run.”
Better Together? The best of both worlds? Yeah, right.
”We fear that a split would lead to an unfortunate competition between funds, which could lead to higher risk-taking and too much weight being put on achieving short-term results,’ financial daily Dagens Naeringsliv quoted deputy finance minister Hilde Singsaas as saying’.
link to xe.com
Now that’s the kind of problems you could live with
Too much money and nowhere to spend it. What a terrible affliction.
YES Scotland.
Simple. It just needs to give its oil money to Sweden. Problem solved.
You see??!!!?? The promised curse of such a volatile and unpredictable resource!!!
Um….well, maybe not, Westminster. Just because you could ‘disappear’ it really fast on a number of self-serving vanity projects, doesn’t put you ahead of ‘those crazy Norwegians’…….
I’m sure Osborne is looking at that with a sympathetric eye and saying
“These are exactly the problems I have been warning those ingrate Jockanese bastards about. They are just too stupid to see that we protecting from this ridiculous and frankly undeserved prosperity and helping to keep them in the economic gutter where they belong and are, if only they would face up to it, happiest. In short I am a misunderstood philanthropist”
Know your opponents
link to scotsman.com
Small is beautiful is the message we must get over to the doubters
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has measured the best place to be born in 2013 and illustrates which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead.
1. Switzerland
2. Australia
3. Norway
4. Sweden
5. Denmark
6. Singapore
7. New Zealand
8. Netherlands
9. Canada
10. Hong Kong
11. Finland
12. IRELAND
The fourth most unequal country in the developed world, Great Britain is way down in 27th place
Wonder if there’s any chance Norway could give us a “payday loan” till 2016?
So where did all ‘our’ money go?
Did it go on making a ‘few’ people really, really rich or was it squandered on a few wars because the map used to be pink?
Or has it gone somewhere else?
Anyone know?
“So where did all ‘our’ money go?
Did it go on making a ‘few’ people really, really rich or was it squandered on a few wars because the map used to be pink?”
Both of those.
The Labour Party, who keeps ‘reminding’ us that they are the Party who cares about the people, stood by and watched our resources be frittered away on supporting first the Tory Governments and then Labour Governments. but only to keep them in power.
No investments, no savings, just raw political self serving. And their supporters just keep on thinking it is OK, while repeating the same mantra, now we will change things. Why didn’t they before. Rhetorical question.
A large chunk would of went into maggies war chest needed to destroy the unions
There is an assumption that the politicians and big players in an independant Scotland would be ethical working for the common good. The indications to me are that we would be some way between Norway and Zimbabwe. Also, the crude oil supply is not guaranteed to be all Scotland’s. Shetland might decide to go it alone. Part of the North Sea logically belongs to England.
It would be nice to have a significant supply of ready money from oil revenues but we have to look at the basic economy. Could we survive without oil. We have the potential to be world class, however, with my experience in the industrial world of the central belt, we are lions led by donkeys, and that may never change.
“we have to look at the basic economy. Could we survive without oil.”
Yes. We currently produce 99% of the UK’s GDP-per-head figure WITHOUT oil, and that’s on figures which by their nature are heavily skewed against Scotland (eg Corporation Tax generated in Scotland not being attributed to Scotland).
Adding to my earlier comment on Labour and its, ‘now we will change things’, claims.
Douglas Alexander recently on the oil wealth, “We should have set up a wealth fund when we were in power”.
Gordon Brown recently, “We should have put a written constitution in place, when we were in power”. and “We have a big idea”.
FairBairn
They would be in dire straights if they did, Alistair darling told us the oil is going to run out in 2017!
May I suggest a friendly ‘union’, with Norway, they keep their oil money and we keep ours and we learn from them how to use it properly. You know what I mean, use the cash for the benefit of the people of Scotland just now and in the future, instead of seeing it disappear down south into a Westminster hole.
Hail Alba
Fairbairn
The politicians in an independent Scotland would be the ones we elected, and could therefore reject if they turned out to be unfit for the job. Which is a damned sight better than we have at the moment.
@FairBairn – there is lots of research around the subject of Scotland, North Sea Borders and the role of Shetland post independence to allay your fears. There is no evidence that Shetland “wants to go it alone” and no mechanism under the Edinburgh agreement even if they did. They are part of Scotland, and until there is a political party in Shetland that stands on a full independendence for those islands ticket, and wins, they will be. Any other option – crown dependancy, remaining part of the rUK, only leaves them in the same postion as the Isle of Man, Channel Islands, ie with a 12 mile sea border. And no oil fields are within that 12 mile limit.
