The squandered bounty
It’s long been a bone of contention for Scots – and not just nationalists – that the UK government, by common agreement, wasted the vast wealth windfall of the North Sea on funding Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s programme of deliberate de-industrialisation, mass unemployment, huge tax cuts for the wealthy and bribes to the working class in the form of Right To Buy.
It did so rather than investing the proceeds in a sovereign wealth fund, as demanded by the SNP (and some elements of Labour) and practiced in Norway, whose fund – only set up in 1990 – is now a literal embarrassment of riches.
But the reality is even worse than that. Because according to a 2015 report by the National Resource Governance Institute that’s just come to our attention, the truth is that if the UK had managed its North Sea treasure better, it could have done both.
We’ll leave you to read the full report for yourself. But if you’re in a hurry, this extract will give you the gist:
Or if you’re REALLY pressed for time, here it is as a cartoon.
A right-wing privatisation ideology undertaken by Westminster governments that were rejected by Scotland at every election has already thrown away vastly more money from the North Sea – literally hundreds of billions of pounds, enough money to completely fund the entire Scottish Government budget for a decade – than it’s made.
That milk is spilt now. But there are still tens of billions of barrels of oil off Scotland’s shores. It’s still not too late to take control of it and do an infinitely better job for the future than Westminster has done in the past and present.
Scotland has also been blessed by fate with a second generous gift, an almost unmeasurable potential for renewables, which risks suffering the same fate if it remains in the hands of the Conservatives, even before considering the impact of a loss of EU subsidies as a result of Brexit.
Whether Scotland can afford to lose out on such a massive scale twice in the space of a couple of generations is a question only its people can answer.
You’d need a heart of stone not weep at lost opportunities, or the wasted lives and industry.
The suffering and misery caused by successive governments and their epic mishandling of our resources and the overall economy has been nothing short of criminal.
One of the great crimes perpetrated by Westminster, theft of Scotland’s oil, and squandering it on gambling and money laundering.
For that reason alone Scotland should eject corrupt UK rule.
If Scotland does not vote Yes for IndyRef2, then there is something seriously wrong somewhere.
You do make my blood boil sometimes, Rev.
This is a scandal of epic proportions.
FFS SCOTLAND. OPEN YOUR EFFING EYES AND SEE HOW WESTIMINSTER RULE IS SHAFTING YOU STUPID.
Pointing out what McCrone did all those years ago Scotland would have been rich beyond its wildest dreams – yes there is still a chance but this report will be ignored and poo poo’d by the better together mob. Until we get independence we will never reap the benefits of our own resources which will be continually eroded by policies from corrupt incompetent unionists who are only out to fill their own pockets.
Another brilliant analysis Stuart and one that merits being printed on a leaflet and distributed through letterboxes throughout Scotland.
For the old neighbours who don’t use the internet, it’s a matter of print PDF, copy, circulate.
Nothing can be done about lost opportunities other than try and avoid similar in the future. Obviously that would require a structural analysis that might actually discover gross criminality, such as the deception of the McCrone Report being hidden from Scots.
@ HMG
What about the people of Scotland’s Right to Development?
link to un.org
[…] Wings Over Scotland The squandered bounty It’s long been a bone of contention for Scots – and not just nationalists – that […]
My family think I am overly grumpy these days but it just breaks my heart to see this wonderful and potentially rich country being systematically robbed of its wealth. When I encounter voter apathy/ignorance on the doorstep it makes my blood boil. I know we should reaching out to previous ‘NO’ voters but underneath I feel like screaming that these idiots (sorry I forgot myself there) have kept this country back for most of my working life. I am now nearing 70 and have 4 young grandchildren and next to my famiuly my country is the next most important thing to me and I am determined not to let them down. If anyone visiting WOS is still undecided about where this country’s future lies then you need to take a long hard look at yourself and get of your butt and get involved in freeing this country from these loathsome Union.
An imperial power is not in the business of finding oil & gas and then giving the proceeds to the natives.
The quicker No voters realise that they are no different in English eyes than Australian Aborigines or North American Red Indians, the better.
Call me paranoid, but I am convinced that the recent cuts to renewable subsidies and carbon capture schemes were a direct attack on emerging Scottish industries in anticipation of a possible IndyRef2.
So, roughly, every Norwegian was paid £240 whilst every person in the UK was paid £7.69. Even if indy Scotland had managed the resource as poorly as the UK (which we definitely would not) we’d have been paid £100 per person in Scotland rather than £7.69.
Get a grip, Scotland.
The question is, in an independent Scotland would it be possible to restructure the industry so more revenue goes into public hands?
But this is the exact antithesis of endless and massive BBC led propaganda, Scots oil bad, UKOK oil good.
Apart from the 55% NO 2014, Scots oil bad is one of the BBC’s greatest propaganda triumphs in the modern era. And if UKOK reality for the Scotland region makes you mad, for christ sake never ever visit Norway.
Benn’s diaries at the time reveal that North Sea Oil and Gas was seen as a bonanza for Westminster to get them out of a financial hole. Didn’t stop Callaghan going to the IMF for loans which, in Benn’s opinion, were no longer needed now that oil was on stream.
Criminal? A human rights crime IMO.
How could anyone possibly believe that Scotland could not make a better job of managing its own resources than an English government in London? It really is time for the Kingdom to become untied.
Tragic. What a senseless waste. The worst disgrace IMO is not so much that WM squandered the vast wealth of the North Sea, and that the people were duly duped.
No, the most disgusting aspect of this entire sorry affair is that the politicians of Scotland allowed it to happen. I suppose they were too busy feeding themselves at the trough to worry about the people they were supposed to be representing.
A question for all No voters:
If North Sea oil & gas made Norway so wealthy, how did the same amount of oil & gas leave Scotland so poor?
We (Scotland) must escape the thieves in suits, that claim to represent our interests; when in fact they care about London’s interests second, and their own first.
If we do not, we are doomed to repeat history, we will be ripped off again; to pay for the money men’s gambling habits and the pretence of a “Great” Britain.
@ Manandboy – I was reminded of the Ogoni people in the Niger delta. More dangerous for them and Ken Sara Wiwa, who was judicially murdered by the state for protesting about the destruction of their economy.
link to platformlondon.org
Sorry only one word springs to mind, BASTSARDS! a bunch of fucking Bastards.
sorry that two words, but I don’t know of any other that describes that rat infested sewer full of the most disgusting specimens of political scum known to man, that calls itself westminster that whore mother of all parliaments!
I think, perhaps we need to produce a Wee Oil Book, just to highlight how well Norway has done and how much we have been shat on. Something we can deliver to everyone’s door. People need to be reminded every bloody day until it finally sinks in.
@ Manandboy
“A question for all No voters:
If North Sea oil & gas made Norway so wealthy, how did the same amount of oil & gas leave Scotland so poor?>/i>
‘Cause we’re subsidie junkies, dontcha know.
Please everyone:
I posted at 12:49 on end of last thread as I did not want to
spoil the fun we were all having,please take a few minutes to
look back,it’s not just ourselves that we could be helping with an oil fund, I know all Wingers would wish to help others
also.Thank you
Peace Always ALLWAYS
That Norwegian Wealth Fund is definitely badass!
link to archive.is
When I see people I know struggling to make ends meet and failing—-I weep.
Yet another example of bad government within the union but, looking to the future, we cannot look at fossil fuels as a source of revenue to be exploited to the full. We have to leave them in the ground just as far as we possibly can.
And before North Sea oil was squandered the UK pissed away the Marshall Aid that it got from the US after 1945. The UK got $2.7 billion as against the $1.7 billion that West Germany got. The Germans invested in productive assets and the UK …….. didn’t.
link to bbc.co.uk
Then what about all the money the UK government got from selling public assets from the 1980’s onwards.
And yet they have the nerve to state that Scotland couldn’t manage itself. Add in the McCrone report about things could have been and it beggars belief that the Yes vote wasn’t and isn’t around 80%.
Ive always said Westminster is a haven for organised crime syndication posing as political authority.
How much more evidence is needed to prove the point?
The deliberate syphoning of public funding into private pockets is just a singular example of the multitude of crimes perpetrated under the guise of Government.
Problem is people are too busy dealing with their own day to day shit to care or take any notice let alone protest.
And so it will continue.
Stu
According to the disloyal Red Tory MP for Morningside, we dealt with all this nonsense two years ago and the SNP should get on with the day job and sort out their mess.
From to-day’s Edinburgh Evening News
link to archive.is
Would love that Chris Cairns cartoon on a t shirt. Any chance?
…but you keep finding good resources in the wrong part of the U.K.
It is just as well we have those Scots and have bound the fast.
It just reaffirms my disgust and loathing for the Yoons in Scotland who aided and abetted in this process and continue to do so. I am being polite about it and very restrained.
OT
So we are to get a choice “maybe” between a so called Scottish Six and a so called Scottish Seven. I am completely underwhelmed by the choice. They will both be equally toxic. It merely gives both of them extra time to attack the SNP and SG and even more time to denigrate and put down Scotland and the Scots.
Pick your poison – The Brit Nat Brainwashing Corp trashing Scotland Brand or the Britannia TV Aberdeen Brand. How long will it take both of them to accuse the SNP/SG of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide as they try to outdo each other in a spurious ratings war for a declining Yoon audience and one that is getting increasingly senile?
It will be the of button for me whatever. I am not going to switch on to the same lying bastards!
…and don’t forget that we burnt off at least 30percent of the gas to get the Oil because we had no gas pipeline system.
Think of that as wasted revenue and damage to the environment. It was 40 degC at times on the deck because of the huge flares.
Why has that story never been told?
I read an economics article some time before the first Independence referendum. Written as an analysis of the UK economy and not from a pro- or anti- Independence standpoint. The gist of it was that it was only the revenues from oil that had propped up a failing UK economy for years. If oil is running out as the unionists tell us, what are they going to do when they have no more public sector assets to sell off to raise revenue? The UK economy is in terminal decline unless the government does something radically different. Austerity, leaving the EU and tax and public spending cuts aren’t that something.
I read another article recently by a Labour Party in Scotland figure (can’t remember who, even though there aren’t that many) writing about Independence. He obviously thought he was making a clever analogy with Scotland’s oil economy when he said why would he want to give up his place on the ocean liner to take his chance on an oil tanker. I would suggest it is a more relevant analogy to ask, would he want to give up his place on the Titanic to take his chance in a life boat.
Thanks Capella. I read the story of the Ogoni. So desperate their plight and no one to help them. By comparison we have been treated lightly. I’ll never buy another drop of petrol from Shell.
God help the Ogoni.
@Marko
Join that long queue of folk in Scotland who have all reached that conclusion…. 🙂
The mandarins in WM have, among their other duties (soon to include Brexit negotiations), busy little spiders who are constantly spinning webs of deceit and lies to thwart anything the SG may have at their disposal to improve our lot.
But I may be paranoid.
eg: link to archive.is
Probably the best example I can think of to explain to anyone why Britain is not great but is in fact quite shite.
I am also pretty sure that we all would not be here if Thatcher hadn’t blown all of this resource and sold off all the other national assets.
This did and does upset me.
Wish we could sue the thieving gits!
What still makes me really angry is the despair in Scotland in the 1980s. I clearly remember watching friends and neighbours losing their jobs and not able to get another, others living with the fear hanging over them.
We were lucky as my husband was a civil servant, although earning less than tradesmen you knew the salary was there at the end of the month. Sadly not the case now.
My privately-educated friend had to get a job in a local factory when her husband lost his job.
When I think of the oil lost to Scotland and squandered in London, how much better it could have been for those children and their parents in the 80s if the government had followed McCrone’s advice and invested it in West/Central Scotland.
Speechless with rage . . .
Andrew McLean says:
22 September, 2016 at 1:12 pm
“Sorry only one word springs to mind, BASTSARDS! a bunch of fucking Bastards.”
I have another word springing to mind Andrew.
MURDERERS totally Evil greedy psychopathic MURDERERS
DONE IN OUR NAME!!
A great article with super graphics, Rev, and the Cairnstoon is brilliant. No wonder Hamish is raging.
The incompetence and mendacity of WM is jaw-dropping but no MSM journalist will mention any of this.
And we can’t access out West Coast oil fields because Trident must have maritime access so the UK can waggle its wee plutonium willie at the world.
Marko @ 1.01: you’re not paranoid. WM wants to destroy whatever future Scottish assets it can’t control(they’ve already calculated we’ll probably be independent soon). This is known as pooling and sharing.
As Proud Cybernat said, wake up, No Voters.
When I think of them, I always remember that line from The Magnificent Seven: “If God had not wanted them sheared, he wouldn’t have made them sheep”.
When will the penny drop?
It is surely time to resurrect the ‘It’s Scotland’s Oil’ meme but this time to draw that simple comparison between how much money Norway got from a barrel of oil and how much Westminster got.
This is surely a definitive display of the ineptitude of Westminster and particularly the Tories. How do we get the message out beyond social media into the mainstream media? Surely, it is time for a Michael (?)to do a job for us and get it out for cinema release as he did with the gun lobby in America. After all he rails against the forces of globalisation and neo-liberal capitalism. What more evidence does he want than what Westminster under Thatcher and the Blairites and the City of London did to harvest our natural resources for themselves and their friends.
Call me Dave & Marco @ 1.44
I’ve joined that que as well.
Read somewhere in the past few weeks and I can’t remember where, that Scotland apart from Faselane was being systematically demilitarised.
We’re mentioning here issues with our emerging renewables being stymied or bought out.
As the Rev has shown they can no longer hide the criminal (people have died because of poverty’s many affects) way they handled the Oil.
As some have said we live in an age where information like the article above can’t as yet be suppressed.
So yes I do believe that just as quietly and as underhandedly as the oil was “managed”,they are preparing to be flung out and are acting as they always have,by doing as much damage as they can.
“and practiced in Norway”
Rev,I can forgive you many things. But American spelling? As a verb, it is ‘practised’.
Go and do some very energetic self-flagellation, or whatever you religious types do to deal with sin.
Worth repeating…
GALLAS
link to youtube.com
Proudcybernar@1.02
It is a lot worse than that.
About two years ago every Norwegian (man woman and child) became a Kroner millionaire through their share of the Sovereign wealth fund.
That is to say they are each worth more than £100,000, invested long term in pensions and infrastructure.
Scotland literally does not have a penny from oil, and those that say Scotland is worse off because of the falling oil price should be told in no uncertain terms that not a penny ever came to Scotland to spend. It was all squandered by Westminster.
This is the biggest financial scandal ever to have been perpetrated upon Scotland.
There is still time and there is still oil out there to try to repair some of the damage, but never under Westminster rule.
@Luigi
Tragic. What a senseless waste. The worst disgrace IMO is not so much that WM squandered the vast wealth of the North Sea, and that the people were duly duped.
No, the most disgusting aspect of this entire sorry affair is that the politicians of Scotland allowed it to happen. I suppose they were too busy feeding themselves at the trough to worry about the people they were supposed to be representing.
All too true I am afraid. Darling and company did not work up suntans, membership of the House of Lords, business and banking consultancies for nothing.
@ Proud Cybernat. Some interesting clips in your GALLAS video. Could be expanded too. The Tony Benn diaries have info on the advent of oil. Will try to locate where this is but it may take some time as it was during his recorded readings broadcast by the BBC some time ago.
Our much-maligned elderly ‘No’ voters were in their mental/physical prime when this theft was underway.
Perhaps they just ‘didn’t have the information’ back then?
Or ‘naebdy telt me!’?
They’ve got the information now, and they’ve been well-telt.
Any more excuses?
The thing about the Unionists is that in their tribe, there is a place for the supremely wealthy – the monarchy, the aristocracy and those raised up by honours and titles.
To the unionist masses, these are demi-gods and are beyond reproach of any kind. That Scotland’s oil wealth has gone to the ruling classes is no sweat to Unionists. Any more than footballers earning millions through TV revenues paid to the clubs – the fans don’t mind. The Unionists dont mind. In exchange, they get to be ‘the people’, whose Queen it is and whose territory they live in. Hence, WATP.
But hey, it’s not over.
Ah, will catch up with comments later, but was at the Dundee Rep play, ‘The Cheviot, The stag and the black black oil’ yesterday at the Lyceum, it was really brilliant. The matinee was full of mostly older folks, and school kids. Great.
And was just reading up on some geology and searched for Siccar point, Hutton’s unconformity 🙂
What also came up was a company called Siccar Point, I am not sure it’s ok to share, but look at what they are investing in on their website. I hadn’t heard of them before.
Plenty of oil and gas in the north sea, just not for Scotland. 🙁
Robbed blind…
link to imgur.com
Far n wide, folks – far n wide…
Luigi at 1.12pm
“I think, perhaps we need to produce a Wee Oil Book, just to highlight how well Norway has done and how much we have been shat on.”
We’ve had the WBB, Wee Black Book, We Bleu Book.
Just think of what the Indy2 campaign and YES groups up and down the country could do with a series of books on their stalls/events.
Wee Oil Book
Wee Pension Book
Wee Currency Book
Wee Media Book
etc, etc.
Dedicated older YES people with a “Wee Pension Book” targeting the over 65’s. Education, education.
We should be doing our homework now cos when the A50 gets called time will be in short supply.
Wee Silver Book – for the silver haired generation.
The fact is the UK produced slightly more oil & gas than Norway, yet Norway received roughly 2.5 x more money than the UK, during the same period.
This shocking statistic of Westminster gross mismanagement needs to be known by all Scots.
I was in Norway in June last year. I saw lots of new build projects on the go. (roads, houses, business park and a retail park)
One dual carriageway from a fjord had ten tunnels through mountains up to the top of another mountain, I thought an engineering marvel.
Norway has its Wealth Fund for its people and uses the fund to improve the lives of its people.
Compare that to the UK, giving its oil wealth to the corporate/elite.
I fear a similar fate for our renewable energy, if we don’t free ourselves from the Westminster yoke.
I know the SNP does not often get a link from here, well not in comparison to its size, but they are the Government and they do have access to the facts.
Worth a read from March this year:
link to snp.org
Its not just the waste of not Scottish oil and gas that should be discussed. Its the staggering difference between UKOK and Norwegian offshore industrial relations, pay and working conditions. Everyone knows Snatcher Thatcher de-reged industrial offshore everything really. UKOK shareholder is god, everything else was left to big oil that bought Scots oil and gas cheap as UKOK chips in the 80’s.
It meant all kinds of hellish shit really. Rigs blowing up, choppers like the Chinook dropping in to the North Sea, untrained rig workers killed in an instant or maimed for life, let alone the lousy pay, no job security and perpetual threat of layoffs, shit food and work gear.
A kid up the road from us lost his life on Piper Alpha. They never found his body and his mum looked really ill for years. Giant City pension funds, big oil co’s like BP and Shell run by incredibly high pay posh tory crooks, filthy rich dudes like Ian Wood made more money than god but its not been worth it for a lot of Scots.
It’s not all plain sailing – pouring money into infrastructure projects in the SE. Protesters are against the “Lower Thames Crossing” a massive £6 b tunnel for all the freight traffic rolling into the area.
“The plan is to construct a dual carriageway that will pass under the Thames in order to link the A2/M2 in North Kent with the A13 and M25 in Southern Essex, to alleviate the congestion over the Dartford Bridge and help trucks to thunder from the Chunnel at Folkestone to the East Coast container ports and the squalid, sprawling grey hangers of the Midlands’ distribution mega-hubs such as Magna Park.
The utopian desire of the transport planners is to create a frictionless system with the minimum of delays in the passage of goods from farm and factory to hub and home. An estimated £6 billion will be spent in an attempt to ensure that everything is kept in motion.”
Linked to this is the plan for a Silvertown Tunnel near Woolich and also the expansion of Heathrow. What a headache it must be having to cater for all that International Finance Capital.
“All of these massive concrete constructions aim to further facilitate, and entrench, a distinct image of London, as a site of international finance capital.”
link to platformlondon.org
There was a very good reason that an oil fund was never created. It’s the same reason that one will never be created in the future. Quite simply Scotland would be able to claim ownership of it. It would make independence even more attractive if a multi billion pound fund was part of the settlement.
Instead it was decided to invest it in infrastructure in the south west; road and rail networks, sewers, tunnels, flood barriers, ports, airports. That way London could benefit from Scotland’s oil for generations to come and Scotland could never have a claim over it.
From Peat Worrier on Twitter, and the Times
link to thetimes.co.uk
The contrast is stark.
In Belfast, the secretary of state for Brexit, David Davis, reassured anxious locals: “We had a common travel area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland many years before either country was a member of the European Union. We are clear we do not want a hard border — no return to the past — and no unnecessary barriers to trade.” In Dublin, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, stressed the “really strong will” — the “strong commitment” — to work constructively with the Irish government to find a solution to the border problems which the Brexit vote has generated. In Stormont, the Prime Minister herself declared that ‘nobody wants to return to the borders of the past “.
And in Glasgow? Enter David Mundell. The Secretary of state for Scotland is clearly the “nobody” that Mrs May had in mind.
“The only way to guarantee an open border between England and Scotland is to stay part of the same Union”, he burbled.