On the North sea split – under international law, Scotland has about 90% of the current Oil Fields in the waters around the British Isles. Gas a lot less.
@FairBairn
So we’ll be Niger? At least my fluent French will come in handy. It’s up to all of us in an independent Scotland to make sure we have more competent people in all areas of Scottish life.
Sound like you’re giving up before getting started.
Fairbairn
Zimbabwe? Are you serious? Most African countries try to avoid being a Zimbabwe let along anywhere else.
Yes there is a bit of the North Sea that is English and it goes all the way down to the Channel. This is a given, it doesn’t alter the fact that most of the oil is in the Scottish sector of the North Sea off and to the north of Aberdeen, East of Shetland and with the news fields increasingly in the Atlantic to the north west of Scotland. The oil is there and it is a nice to have. However, there are a lot of small prosperous European countries that are not blessed with Scotland’s resources. There is nothing to stop us being a successful trading nation without the oil. The oil is just a bonus.
As to leaders, well isn’t a problem regardless? Are Cameron and Milliband any less donkey like? Do other countries not feel their leaders are donkeys too? An independent Scotland with a robust constitution would be one way of mitigating the risk of an outbreak of donkeys.
isnt it criminal to hide the truth such as the mcrone report?
Speaking of Zimbabwe, didn’t the Conservatives and Lib Dems just steal the last UK general election by printing obviously fraudulent general election manifestos in order to steal votes?
In Zimbabwe and Putin’s Russia such practices get called election fraud by our ethical London-centric news media. When Westminster parties do it they call it British democracy.
It goes without saying that unlike Norwegians who will get the government they vote for, Scots don’t. Hence the reason we are Western Europe’s biggest oil producer and also home to Western Europe’s biggest poverty black-spots and areas of social deprivation, and its getting worse.
The UK is like the couples who win the lottery and instead of investing their winnings and living very well off the interest, they piss away the capital. Then you read about them in the Daily Record being highlighted as the biggest loser in the country.
Zimbabwe has FPTP elections as per Westminster. Iran and Yemen too. So I guess you might argue that’s where we’d be starting from.
Where does our oil money go?. Well a good bit will go on Trident renewal and upgrade, estimated at about £100 Billion, also some could go on a rail project to bring even more investment to the South East of England. A very fast train from Manchester to London (HS2), also estimated to cost in the region of £50Billion to £100 Billion, so on TWO projects that will do absolutely nothing for the Scottish economy, you could be looking at a total of £200 Billion. Fully backed by the Labour Party. Explain that to Mrs Aldi in Easterhouse Johan.
Fairbairn,
I know exactly where your coming from on this. The central belt was a powerhouse of heavy industry many years ago (Coal, Steel & iron works, shipbuilding to name a few).
The Westminster donkeys that have led the lions up to now have done what exactly? They’ve systematically destroyed it and put much of the populous on the dole. A dole queue that’s been funded by the oil wealth we should be saving like our Norwegian neighbours.
The greatest irony for me is that the “Iron Lady” (The French name for the Eiffel Tower) still stands proud in Paris; built with Lanarkshire Steel & Iron. Sadly the donkeys in Westminster swept away the central belt artisans that crafted it to the scrapheap. No one in Scotland was ever given the opportunity to do things differently or to make a go of it. It was cruelly taken away. These people were forgotten until devolution. That’s when the reinvestment started. A Scots parliament looking after Scots!
Isn’t it time we took control of the wheel? Can we really do any more damage to industry that hasn’t already been done by a UK economy that’s geared up for services & the financial sector? A country that’s so London centric that we now see a wicked attack on people with a spare room in order to solve a problem that only exists in London?
We both know that things need to change. We cannot continue to allow fellow Scots to suffer at the hands of Westminster.
We have already proven that where we have control, we do a far better job of meeting the needs of Scotland. We must now do the right thing and take control of the rest.
There will be no hiding place for those bereft of conviction and those who have spent their political career playing the game. The days of turning up and taking a salary will be gone. We CAN boot these people in the political bollocks.
The most important part for me is that for the first time in my life my vote WILL count in a general election. There will be no middle England to gazump the will of the Scots electorate.
Noways’ solution. After Scottish Independence buy Scotland’s oil tax rights for £300bn?
Discount for Norway in lieu of a lump sum payment. We use the £300bn to establish a national wealth fund. Use £100bn to invest in the Scottish economy. Take a 4% annual income-£12bn a year.