So we have a wnole set of political reasons for an open border in Ireland and a whole set of political reasons why an open border between England and Scotland would be unthinkable with Independence. Politics conducted by a Colonial bully.
Every time I read articles like this I quite literally want to cry. The waste of something that should have given everyone in this country a secure future, and when I say this country I mean the UK. Yes, there are ten times as many people in the UK as in Norway, but Norway is absolutely obscenely rich. Even divided among ten times as many people that sort of money would eliminate serious poverty in all age groups and allow investment to ensure both low unemployment and excellent infrastructure.
If successive UK governments had husbanded this resource well and used it genuinely for the benefit of everyone, and had acknowledged Scotland as the source of the largesse, I think it would have bound the union together and there would be much less support for independence.
Instead they used our resource to deindustrialise our country, throw a generation on the dole, and now they jeer at us, claiming that we’re bankrupt beggars.
I need to go find some tissues. It’s a tragedy that makes Hamlet look like a minor family squabble.
O/T
Here’s the lead political story in today’s online Herald:
link to imgur.com
Now. If you read beyond the headline you will find that the MSP involved is actually a Tory MSP. (You can be sure of course that were it an SNP MP guilty of this then the headline would most certainly have read “SNP MSP ….” So, why not “Tory MSP….”?
Notice also that without actually declaring the party involved, the Herald, by including a photo of someone wearing a Scottish Saltire over their shoulders, effectively implies that the guilty MSP is a nationalist. Few read beyond the headline or the picture and so, it was an SNP MSP wot done it. Job done.
This is just one small example of the insidious nature of how the colonial media in Scotland operates and manipulates the narrative and brainwashes people into thinking what they want them to think.
Nasty, nasty, nasty.
Herald, yer tea’s oot.
@ Luigi
That is good idea Luigi though half the booklet should contain the history of Norway`s oil production along with pictures of Norway and the other half should contain Scotland.
No vote indy no vote SNP just a plain non political booklet showing comparison.
We should do the same with pensions as well if we plaster the booklets with indy it might put a few blockhead yoons off from reading it.
The Red Blue and Yellow Tories will not be content until they have crushed their fellow Scots into the ground, and drained our land of its natural resources.
The Blue Tories will not rest until our publicly owned and accountable services and institutions are sold off for peanuts, to their relatives in the City, and civic Scotland is reduced to the standards of the 1920s and the 1930s.
Ruth and her vile gang are Elitists. The belted earls, the filthy rich, the merchants, the Big Grocers, consider it their divine right to rule over us and own the country’s wealth, assets, and indeed its people through wage slavery and debt serfdom.
The richest 1% of the UK own more than 20 times the total wealth of the poorest fifth, making the UK one of the most unequal in the developed world.
634,000 Brits are worth 20 times more than the poorest 13 million.
An Oxfam report states:-
‘Three decades of high inequality has had a profound impact’. Now that’s the understatement of the..three decades.
Data from Credit Suisse shows that 10% of the UK population own 54% of the country’s wealth.
The top 1% own nearly a quarter(23%), while the poorest 20% own a miniscule 0.8%.
Ruth Davidson, WATP Professor Two Jobs Adam Tomkins, WATP Murdo Fraser, Jackson Carlaw, Baroness Goldie, and The Darling Duds of May, Johnson, Fox, and Davis, will fight tooth and nail, lie through their teeth, threaten and bully their fellow Scots citizens, just to maintain this Iron Boot Oligarchy.
Dugdale and that bumptious little man Murray, and the rest of the Red version of Ruth’s privileged and pampered elite are just as bad.
They robbed us of our oil, and we stood by and let them.
Well, no more. I observed earlier that we are at war. A war of words and ideas.
If you vote Tory, of any hue, you are voting for this evil to continue.
No more Mr Nice guy. No more PC shit.
They are savaging our country on behalf of their their masters Down There. But then again we already knew that.
A timely reminder, Stu, about how sinister and uncaring the Unionist ProudButScots puppets have become.
I truly detest their politics.
Westminster took the Oil revenues and wasted it on 50million instead of 5Million. In Norway it benefited 5million. It was not wasted on 50million. Thatcher had three million unemployed. Paid in Disproportionately in Scotland. Paid in Oil revenues. The wealth spent in London S/E on Tilbury docks, Canary Wharf. ‘loads of money’ bankers. Interest rates at 15%. Thatcher centralised UK transport around London. Creating congestion and chaos. Thatcher was a lying criminal.
The North/South divide deliberately disenfranchised Scotland. Westminster illegal secretly and lies. Hidden under the Officials Act. Labour kept the McCrone Report under the Official Secrets Act. Lied and lied again. Illegal wars, tax evasion and banking fraud. The Oil revenues wasted by Labour Unionists. Massive debt. Brown and Blair should be in jail for crimes against humanity.
Blair is moving his wreath into charitable trusts. To avoid tax and claims when he is sued for illegal war crimes. Westminster Unionist multimillionaires and their associates are dispicable. Enough is never enough.
The Westminster Treasury are still mismanaging the Oil sector. With taxes at 60/80% when the price had fallen 75%. The tax regime should be set on price. The Tories/Osbourne have destroyed the Oil sector and lost Scotland £Billions of revenues and thousands of jobs. £20Billion+
Scotland benefits from Oil sector work and contracts worldwide.
Why is it that MSM / BBC et al refuse to query the fact that UK oil revenues have fallen 99% since 2014 yet oil price has fallen by only 54% and output actually increased by 15 to 20%.
Why it is that Norway, with roughly twice the North Sea oil and gas output of the UK, raised £9500 million in oil revenues in 2015 whereas the UK only raised £76 million?
Is this down to tax avoidance by multi-national oil companies?
Jack Collatin says:3:39
That post Jack is one of the best I have read on wings in a long time.
Morag,Petra,liz g,Nana
Please see previous thread at the very last post.Thanks
I will post on the bottom of that thread now for your perusal
Peace Always
In the film ‘Jaws’, the story moves to a fishing boat with three men in it who are going to catch and kill the man-eating great white shark. But when they see the shark up close, one of the men says ominously ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’.
Perhaps the Yes movement has reached such a moment. The realisation that we’re going to need something bigger than what we’ve got.
When a country emerging from a coup, Revolution, or any usurpation of a recognised government, and delivers a UDI, the big headache isn’t the declaration itself, but having the declaration recognised by the international community and the new government recognised as legitimate and sovereign. Lack of recognition is what scuppered Rhodesia’s UDI, the poster child for anybody who doesn’t like the principle of UDI’s.
I has always struck me however that Scotland wouldn’t suffer from such a failure, even back in the days when I knew nothing about our legally recognised 14th Century sovereignty, because there was once a legal precedent for the country to exist so there would be no obvious barrier to it being recognised again.
If however the matter was disputed and the UDI was challenged, the absolute scandal, the theft and criminal mismanagement of Scotland’s oil has always struck me as irrefutable evidence that Scotland isn’t being “governed” by Westminster, but cynically abused and frankly mugged for its resources. Consequently any legal challenge to a Scottish UDI would instantly have the wind taken out of its sails, and recognition of an independent Scotland will not assured, might at least provide compelling evidence of due cause.
Three decades have passed since I started to feel that way, and I still feel the same. Why am I sanguine about it? We let them do it and we are still letting them do it, and as a nation we are meek and shy away from our rightful sovereign entitlements. They merely help themselves to the resources our Scottish MP’s traditionally don’t defend. The minority of Scots only feel the pain which the majority of Scots has inflicted upon themselves and us.
Perhaps a UDI would provoke unrest and civil disorder, but the unspoken question which nobody dares to utter is what magnitude of strife and disorder would have suffered comparable damage upon Scotland and our long term interests as the gross mismanagement of Thatcher and Thatcher’s legacy?
Uncomfortable thought to leave you with? Perhaps the only thing that Thatcher did manage well was us, and of course our unionist minders.
OT. I tuned in to Have I Got More FMQ For You today. Jaisus wept.
Davidson Dugdale and Rennie are quite frankly not up to it.
I think it was Thomas Paine who observed of a rival:-
‘He rose like a rocket, and came down like a stick’.
Well the Three Onions rose like rockets and came down like sticks.
Dugdale refuses to engage the Blue Tories across the Chamber on anything, Rennie will be a good pothole and blocked drains councillor soon, and the Better Together attack from all sides on the extremely patient FM about the crisis in treatment of teenage Mental Health would have been merely yet another cynical joined up SNP BAD ploy, if it were not for the shameless half truths about the situation spouted by these low grade rabble rousers to feed tomorrow’s the columns and air time of the Dead Tree Scrolls and of BBC/ITN News Where You Are tonight and tomorrow morning. ‘Sturgeon under pressure’ Tomfools, every one.
That article is a load of shite Rev!
It can’t be true and that’s a fact because that wee snotter, Brian ‘McTimmy’ Wilson, was never off the tv in the 1980s telling us we only had about 20-years worth of oil remaining. His squint wee snottery face was never oot the papers either.
True dat!
O/T
Can you effing believe it? Lead item on BBC R2 news about some effing baking bash with ex-BBC presenters not going to CH4 out of loyalty to auntie.
Who gives a flying fuck?
BritNat pish.
Given that not Scots oil has been monumentally looted by our imperial masters, its hardly surprising that London is awash with looted Russian oil money. We’re meant to call Russia money in the City oligarch. Just as we’re meant to call dudes like the ex BP boss below, a magnate or tycoon, not a spiv or a crook.
Browne and chums used not Scots oil and gas to build one of the world’s biggest and most polluting outfits ever seen but he was brought down, not for his gender as he implies but because he gave lots of BP dosh to lovers, then one grassed.
Here he is bullshiting like only very rich UKOK magnates can and do. Working for BP’s a very two tier experience, in that one of those tiers is fcuking horrible.
link to advocate.com
What Lord Browne actually is
link to archive.is
Why we thought New Labour’s historic win 97 would change anything, is just one of Scotland’s great tragedies. But on the other hand, Scots now have tory BBC led yoon culture raging at us that we are £15bn bankrupt, too small, stupid etc, so vote NO and forever. Its another brilliant UKOK win win.
Brexit may not have started, but as everyone knew , only the UK would be kept waiting.
Bloomberg Brexit Bulletin :
Global investment banks are throwing in the towel in the battle to keep London the home for clearing of $570 billion of euro derivatives.
Executives tell Bloomberg’s Gavin Finch and John Detrixhe they expect France or Germany to prevail in the tussle once Brexit is underway and are making plans to cope.
While it might take years for the transitions to happen, jobs and operations central to the clearing function will be among the first moved to the continent once the U.K. triggers its withdrawal from the European Union, one person said.
It would mark a defeat for Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who pledged this month to seek to protect London’s status as the epicenter for European trading in interest-rate swaps, accounting for about 39 percent of the global market. European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, the bloc’s financial-services chief, today reiterated that the U.K. faces a choice between imposing immigration controls and letting its financial firms continue to trade freely with the EU.
Unless you want a civil war in Scotland, UDI is a non-starter. We need a majority vote in favour of independence. End of.
The efforts of former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to tighten the purse strings didn’t prevent the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio ballooning from 78.4% in 2010 to 90.1% in 2014/2015.
90% is the figure that most financial analysts agree is were it is almost impossible for an economy to grow at any significant rate!
Come Brexit, the Tories will need sell off Scotland to the Chinese to pay for Hinckley Point Nuclear Power Station.
How it works, Labour and big oil money, from that Heil thing on Browne, before Bomber Blair got rich and Crash Gordo saved the UK from the Scots.
“There were a number of dinners and meetings between the chief executive and senior members of the Blair administration, including the Prime Minister himself.
On June 8 2005, according to Jeff Chevalier’s evidence, Lord Browne and Tony Blair attended a dinner, organised by former Downing Street aide Anji Hunter, who left No 10 to join BP. At the meal, Mr Blair discussed “life after office” and “aspects of his own character”.
At separate meetings, “important strategic decisions”‘ affecting BP’s future and a scheme “for the benefit of BP’s customers” were discussed by Gordon Brown and Lord Browne. The details of those conversations cannot be divulged because Mr Justice Eady ruled it would breach the privacy of the individuals concerned.
At another dinner, Lord Browne and his lover entertained Peter Mandelson, the European Trade Commissioner, and his Brazilian partner, Reinaldo Avila da Silva. According to Mr Justice Eady’s judgment, “European Union policy and Chinese textile quotas” were discussed but, again, no details are given.
The judge ruled that the discussions did not “contribute to a debate in a democratic society relating to politicians in the exercise of their functions. It is more akin to vapid tittle-tattle”.
The document makes reference to yet another dinner hosted by Lord Browne and his lover Chevalier for Anji Hunter, Peter Mandelson and his Brazilian boyfriend.
And there was also another dinner attended by both Mandelson and Chevalier. On this separate occasion, according to the judgment, “Peter Mandelson’s boyfriend was not present, at which Peter Mandelson made certain observations”.
Mr Justice Eady concluded that no further details of private dinner parties with politicans should be disclosed because “discussions at private dinner parties about the plans or personal affairs of fellow guests, such as Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, are in my judgment, on the face of it, entitled to protection.”
Mandelson, Blair, Brown, working it, like the socialist workers they really are.
Why is it none of MSM / BBC et all have queried fact that UK oil revenues have fallen 99% since 2014 yet oil price has fallen by only 54% and output actually increased by 15 to 20%?
Why it is that Norway, with roughly twice the North Sea oil and gas output of the UK, raised £9500 million in oil revenues in 2015 whereas the UK only raised £76 million?
On misleading headlines, radio shortbread running with Dugdale’s claims but no response from Nicola.
manandboy wrote “The realisation that we’re going to need something bigger than what we’ve got.”
What, like a Bigger Wee Blue Book?! Totally agree.
‘If we crowdfund it, it will come.’ 🙂
Sinky’s spot-on, a heart-wringing performance from Dugdale anent SNP bad but no response from the FM was forthcoming. What kind of news is this & won’t the so-called Scottish Six be just more of the same?
You can’t help from feeling that Scotland has been given a second chance and thrown a lifeline with IndyRef2, which if not taken will probably be terminal for Scotland.
Years of Tory destruction, or a new future with limitless possibilities, hmm, it’s a tough call.
BREXIT – if you look hard enough, you can clearly see what it means… and what’s coming…
link to imgur.com
Different book covers, different colours, blue, green, red, silver, with different simple easy to read Q & A, copies of Civil Service points re debt, pensions etc ?
Bigger job, bigger boat, more hands, start early
Reading the article that Rev links to, I found this section, which has a very interesting development on the part of the Norwegians.
That is how in an independent Scotland, Scottish would take control over production of all north Sea assets. Only we should make it 95 percent tax on profits.
Either way for Scotland it would win win, either we get control of production or massively increase our tax take from North Sea oil. And then use part of this to grow our renewables industry.
Does anybody know if the tapes of the original 70s broadcast of the Cheviot etc. still exist.
I can’t remember if it was BBC or STV.
If they do still exist who owns the copyright? as I doubt either of our broadcasters would show it again but if there are no copyright problems it could be made available on the net.
Like others this just makes me so angry, words could never explain.
Yet, despite all this we all watched as fellow Scots in 2014, queued up on telly to tell other Scots that Scotland would be a third world country if it became independent. Those in charge, like Alistair Darling KNOW the truth, yet deliberately lied, lied and lied again, just to preserve their blessed UK Labour party. Like wise Gordon Brown, he also knows the truth, yet spends his time scaring people about how poor Scotland is.
Never, ever should Scots forgive these people for what they have done, and how they have betrayed the country of their birth. All that oil wealth, yet both Labour and Tories spent the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s telling Scots that it was worthless and running out. Meanwhile Thatcher squandered our wealth on tax cuts for the rich and infrastructure for the South East of England (M25, channel tunnel). There was NO economic miracle with Thatcher, just lots of stolen Scottish oil. To cap it all, they now tell us it is too volatile for Scotland.
Liars, every single one of them. Now, if we lived in a NORMAL country, with a REAL Scottish broadcaster, this kind of thing would run and run and run, in dramas, documentaries and news broadcasts, but it doesn’t. No, because we are merely an English colony, with an English colonial broadcaster, we get supposed journalists taking utter tosh like ‘the oil is too volatile for Scotland’ seriously.
We’ll never see the blatantly biased, propagandist and anti Scotland BBC run a peak time documentary exposing the lies, the McCrone report, or indeed this most recent report.
London steals Scotland’s oil, then calls as beggars and subsidy junkies, and yet some Scots still think we should stay under their boot.
Makes me so very angry, an anger that will never leave me. London and England stole Scotland’s wealth, and still to this day, they lie about it. We cannot be rid of this cursed undemocratic and unwanted union with England soon enough.
Fred:
If you are still here,can you go to moving on,and let me know when you are there.
Peace Always
Tories are greedy liars not content with robbing you they will also then sell off the scene of the crime.
Everything we have seen over the last 30 years though does make my grey matter think why so desperate to hold on to us.
I do have a theory and guess what,it has to do with oil.
Now say you had secretly found a massive oil reserve nobody knows about and you decided the smart thing was to keep quiet about it,let the world deplete their resources once they are all struggling to produce pull it out the hat and its Rule Britannia God save the German lassie with the huge giro again.
Even better if you can crash the oil price in the meantime cheaper imports.
It really would explain the hostility towards our renewable industries the couldn’t care attitude to our oil industry and the insane mad drivel being thrown at indy which has become almost hysterical in trying to deny us another referendum.
hmmm its either total incompetence on a galactic scale or an evil deliberate plan for the master race to rise once more,you know they are stark raving bonkers enough that the second option doesn’t seem so ridiculous.
I’m glad you are not forgetting the periods of austerity under Lords Wilson and Callaghan. It behoves me to see these creeps in the Lumpen Pairty and their agents in the Brit left getting away with blaming Thatcher for everything they did themselves.
Wilson ordered the North sea plundered afore Independence and broke all health and safety rules and conditions with the same Tame Unions that policed his no per cent Pay Freezes
Yes we have had our nations wealth wasted by successive unionist controlled Westminster parliaments.
But as stu said the renewable energy sources are another bonanza for Scotland, also we probably have yet another oil wealth creator in our west coast seas and we must not forget the north sea is not finished yet.
The situation is very simple, we as a nation are the only ones who can prevent Westminster from taking our next 3 to 5 decades of wealth for their own use.
Take it back, or lose it.
gus1940 says:
22 September, 2016 at 5:06 pm
Does anybody know if the tapes of the original 70s broadcast of the Cheviot etc. still exist.
I recorded it and watch it now and again I believe it was shown again on BBC Alba not that long ago.
Ken MacQuarrie, director of BBC Scotland, to be BBC’s new head of nations and regions.
link to archive.is
Anybody got a theory for this one?
The Cheviot the Stag and the Black Black Oil (Complete)
link to youtube.com
quality isn’t fantastic but still watchable
Nice example of toryboys who see no ships. Its amazing to think hacks actually get paid for this and that they can actually flog it.
link to archive.is
No one wants ref 2 because Ruth Davidson’s transcendent.
“To borrow a word from the First Minister, the approval ratings show that Ruth Davidson is a politician who transcends old political dividing lines and, by keeping open the promise of another referendum, the SNP is giving non-Conservative Unionists a real reason to rally round her flag. “
Headtracker 4.09
You mentioned New Labour’s triumph in 1997.
Cut to 2007.
Here is an article about Gordon Brown providing a perfect illustration of why that ‘triumph’ was never going to benefit Scotland economically.
link to archive.is
“Brown recognises that the greatest force behind Britain’s long ten-year run without recession has been the sheer excellence, innovation and openness of British finance. Having created a more liberal tax regime for the super-rich he is unwilling to change it under political pressure and destroy wealth creation. He genuinely believes that there is something to be learned not just from the science of J P Garnier at GlaxoSmithKline but also from the genius of financial innovation. ”
And a year later.
BOOM!
Andrew MacLean at 3.49.
The next stop on the Road to Self Determination is likely to be the LA elections next May.
The Unionists use Health Education and Policing to fuel their SNP Bad mantra.
Well, I live in Glasgow, and we shall be closely scrutinising GCC, their Arms Length disasters, their Education department’s Record, their Social Work, Care for the elderly, and so on.
I have no doubt that Unionist Councils deliberately hamper the joined up policies of Holyrood in care for the elderly, child care, education, and so on, and to hell with the citizens.
I can’t wait to open the books.
New Labour has held LA’s in their grubby little grasp for five or six decades.
No more.
Just heard Kezia Dugdale failed to vote at Holyrood thus allowing the SNP to avoid an embarrassing defeat in debate when Presiding Officer was obliged to give casting vote to the Government.
And some folk think she is up to the job
I gave The National a call today with the suggestion they might consider serialising The McCrone Report. The guy I spoke with, a member of the editorial team, agreed it was a good idea and would I leave it with him. Here’s hoping.
@ Man and Boy 5:38
Good news, hope they do.
We were giving it away on the earliest Wings stalls – it’s only 19 pages and in .pdf form.
After reading it I was surprised how many people I spoke to who had never heard about it.
And to the people (unionists) who said “you’re just digging up a 30 year old report” I said.