Here is the archive link (to avoid click-throughs) to the article which Another London Dividend posted:
Eddie Barnes: Reasons for backing the Union
“Here is the archive link (to avoid click-throughs)”
Oh phew. When I tried to use archive.is on those articles this morning it wasn’t working, I feared it had died.
See Calman was right, so much money we would have been embarassed by it
Norway has a state oil company, Statoil. It has produced superb standards for Oil Engineering and encouraged Norwegian companies to develop products that are sold world wide.
The UK had BNOC/Britoil….. subsumed and neutered.
Truly a Union Dividend.
Hail Alba
Derisory snort for the land of hope and glory drivel from Mr Barnes and come to think of it Mr Cameron.
Not to mention the utter ordure – no comments please I’m British – from Baloney writer in the DT
Baheid has the right of it; the first splurge of oil money was spent by Witch Thatcher to pay the dole for everyone she put out of work; shutting down steelworks, dockyards and coalmines in order to destroy the power of the unions, and therefore destroying “socialism”, her avowed long-term aim.
Thereafter the oil money went on tax cuts for the already rich friends of the tories, then for those who could be converted to toryism, including the Labour type of tory when they were in Government.
Roger Terrett
And The City Of London, building the M25 etc.
Remember that dreary old complaint “Too wee, too poor, too stupid”? The unionists still use it as their chief argument albeit hidden behind varying degrees of sophistry, spin and statistics. Norway puts a lie to it. Norway is “Wee, wealthy, wise.” I hope we can emulate them soon.
Now, I’m off to listen to some Grieg in the hope that some norseness will rub off on me.
@rabb (12.14)
Well said that man.
FairBairn’s last sentence
[We have the potential to be world class, however, with my experience in the industrial world of the central belt, we are lions led by donkeys, and that may never change.]
is similar to a comment made by an ‘undecided but leaning towards No’ friend of mine the other day.
He said his main fear about independence is that we would be dominated by the mediocre and corrupt Labourite political culture of the west central belt. He was worried that, once these people (the ones beating the Union drum at the moment) re-grouped after independence, they would take over Scottish national politics and run the country into the ground.
My response was pretty much along the lines of most of the replies appearing above. The dinosaurs will be extinct in due course. We must have faith in our own people to build a better country.
I keep get this Shetland myth from plonkers like FairBairn who spring it on you like it’s the best piece of devastating destruction of the case for independence that anybody ever heard.
It’s old news and has been comprehensively debunked not least because Shetland doesn’t want to be an independent country (though that is their right if they so choose) but also because if they wanted to stay with England they would become merely an enclave in Scottish territorial waters and the good folk of Shetland know that their best interests lie in being a hard working community providing efficient services to the North Sea oil industry
An independent Scotland will give Shetland (and Orkney) much more devolution
It is symptomatic of the almost total lack of any coherent Better Together case that this is the sort of wheeze they are reduced to. We have to be aware however that the uniformed swallow this kind of nonsense and it is very useful to move the economic argument away from the benefits of the oil bonus to the realities of a Scottish economy that is outperforming the English one, that is the second most prosperous part of the UK after the South East of England (whose economy is dangerously reliant on the distressed financial services industries). Scotland has a fair better balanced economy than the UK as a whole from which Scotland is deriving inadequate benefit.
We should sidestep the bandying about of figures which are largely irrelevant or beyond the interest and informed comprehension to many people in a political argument and concentrate on the basic facts of our economy.
Against a situation, in particularly the south of England, of overcrowding with a growing shortage of water, a growing shortfall in power generation and the ability to generate power. an increasing inability to feed itself,a huge shortage of appropriate and affordable housing, vast disparity in wealth with massive wages alongside grinding poverty Scotland has a surfeit of water, produces surplus electricity, has the capacity to feed itself, has huge potentially useful open spaces and retains largely a social coherence which will serve us well in independence. And of course there is no way we want to be independent just so we can continue to mismanage our economy the way it has been mismanaged for the last fifty years. So much of the “facts” used against us rely on a peculiar notion that we would run ourselves the same way we have been mismanaged from London
The oil is merely a bonus but it has always been a double edged sword. It ,as McCrone pointed out, removed forever the argument that we couldn’t afford to be independent, but at the same time it provided the biggest reason for London to want to hang onto us which in panicked desperation they are trying to do now..
You know Grieg was of Scottish descent? The name was Greig, but his father or grandfather switched the vowels after emigrating to Norway. Almost certainly a MacGregor, with the name changed after it was proscribed.