“THEY INTENTIONALLY HID IT FROM YOU”
Sometimes that got them thinking.
mike cassidy says:
22 September, 2016 at 5:33 pm
Headtracker 4.09
You mentioned New Labour’s triumph in 1997.
Cut to 2007.
The problem with New Labour and Crash Gordon is that he was Chancellor for so long, with extraordinary power. Crash is an economic historians dream if only because he was a tory Chancellor fooling all kinds of lefties for almost the whole of his reign. Osborne’s much easier to understand if only because he was ofcourse a tory, with one enemy proudly in his sites the whole time, the poorest.
The only reason Crash and New Labour lasted so long was because the tories understood exactly what Crash and Bomber Blair were, right from the start.
Rupert Murdoch was virtually PM Blair’s first day No.10 guest 97. And the whole of the teamGB BBC led media just let Blair get on with it all. There was no way in hell Crash and Bomber Blair would ever re nationalise anything let alone UK oil and gas and they never tried. Its extremely unlikely a Corbynista government will ever happen but if it does, they wont probably wont re nationalise anything either.
Scots oil and gas is more than capable of semi nationalisation like Norway but only by Holyrood. Its just one of the many drivers behind the 2014 mass big oil freak out for NO, with late entry tory creeps like Wood.
It all comes down to ref 2 now. Get some noise cancelling headphones. Its going to get really really UKOK toryboy LOUD:D
Jack Collatin:
Jack can you meet me on Deckchairs.?
Peace Always
I will watch for you there!
The biggest tractors are Labour politicians who had an iron grip over Scotland for decades.
The Tories did it openly but the blame lies on the sheep in wolves clothing who “saved us from the Tories”.
Destroy the BBC and destroy Labour in Scotland.
Scotland will not be able to become independent as long as the BBC remains.
What sticks in my craw is that in addition to the longterm oil theft/squander, we’re also told by the scandalously ignorant English branch of yoonery that we’re “subsidy junkies”.
And the craven Scottish branch connive in that by banging on about “the broad shoulders of the UK”. I really think they believe it, too. Though all the “Scottish” Unionist parties being financially propped-up by their southern HQs does tend to narrow their vision somewhat. “Autonomous”? He who pays the piper…
As mentioned earlier:
Kezia Dugdale saves SNP government from defeat 🙂
Ken steps in as he must to give casting vote to SG… 🙂 🙂
The SNP hailed Ms Dugdale as a “lone ranger” who had “taken her newfound autonomy literally” – a tongue-in-cheek reference to proposed changes to relationship between Scottish and UK Labour.
link to archive.is
I see that Labour’s gruntle is diss’d over Kezia not pressing the button hard enough or something.
Could only happen to Kezia.
We won’t see this on the Telegraph, Mail, Express, Record, Scotsman, BBC, STV… the look-a-squirrel media… thankyou Stu, we’d be mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed shit) without you.
‘And here’s one for Kezia!’
Sugababes, ‘Push The Button’ –
link to youtube.com
From Nanas posting earlier
link to commonspace.scot
Who’s muscling in on Scottish renewables now?
“Scotland has also been blessed by fate with a second generous gift, an almost unmeasurable potential for renewables, which risks suffering the same fate”
Wait, how are the Conservatives going to eliminate that potential? Are they going to flatten the hills?
@Fergus Green says: 22 September, 2016 at 12:50 pm:
“Another brilliant analysis Stuart and one that merits being printed on a leaflet and distributed through letterboxes throughout Scotland.”
Aiblins, Fergus, Ah’m jist ae cynical bodach.
Owersettin intil the Inglis, “Perhaps, Fergus, I’m just one cynical old man”, but …
Anyway, I doubt very much that those people we independence activists seek to convert to our way of thinking will bother reading political leaflets.
Just as the same group of people will read a headline, and if it is anything remotely to do with any form of politics, will read no further as they glance at the leaflet on their way to the waste paper bin.
So it is with radio broadcasts and TV political matters. I’ve been at this independence activism now for nigh on 70 years and there are those who think politics has nothing whatsoever to do with them. They simply do not want to know.
That is until politics hits them where it hurts them most – and that is usually in their wallets or bank accounts.
Which just may explain for you why independence is such a slow and painstaking undertaking.
The thing is that we must be ready, and able, to give these people the correct and precise answers when their howls of abject pain grate upon our ears, and make no bones about it, they will squeal like stuck pigs when their turn comes to be the victims of the political machine.
https://www.politicshome.com
Politics Home gives Alistair Carmichael a free ride to tell us all where he’s at. Don’t bother reading the piece, AC hasn’t changed one iota. He remains a consumate liar and every bit as arrogant, pompous and conceited as ever.
He continues to delude himself about his legacy, clinging to his refusal to accept that he will be associated with barefaced lying till the day he dies.
I’d rather sit down with a bucket of diarrhoea on my right and a basin of vomit on my left than be in the company of A. Carmichael.
Robert Peffers says:”those who think politics has nothing whatsoever to do with them.”
I can think of nothing that politics does not affect.People
just don’t seem to get that fact
Peace Always
Kevin Hague Retweeted
Glenn Campbell ?@GlennBBC Sep 20
Big win for @kezdugdale
Why do yoons come in threes?
gus1940 says:
22 September, 2016 at 5:06 pm
‘Does anybody know if the tapes of the original 70s broadcast of the Cheviot etc. still exist?’
You can find a copy on Youtube. Definitely worth watching again if you saw the original live version. Pity the new Dundee Rep version was not going to be around for longer. Hope it gets a reprise next year.
Kezia’s latest gaffe links back nicely to something the Rev wrote yesterday:
“Kezia Dugdale can rearrange the furniture on the Scottish deck of the Good Ship Labour all she likes. But her steering wheel is a plastic toy one that isn’t connected to anything and her captain’s hat came out of the gift shop.”
UK oil and gas income 2015 according to Gers £50 Million
Norway oil and Gas income 2015 (Norsk Petroleum) ) £20 Billion . Following from press release by Norsk Petroleum.
The government’s total net cash flow in 2015, including the dividend from Statoil and various fees, was NOK 218 billion, down from NOK 312 billion in 2014. The 30 % drop in revenues is due to lower revenues following the sharp decline in the oil price.
Due to them taking better care of the wells in the early days (not sucking it out at max speed) Norway in 2015 produced about 2 million barrels per day, in the same period we produced half that although I seen a comment recently that our production is now around 1.5 million barrels per day.
Now either the Gers figures are lying (I kid you not 🙂 ) or the UK are a waste of space and the sooner we take control of our own finances the better.
The thing is, renewables from the north of Scotland might not be the only wealth that could benefit Scotland.
Many academics have speculated for years that the Arctic ice cap is melting to the point, that in the height of future summers, the Arctic ocean will be just that …ice free and one giant ocean.
This opens up the possibility of new trade propositions for the likes of Aberdeen, Peterhead, Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides. You see …the shortest trade route to America, Canada, Russia, Japan, China …in fact, the whole of the Pacific Rim, will no longer be via the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans …but that it will be through the Arctic Ocean itself. For Scotland, the potential to be a European super hub for trade might not only be incredible, but the wealth generated on top of Renewables would surely make a Scottish Pound one of the richest currencies on the planet.
If all comes to pass (and say we finally do get independence), then this surely has to be one investment project that shouldn’t be ignored or missed. Investment in the very north of Scotland would surely reap economic benefits for the WHOLE of Scotland (if not the UK in general. After all, the imported goods for England, Wales and Ireland will have to come from Scotland).
link to cfr.org
link to scir.org
The thing is, renewables from the north of Scotland might not be the only wealth that could benefit Scotland.
Many academics have speculated for years that the Arctic ice cap is melting to the point, that in the height of future summers, the Arctic ocean will be just that …ice free and one giant ocean.
This opens up the possibility of new trade propositions for the likes of Aberdeen, Peterhead, Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides. You see …the shortest trade route to America, Canada, Russia, Japan, China …in fact, the whole of the Pacific Rim, will no longer be via the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans …but that it will be through the Arctic Ocean itself. For Scotland, the potential to be a European super hub for trade might not only be incredible, but the wealth generated on top of Renewables would surely make a Scottish Pound one of the richest currencies on the planet.
If all comes to pass (and say we finally do get independence), then this surely has to be one investment project that shouldn’t be ignored or missed. Investment in the very north of Scotland would surely reap economic benefits for the WHOLE of Scotland (if not the UK in general. After all, the imported goods for England, Wales and Ireland will have to come from Scotland).
link to cfr.org
link to scir.org
Apart from being told north sea oil would only be in production for little over 20 years, does anyone else remember the story of it being the “wrong” type of oil..along the lines of it being too rich or something, the upshot being that it wasn’t as valuable as Arab or American oil !
Scottish Parliament authorities confirm that electronic voting system was working properly so Labour spin on Kezia non voting exposed as a lie.
Perhaps she was embarrassed to vote with the Tories again.
To be fair to Kezia, she’s just not up to the job.
Hopefully she’ll be going nowhere anytime soon.
Ms Dugdale looked as if she wastexting on her phone at the time. Maybe she was calling a friend for advice about which way to vote. Or maybe the BBC just cut the film to look that way. Not unknown for them to do that is it?
And to think that fraud, the “Father of the Nation”, Donald Dewar, in the full knowledge of the value of North Sea oil, stated that an independent Scotland would have an economy on a par with Bangladesh.
And to think that the current representatives of the British Labour Party in Scotland are pygmies compared with him!
@Breeks
I think your a really bright guy and you write some informative and interesting posts but why you keep on beating the UDI drum escapes me.
UDI could only ever win if more than 50% of the population accept it else there will be trouble. I certainly don’t want to see an Independent Scotland start it’s new life wife trouble on it’s doorstep.
UDI is for countries that don’t have a democratic vote. For better or worse we are part of the UK until the Scottish electorate say otherwise in a vote.
Preaching UDI hands ammunition to the Wings haters. Please desist.
Hate crimes in Scotland ‘fell after Brexit vote’
link to archive.is
Smith @ 6.40
As they have always done they will sell the industry off mainly to their pals before we get control of it.
The money from the sale will go to the Westminster Treasury and all we will get is to uphold the contract.
Is it no obvious?
For Tony Blair
IRAQ
There has to be a hell
I went to bed last night
I wept
And as I slept
I heard no tread
As the silent dead moved by
But why, oh why, oh why I cried
Our leaders lied. Our leaders lied
I had no part
No bombs, no bullets in my hands
We marched, we marched
We sang, we cried
It wasn’t us
And then – the silent dead replied
A million quiet voices sighed
No bombs and bullets in our hands
No bombs, no bullets in our hands
It wasn’t us, it wasn’t us
It surely wasn’t us,
But on our lands and on our homes
The bombs and bullets fell
And on our children in our arms
And still the silent dead marched by
As far as I could see
They wept with me.
If this could be
There is no God to tell
But pray, for those who send the bombs
There has to be a hell.
Dave McEwan Hill
Totally missed the Kezia button gate thingy anyone with the short version thanks in advance , and thanks for all the replies on the previous thread re Tory NHS brass necks . at least now i know i am not talking to myself as i am usually guilty of ,almost the same as going into the kitchen and thinking what the f/k am i doing in here happens every day ha ha cheers all .
JPJ2: Wasn’t Donald Dour happy to connive at the loss of Scottish coastal waters as far north as Carnoustie on the eve of the Scottish Parliament? The sooner his statue gets melted down the better. What a hypocrite.
UDI: we’re closer than ever to independence, which we will achieve, despite all the odds, legally and without dubiety.
Thepnr is right: there would be civil disorder and endless legal wrangling. Remember Freedom Square when we lost?
We either do this democratically or we don’t deserve to be independent, frankly. How many reasons do people here need? Just read this thread.
Legerwood @ 7.29
Kezia was texting London HQ to find out how she should vote under this automony thingy.
Robert Graham
See my post at 5.34 pm re Kezia non voting on Council finance debate
Thepnr and breeks,
UDI ,
Funny this was raised again, a poster above mentioned the dirty arse wipe Brian Wilson, the Benedict Arnold of Scotland, (anniversary of his death yesterday). I was looking at his contributions in Hansard, Mc nerd that I am, and came across a speech by Alex Salmond in about Scotland in Europe. The debate link to publications.parliament.uk
Has Nicolas fairbairn, no really, and the rest of the scum, ganging up on Alex, but my point is that it was common currency in shiteminster that if Scotland voted “on mass” for the SNP then the union of Scotland and England is over. It’s in Hansard so it must be true.
Yes UDI is not the way to go, given the loony unionists threats of armed violence that I read on the revs twitter page today (by the way, telling everyone on twitter that you have a fire arm and are prepared to use it to further your political aims is terrorist behaviour? Yes? So what are police Scotland doing issuing fire arms certificates to looneys?) ok I know Special Branch are monitoring them but Jesus!
UDI may be a future course, a far future course, but as yet it’s outside the realm of possibility. But one thing is sure, as sure as little green apples, this union is over. Soon it may be time to raise the flag of rebellion, only on historical evidence, the British never left peaceably unless they faced a overwhelming force.
Apologies if this has already been said but…
The difference in revenues = A full to overflowing trough, and a lot of happy UK/US oil execs to boot.
You don’t actually believe that such a shitty deal for HM Treasury was merely down to incompetence in negotiations really, do you ?
It gets worse.
link to kennethgibson.org
?
@Andrew McLean
My point is simple Andrew, without a minimum of 50% support in the country then declaring UDI is pointless as you will lose.
So why not just have a vote instead if your support exceeds 50%?
UDI=Ridiculous
heedtracker says at 6:50 pm
“Kevin Hague Retweeted
Glenn Campbell ?@GlennBBC Sep 20
Big win for @kezdugdale
Why do yoons come in threes?”
===============================
First one is needed to take a dump in public
Second one to step into it, and spread it everywhere
And, OBVS. The last is there to blame the SNP for the mess.
@Artyhetty
So Marco and Liz g & me are not paranoid… 🙁
Here’s what Business for Scotland was trying to get across in 2013:
10 Facts About Scotland’s Oil And Independence
link to businessforscotland.co.uk
Archived version for future posterity.
(Or should that be prosperity? 🙂 )
link to archive.is
Totally missed the Kezia button gate thingy anyone with the short version thanks in advance
Kezia thought she had pressed her vote button but it didn’t register. Kezia raging. SNPBad
I despair at my fellow countrymen and women who do not see how we were robbed and deceived and are continuing to be so. Another disappointing turnout at the rally in Glasgow Green , what a difference it would have made if 50,000 had attended.
The apathy in this country is like a thick fog and I wonder what its going to take to blow it away.
Scottish Independence Referendum Guide – Oil
link to archive.is
“The apathy in this country is like a thick fog and I wonder what its going to take to blow it away.”
Chill.
Most folks aren’t political anoraks like most of us here on WoS and, right now, are just getting on with their day-to-day lives. But trust me – when Nicola fires the IndyRef#2 starting gun (and she WILL), then brace yourself. The whole bloody country will be mobilised for that fight. You can count on it.
BTW and FWIW – I was at GG on Sundayy woth wife and kids and had a great day.
Johnson: Brexit talks ‘probably’ to begin in early 2017
link to archive.is
@ Artyhetty 8.30pm queston is will SNP tell Westminster tae F Off wie they’re slash & burn policy’s.
BBC 2 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Brexit: A Very British Coup?
The real story of the campaign for Brexit as told by a host of key people as they lived and breathed it.
Loads and loads of fat troughers having an ace time. Not one word on just how hard the BBC worked across teamGB to get Farage right at the centre of UK politics, over the mad one that BBC Scotland and Jim Naughty treated like a god, to get UKIP in to Scotland.
Appaling shysters, or just another day at the beeb. Whatisface MacQuarrell, head of BBC Scotland also been promoted for his loyalty to the yew kay today, shock.
link to bbc.co.uk
No doubt bringing his wages up to average BBC management £400+ grand. Tasty.
“Everything’s fine!” the colonial media proclaims.
On the surface, things do appear relatively okay. However…
link to imgur.com
BBC 2 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Brexit: A Very British Coup?
The real story of the campaign for Brexit as told by a host of key people as they lived and breathed it.
Loads and loads of fat troughers having an ace time. Not one word on just how hard the BBC worked across teamGB to get Farage right at the centre of UK politics, over the mad one that BBC Scotland and Jim Naughty treated like a god, to get UKIP in to Scotland.
Appalling shysters, or just another day at the beeb. Whatisface MacQuarrell, head of BBC Scotland also been promoted for his loyalty to the yew kay today, shock.
link to bbc.co.uk
No doubt bringing his wages up to average BBC management £400+ grand. Tasty.
Hark the Herald!
Their take on the push button labour pressing for enquiry… 🙂
Row over Kezia Dugdale vote as SNP avoids defeat on council tax reforms
link to archive.is
Wars have been fought for less.
@Macduff
Glasgow is not the centre of the Universe nor Scotland for that matter and a min of a 7hour round trip for me is stretching it. Perth is more central but then for every extra bod from up North you would lose 2 or more from the West, swings and roundabouts.
Dave McEwan Hill: Heartbreaking
I hope you don’t mind
But I must join,it pains
me this us living well
When others live in living hell
The tears flow down
my pain torn face
I am not part of
this inhuman race
Like a waterfall salted rivers fell
Down wrinkled cheeks
straight into hell
They turned to steam in hades heat
No one heard
The hissing sound
Like the final breath
of children Lying
Unheard unseen
but surely dying
For what they died,no one would tell
They died but
did not
belong In hell
I know not where they
went when dead
But that salty taste was
On my head of
tear mixed blood spread
in an Eastern dawn
There gone there gone
They can’t come back
airborne attack
There young lives blown away
Like dust for what for what
For rich mens lust
Who’s children never die in dust
But live as privileged
cursed spawn
Of demons who have fed upon
The bones of wretched
poor born pawns
In a game that just
goes on and on
On and on it goes
unstopping
Never ending bombs
are dropping
No one cares
no one needs them
The price to kill
Would cost less
To feed them
The sky cried
Death and
Stole
Young breath
Are we to blame
I die in shame
OT
How long before the SNP are blamed for dodgy Scottish cheese?
@mike cassady
Good post about Broon.
Very much related but also very relevant to the current obsession with deficits i feel this video really lifts the lid on what deficits really are and why they are important.
The UK is built on deficit spending since ww2. There is really only one area which would have produced a surplus. Think small population big oil producer.
link to youtube.com
Very informative. Please share widely.
Bit off topic, but I too complained to the BBC about the lead item on their radio news bulletins leading with the “story” that some twee cookery programme’s national treasure of a judge wasn’t defecting to Channel 4…
This news was deemed to be more important than the 2d item about further bombing in Syria, and that IVF treatment was being cut back across some NHS trusts.
I absolutely despair of our “national” broadcaster, I really do.
FFS Let’s get out posts-haste, people.
Dave McEwan Hill:
Your words touched my soul so I know you’ll understand me
as I understand you
It’s painful to hold
Inside
Peace and Love to you
I can’t bring myself to comment on this.
Its more from the cuddly EU.
link to archive.is
Pressing times for Kez…
link to imgur.com
O my God, the new UKIP leader given a long opportunity on the BBC to tell us we don’t want another indyref………etc etc.
The new attack dog now that SLab is dead?
A great tribute to Hamish Henderson on Alba tonight & Dick Gaughan sang “Freedom Come All Ye” at the end. Looking forward to a good recovery.
A must watch about deficits..
link to youtube.com
Smallaxe @5.57.
You and I are old enough to know the truth, and lived through the last 50 years of WM rule.
Not only will me meet at the deckchairs we will bask in the bright light and fresh air of an Independent Scotland, in our lifetime. Of that I’m sure now.
I doubt Dugdale will survive Sunday’s coronation of Corbyn, and the NEC and Conference will laugh their heads off at the notion that So Called Scottish Labour, all one of him, can not only defy the party whip, but that the Leader of the So Called Scottish Labour Party will set out an autonomous policy agenda, which, if at odds with the English Head Office, will still be put into the mix, to be debated by the NEC before the English Labour Party agree UK Labour policy.
Have this woman, and the legions of Dead Tree Scroll hacks, and the Unionist Spin Jockeys on TV and radio completely lost their marbles, or are they just a bunch of manipulative sinister little insurgents, hoping that we won’t see, hear, or read below their increasingly hysterical headlines?
Does Brian Taylor really believe that Dugdale, Rowley, Baillie, and the Bricklayer will get to pick WM candidates, and challenge the London party’s policy agenda?
I’m in the book, guys.
I invite you to meet smallaxe and me in Gretna, (bring the cameras, and a few English cameramen) look us straight in the eye, and repeat this nonsense.
Come on down; the deckchairs are dead comfy.
Very timely report given the subject matter of this thread.
Though, in the time-honoured tradition of WOS and the headline, don’t take the word ‘nosedive’ too seriously.
link to archive.is
@Smallaxe (10.23) –
More power to ye mister. I’m chuffed I got the chance to meet you, albeit briefly.
People beefing about the turnout at the GG rally should perhaps consider the quality rather than quantity of attendees.
A lot of connections were made, and good discussions had on that wet Sunday.
😉
So that’s why the middle east is in such a quagmire.