Morag,
I certainly did know about Edvard Grieg’s ancestry. He’s a great example of what Scotland and Norway have shared over the centuries.
Of course their are many more examples. Think of the “Shetland Bus”, for instance, or Edinburgh’s civic Christmas tree.
BuckieBraes
Correct!
There will be no hiding place for these people because the buck will stop with them.
Unlike Westminster, we can boot them out of power in a heartbeat. That in itself will be the catalyst that rids Scotland of the fucking ineptitude that’s on show.
Those with the ingenuity and drive to move Scotland on will come to the fore as the aforementioned ineptitude is cast into the bin.
Buy your Yes ticket, take your seat and watch the show get on the road
Westminster will look on in horror as rUK population see how it can be done. This is the sole reason they are shitting themselves and will go to almost any lengths to stop it happening.
By voting Yes your not only doing yourself a favour, your doing those suffering in England, Wales & NI a favour too.
Yes makes sense.
Maggie destroyed the unions – we can destroy the Union!
Thanks for all the replies above. I find that there are far better discussions on a lot of blogs than from the ‘official’ mouthpieces. ‘How do you know if a politician is lying. His mouth is moving’.
My own view on independance is that Britain would be better as a federation of Scotland, England, Wales, and a united Ireland. It is the British Isles. We have so much in common, we have to stand united against potential threats which may arise in the future. If we had been independant over fifty years ago, we would probably be speaking german now.
We should have as much freedom as possible to make our own decisions and benefit from areas of cooperation where bigger is better.
@Fairbairn
There is no desire for a British federation in London/SE England. Indeed why should there be? Therefore it’s never going to happen.
we would probably be speaking german now.
I hope you’re not suggesting an independent Scotland would not have fought alongside its allies against Nazism.
Fairbairn,
As a member of NATO & the EU (Which we will be despite the scaremongering from pro union politicians) we will already benefit of being part of something bigger. There is no way on gods earth rUK, NATO or EU members would allow Scotland to be attacked or invaded and let me assure you there is no way on god’s earth I would sit back and allow rUK to be invaded either.
I would die for these islands but that doesn’t mean I want to be ruled by a government in London that is morally the polar opposite of everything I believe in and care only for a the few.
Anyway, who will we be attacked by and for what reason? Its not even an argument.
This may come as a shock but despite being a firm committed yes supporter, I also have family ties in England. The social union that politicians speak of is most definitely alive and well. It’s about the only shred of truth that comes from unionist politicians and that will not go away.
All I can say is please don’t base your decision on a bunch of politicians who would have you believe that the sky will fall in with independence. It’s nonsense and you will regret it.
These people are scared of two things, losing control & losing financial gain. End of!
The facts are out their and listed on this site in numerous articles. Scotland is a resource rich country with the potential to put London to shame. Let’s do it and show the people of the rest of these islands that things can be done better
You’ll be doing them a favour.
@Fairbairn
A lot of very bad decisions have been made in the past in the central belt. There’s an argument, which contains truth, that the old heavy industries were no longer viable because they were being undercut by countries with more modern technology and cheaper labour. But we fairly threw the baby of a skilled workforce out with the bathwater when they were closed. Instead of looking carefully at what we could produce that was efficient and marketable, and throwing money at that, we (that is to say Westminster) decided to mop up unemployment by subsidised initiatives such as the farcical BMC plant at Bathgate, which inevitably went down the plughole in due course. It was not much better further North, with the ‘package tour’ style hotel on Barra – etc. etc.
But please note that that generation of Scottish Office czars is long gone. If you look at the report to the NE English councils…
link to northeastcouncils.gov.uk
…you will see their concern that the current mechanism for attracting inward investment to Scotland is better than anything they have.
Sure, there are dunderhead managers and civil servants around still. But don’t you think that the cold shower of being on their own without a safety net won’t make them raise their game? I do.
@rabb
I’ll return the compliment and say, ‘Correct!’
A federal arrangement for the UK (or even, as FairBairn suggests, the whole British Isles) is a logical arrangement – better than the dog’s dinner we have a present – but it’s not going to happen. (Personally, I still want independence anyway.)
Of course we share a history with England and so there is no reason why the social union with that great country should be diminished; in fact there are positive and exciting ways in which our independence might allow it to be strengthened. Hey! Let’s call it the ‘special relationship’!
One of my grannies was English. Doesn’t stop me from supporting independence.
Incidental, Oslo and Harare are separated by roughly 8,720 km.