Nigeria next? After Biafra!
WHO NEW?
Blinkers on, Eastenders ,Justin Timberlake and Brad and Angelina have split and the fitba’s on, so everything is all right in the world.
Wheeshtminster will wheel out the Royale Family to save the UNION.
SERIOUSLY, GET THIS PRINTED IN “The peoples Friend” and Francis Gays article in the SUNDAY POST. Dae they still dae that?
FRANCIS GAY,memories memories!!!
Mike Cassidy 11.12. but the point is being made of Wheeshtminster will make sure renewables are sold of offshore as well so lost again to Scotland. INDEPENDENCE old bean, INDEPENDENCE, pip pip, and jolly japes to old Etonia
Norway has coped admirably with the responsibility of managing a vast natural resource on their doorstep. The governmental decisions taken 40 years ago will benefit its citizen for decades so it’s not too difficult to choose which socio economic model- Norway or UKOK’s-is the better example of responsible stewardship and intelligent politics.
‘Norway has very high material living standards and scores well on other aspects of wellbeing, thanks to a mix of natural resources wealth, good policy making and inclusive and egalitarian social values, including active efforts to break down barriers to women’s careers…
Norway’s economy has been transformed since the discovery of commercially viable offshore oil and gasfields in the late 1960s which helped the country to achieve a high level of GDP per capita .
Good macroeconomic management of the oil wealth via the sovereign wealth fund and the associated fiscal rule has helped achieve impressive standards of living across society. Also, inflows of labour from other European Economic Area (EEA) countries have supported activity and reduced the risk of overheating…
The country scores well in practically every dimension of the OECD’s Better Life Index . Household disposable income ranks third highest in the OECD area and this is echoed in good outcomes in jobs, earnings, and housing. Furthermore, scores relating to subjective well-being, work-life balance and the environment are good.
Low levels of inequality and poverty are being driven by strong societal values of inclusiveness and egalitarianism and by other features of the “Nordic model”. In particular, emphasis on the quality of education, encouraging and facilitating the employment of women, well functioning centralised wage bargaining systems, good legal frameworks for business and high levels of trust in society. Sustaining these outstanding economic and social outcomes is the key priority for Norway’s economic policy maker…’
And all things considered even with current economic uncertainties
‘Norway is in a very strong position to handle risks and vulnerabilities, such as those described above.Flexible monetary policy with a floating exchange rate in combination with the wealth fund and fiscal framework reduces exposure to oil-price-related and other risks. And, there is capacity for substantial automatic and discretionary counter-cyclical fiscal stimulus, even while remaining within the bounds set by fiscal rules’
link to oecd.org
Irrelevant of what the vote was about,nice to see Tories stopped for once,always thought it was Labours job to oppose the Tories,not work with or for them. 🙂
Jack Collatin:
That sounds like fun Jack,it’s definitely one for the bucket
List. 🙂
Peace Love and Laugh’s my good friend
I’ve mentioned this before. Can somebody please find a link to a headline from the “Glasgow Herald” that said something like. Thatcher must not waste north sea oil revenues on unemployment.
It would be great to see what they were saying all these years ago.
Ian Brotherhood:
We must meet again soon Ian,we didn’t get enough time on Sunday,but we will make up for it.
I know some men
We know one another
If one takes off the hood
I’ll just call him Brother
Peace Love and people to Love
I am sure I saw it on here but the best Oil argument is the one that shows the revenue Norway generated over the past year when Oil prices were in the toilet compared to what Westminster generated as I recall it was significant
Smallaxe at 10.23
Smallaxe at 10.32
Appreciated. Thank you.
Fred
Bha e cearst gu leor.
And I notice the fund for Dick Gaughan’s recent medical predicament has gone through the £10k barrier.
So incompetent is Westminster that it couldn’t even steal all the wealth for itself.
London reminds me of a bank heist team that steals £20 million of gold, only to melt it down and fence it at 10p on the pound.
But you have to hand it the BBC Shortbread. First class job on disseminating decades of “oil is actually a bad deal for Scotland” propaganda.
Dave McEwan Hill:
Dave if ever I had a soulmate I found him in you tonight
when I read your post I cried.My own words came so easy to me
after reading yours.
Peace Love and Poetic Hearts
Something to think about! IN OUR NAME!!!
Smallaxe says
link to msf.org.uk
Dear Smallaxe
Thank you for your donation to Médecins Sans Frontières UK.
The reference for this donation is W0160163
Thank you
Your donation is what makes our work possible. Donations such as yours allows us to remain independent from political, religious and economic interests, and ensures we can act fast and save lives based on needs alone.
See donations at work
Our website is a great place to see how much of an impact donations such as yours have. There, you’ll find the latest news, photo stories, videos and blogs from our staff and patients.
Join our social communities
Our social communities are lively places and are full of topical debate. They are the best places to get our news as it happens. Please join us on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.
SMALLAXE says,please be aware,I know everyone can’t donate but
Please take notice of what is being done in our Name
Patient story
A man who brought his sister to an MSF field hospital
“We heard the sound of explosions… I told my sister to move and find shelter, as it was close. She was behind me, about five metres. A bomb landed near her. She was covered in rubble. I shouted: “Are you hurt, sister?” She replied: “Yes, I am!” I ran towards her and saw that shrapnel had hit her face. Blood was coming out of her neck … We shouted for a car. Thankfully there was one nearby. We took her to the hospital, where they stopped the bleeding. Her situation is stable now.
If there were no hospital, she’d have died. We need medical care. In my sister’s case, she needs doctors, care, drugs. As you know, we have nothing here. We need support in medication, doctors, ambulances capable of transporting patients immediately, everything.”
THIS IS SYRIA NOW WINGERS.IF EVER PEACE AND LOVE WERE NEEDED
IT IS HERE.
I have only put in one patients story,there are hundreds and
hundreds more
DMH and Smallaxe
Moving contributions, Thanks.
Grey vote trumps young millenials when it comes to turnout – and setting UK’s future, research shows
link to archive.is
It was the axis of evil – the US and the UK that funded the Islamic fanatics against Syria’s properly elected regime. Don’t ever allow that to be forgotten. Only Russia is legally in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. It is entirely possible that the US bombed those Syrian forces deliberately to try to provoke Syria. I believe Assad and Putin before I believe the US which has been lying about Syria for ten years.
Why should we be surprised at any behaviour of the Labour Party in Scotland? Every one of their Scottish MPS colluded in burying the McCrone report and betrayed the people they were elected to serve as they did so.
The cry is “Labour voting with the Tories against Scotland” and that should be repeated continuously.
HOW LUCKY ARE WE, HOW LUCKY COULD WE BE,THIS COULD BE YOUR KID
Amnesty International UK Home
Amnesty International UK
Help young girls start a revolution and end child marriage
Moussa Ouedraogo, Human Rights Coordinator for Amnesty International Burmina Faso
Can you imagine a country where girls as young as 11 are being forced to marry men old enough to be their grandfathers?
For young girls in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone, they don’t have to imagine it. They are living this horror every day.
But now they have started a revolution. They are standing up and saying no to the tradition that denies them an education, a life of their own and their human rights.
DO YOU STILL THINK THAT WE ARE TOO POOR TOO WEE TOO STUPID, WINGERS
Dear Smallaxe,Thank you for your generosity
My name is Moussa Ouedraogo, and I’m a Human Rights Coordinator for Amnesty International in Burkina Faso.
Before I started working with Amnesty, I was a school teacher in Burkina Faso. I always worried when a girl stopped coming to class, because it usually meant her family had sold her off to be married.
Their fathers told me that even though they know child marriage is illegal, upholding tradition is more important. They don’t see the point in sending their daughter to school. Like the generation before them, they see their daughter as nothing more than property to be traded.
The situation is urgent. Many girls who are forced to marry end up pregnant before they’ve even turned 15. Girls are dying because their bodies are simply too young to cope with the trauma of childbirth. I also know of girls who’ve died after being infected with HIV by their new husband.
Help end child marriage in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone – donate today
But the situation is not hopeless. The tide is changing in Burkina Faso. Girls are learning that they can say no to being ripped out of school, no to being forced to have sex, and no to being married off while they’re still children. They’re standing up for their rights. But they can’t do it alone.
You can help support our work in schools to make sure every girl knows she has a right to an education, and the right to have a say in what happens to her body.
Join the revolution to end child marriage
My Amnesty colleagues and I have learned from our years of experience working with communities that only education can bring about lasting social change. That is why we run education programmes in five communities in Burkina Faso, teaching them about the rights of girls and women.
We hold weekly meetings with parents and traditional leaders to show them that another future for young girls is possible – one where they can finish school and live independently.
And change is already happening. I’ve had parents tell me they’ve changed their minds about child marriage after coming to an Amnesty-led workshop – and decided not to marry off their daughters. We know from the numbers that more girls are staying in school and fewer are being married off. With your help, we hope to reach over 7,000 girls at risk of child marriage in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone.
Thank you once again
Regards,
Moussa Ouedraogo
Human Rights Coordinator, Amnesty International Burkina Faso
Listen to the UKIP bullshit :-
link to bbc.co.uk
Win Win my a**e it’s lose lose, Westminster will continue to run Scotland down with more worthless vows, Scotland must escape this madness asap.
O/T Why, if Scotland always needs financial support from England, Westminster is desperate to keep Scotland.
Better Together /Westminster /any Tory politician/ David Cameron – Theresa May /the BBC, NO ONE will answer this question.
There IS an answer, maybe several, but more likely just one. So this an easy question to answer, and yet, to my knowledge, no Unionist anywhere has or will answer it.
Almost as puzzling is that the Scottish Government does not know. If true, then the answer is a secret – a British State Secret.
And yet, we are not without clues, one of which is the fact that David Cameron, who got so much wrong while Prime Minister, got the ‘right result’ in IndyRef14.
But in doing so, he did some rather strange things, one being that there were no exit polls, and another being that he got up early on the 19th September, announced the result, and then immediately launched English Votes for English Laws.
Almost as if he wanted no further discussion about IndyRef14. Lest the secret became exposed? No exit polls, lest the secret be exposed?
There are other clues which tie IndyRef14 to this great unanswered question as to why England clings on for dear life to its Scottish Basket Case. But for the moment it is sufficient to raise the question again for it surely must shine light on the ongoing Brexit fiasco, in which Westminster has been given a perfect opportunity to get rid of its subsidy junkie northern colony which voted 62% to remain in the EU, but yet again refuses to let Scotland go while giving no explanation.
Just watched Diane James UKIP leader telling us that she’s now working out of Tory HQ, toeing the Unionist line, and telling us that although Scotland is a shit hole full of subsidy addicts, Brexit is a win-win opportunity. So, forget about Independence in the EU, please stay in the UK, and with all your new devolved powers, you too can have a great new life ruled by the Tories and UKIP.
But she’s not giving away the secret is she.
ClanDonald says:
22 September, 2016 at 3:20 pm
There was a very good reason that an oil fund was never created. It’s the same reason that one will never be created in the future. Quite simply Scotland would be able to claim ownership of it. It would make independence even more attractive if a multi billion pound fund was part of the settlement.
Instead it was decided to invest it in infrastructure in the south west; road and rail networks, sewers, tunnels, flood barriers, ports, airports. That way London could benefit from Scotland’s oil for generations to come and Scotland could never have a claim over it.
—————
Of course that’s the reason.
Scotland would never be allowed to build up a nest egg.
If we get a second wind for the North Sea in a couple of years, then taking control of the remaining reserves would be a huge vote winner.
It might only last another 20 years before it is unprofitable to extract, as electric vehicles become commonplace.
A selling point for a second referendum could be a plan to nationalise the industry and make sure Scotland uses the remaining reserves to give us a long term legacy, including money to invest in renewables.
An independent Scotland could bump up increase oil taxation to the point where it would be desirable for the current oil companies to sell stakes in the fields to a national energy company.
O/T There is a story on the Canary.co about the polling company Survation ‘s link to Owen Smith and manipulating polls which may be of interest to wosers . I can’t copy the url but it’s worth a read.
manandboy:
There is No secret,Westminster has been borrowing £Trillions,
in order to get very large loans one needs Collateral,
What and who do you think they used.Now you can only have one
Guess….Got it? Welcome to the Pawnshop!
Peace Love and Pawn tickets
@ Lenny Henry
archived Canary article about Owen Smith and links to Survation.
link to archive.is
Oops sorry Hartley not Henry – that’s somebody else!
Borrowing Trillions, Smallaxe? I’m familiar with the collateral principle, Smallaxe, but I have never come across any references to such borrowing. It would surely be visible somewhere.
If, as Smallaxe suggests, the UK Government has been taking out huge loans using N Sea oil & gas as security, then with Independence, the lenders are going to be very unhappy and probably want their money back. Dodgy Dave – fits like a glove.
Capella says:
22 September, 2016 at 1:11 pm
@ Manandboy – I was reminded of the Ogoni people in the Niger delta. More dangerous for them and Ken Sara Wiwa, who was judicially murdered by the state for protesting about the destruction of their economy.
Capella, I think it is a grave mistake to compare the Ogoni situation with that of Scotland, the two social conditions are worlds apart.
Thank goodness the SNP Gov are going to end sanctions. Stop food banks? People might be able to sleep at night.
The Tories/Osbourne destroyed the Oil sector for spite, to try and stop the campaign for Independence. To continue Tory rule in Scotland. The Tories/Unionists are in disrepute trying to ruin the Scottish economy. Never trust a Tory. The UKIP woman is delusional. A real chancer. Farague has made his £Multimillions from tax payers money. Illegally funding a political Party.
The Tories committed electoral fraud in 31 constituencies. Yet nothing is done about it. The Tories and there associates are illegally syphoning off £Billions off public money on grotesque projects to line their pockets in fees, consultancies and illegal manipulation of the Treasury accounts. Costing Scotland for Westminster total mismanagement and deceit.
They are trying to ruin the Scottish economy. Taking the UK out of the EU. The Tory minority are trying to take the UK out of the EU against the majority wishes. It will not work. Causing instability and ruling the world economy. Trident will go. Scotland doesn’t have enough patrols boats to patrol it’s shore. To stop illegal shipments of drugs, which affect the local communities and society by causing ill health, death and destruction.
When will minimum pricing come. To stop the unhealthy consumption of ‘loss leading’ alcohol and extra cost on society. Westminster should be drink and drug tested. Decisions are made by people doped up and under the influence of drink. Dope on a rope. Led by people who can’t walk and talk at the same time.
Scottish Oil revenues were completely wasted. On illegal wars, banking fraud and tax evasion. Westminster Unionists completely wasted it, while completely wasted. A complete waste of time. Illegally, lying, cheating in every way. Do not let them get away with it.
SNP/SNP May 2017. Twice to keep the shysters out.
Good morning everyone:
manandboy:
Be careful with my posts,sometimes even I don’t know when I’m
joking or just a good guesser. 🙂
Funny predictive text thingy,when I was writing the word joking,it comes up with Loki,now that Is a joke.
Peace Love and predictive text
It’s still dark this morning!
Don’t anybody worry,you haven’t got tinnitus,it’s just me whistling a wee tune,while I’m waiting for Nana’s links.
Peace Always
There’s a great echo in Wings theatre in the mornings,listen!
Johneeey dismemberrr MEeee,that was the serial killer song!
Good echo intit!
Peace Love and Phone the Polis 🙂
That’s the 200th post on this thread, I await my prize.
Peace Always
Right Rev, you have now ruined my day. Can we get this article distributed through every chanel known to man? Scotland has got to understand this, scotland has to see this, just as you have laid it out here.
Ken500 says:
23 September, 2016 at 6:18 am
“Thank goodness the SNP Gov are going to end sanctions. Stop food banks? People might be able to sleep at night.”
I think that we’ve got you to thank for that Ken,you’ve been
Bringing it to peoples’ attention for months.Thank you Ken!
Peace Love and perseverance Ken
My last word on UDI?
Why should a UDI provoke civil war? 40 years theft of our oil, the decimation of our heavy industry, the contempt they have for our culture, decades of propaganda, chronic under investment, the routine subversion of our democracy, the disrespect for our sovereignty, and all the other betrayals from the mightiest McCrone epic to the peurile insults of deep fried Mars bars hasn’t moved us to open rebellion. What is wrong with us that none of that has provoked us to civil unrest and disorder? How big a slap in the face does it take? Whose bright idea was it for the unionists to have the monopoly on fire and brimstone?
Don’t misunderstand, I do not advocate such drastic measures, but there are days and there are times when even a difficult and protracted UDI seems no worse or unthinkable an option than another bout of UK politicking culminating with another “democratic” triumph for the propagandists and parasites who will cheat us dry at every turn, lie at random, manipulate the media agenda, and defend the monopolised media as it deluges us with anti-independence propaganda. To be clear, I stop short of advocating a UDI, but it just feels like the fear of UDI resides in our psyche when it’s Westminster who ought to fear the possibility more than we do.
Furthermore, and irrespective of the subjective emotional outrage above, I have a genuine fear the Brexit negotiations are not going to run smoothly, and could be volatile and unpredictable. Westminster needs only to trigger Article 50, then renegotiate an exit with Europe which I rather suspect the EU would adopt in a heartbeat. There is a credible opinion the Brexit negotiations are impracticle in the two year timespan. Yet In the same timescale, which could be shorter than two years, perhaps much shorter, if talks break down or EU expels the UK for violation of treaties, then suddenly Scotland has to squeeze in an emergency referendum, raise the YES army from its slumber, hold the referendum, win the referendum, and then negotiate our exit from the UK when the UK is champing at the bit to exit Europe as quick as it can.
Frankly, there are times we seem as naive about the timescale and complexity of process for exiting the UK as the UK is utterly clueless about Brexit. I repeat, I stop short of advocating UDI over a referendum, but I think it might be a strategic error that the UDI is never mentioned as a credible option, if only so folks have time to get used to the idea.
I don’t think some people fully appreciate the fact that our EU membership is hanging by a thread, and if the UK finds itself out of Europe before Scotland has declared its independence, then we are out of Europe needing to re-apply. We are over the edge and into the Abyss. For all the encouraging words and promises, Europe can only help holding on to Scotland if Scotland has first made itself a nation state. No nation state? No EU membership, no holding pen status. Short of Independence, the ties which bind us will bind us to the UK.
I simply believe it is prudent to have an effective quick release eject button, and quite simply that’s the UDI option. And paradoxically, the more credible the option seems, I think the less likely it is to be necessary. But if Brexit negotiations fail, collapse, or get overtaken by expulsion for treaty abuse, (all of which are credible options), Scotland might have to move much faster than a democratic referendum would allow or find its EU membership at an abrupt end. With a UDI, democracy can play catch-up with a ratification plebiscite, but critically our sovereignty and EU membership are held firm.
Why do we declare the UDI the fifth horseman of the apocalypse? Isn’t that a line from the Unionist prayer book?Wouldn’t it steady the nerves if a UDI was not promoted as our nuclear option but merely reconnecting with a loyal old friend and faithful ally called Sovereignty, who stood up for our country in times of need, and held it together through wars, invasion, and heart breaking adversity, yet whom we somehow lost contact with some 300 years ago? UDI is our friend … no?
Like I said at the beginning… That’s my thinking, and that’s me said my piece on it. If folks think it is agitating trouble, then I step away… but reluctantly, because I disagree.
Why are we not surprised at the squandering if oil revenues to prop up the City, it’s avoiders and evaders? Why wouldn’t we want a nuclear deterrent, rather than invest in our rail, road, port infrastructure? Perhaps if we vote for independence, we should nationalise all energy formats and use Norways StatOil and Wealth Fund be the model for managing what’s left of oil, whilst investing in renewables. Successive Labour, Liberal, Conservative & Unionist politicians have ensured we Scots were kept on the leash. Surely people can see that the Scottish Government is playing catch up from almost 50 years of mismanagement on all fronts. And is only now completing our motorway infrastructure. If Scotland had been invested in, over this period, we would have fast rail links between our cities, integrated transit systems in those cities, proper motorways and dual carriageways linking our ports, highlands, islands, lowlands, towns and cities. We’ve been shafted by the Westminster established order for centuries. It’s time we did something about it!
Breeks:
That piece was beautifully written and completely understood I
have been watching as you were being shouted down about UDI,
and I think anyone who has followed your posts,as you know I do,should have known that you were not advocating civil war,
but exercising your frustration at the absurd situation that
we now find ourselves in,through no fault of our own, I may add.
I,like yourself,do not have the answer to our predicament, I wish I had, it’s maddening to feel as if we are sitting here
with our hands tied and at the not so tender mercies of psychopathic dangerous people who care nought but for their own twisted plans,whatever those may be. I sometimes despair.
Peace and Love my friend,is all I can offer for now!
Links
link to commonspace.scot
A daily look at the bbc
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
link to randompublicjournal.com
link to universities-scotland.ac.uk
link to commonspace.scot
Post-Brexit racism: The truth of hate crime boom after Leave vote and the telling area where incidents fell
link to archive.is
link to democraticaudit.com
link to project-syndicate.org
Nana Good morning,
I know a fine lady methinks
Each morning she sends me fine links
From finish to start
They are truth every part
And there sent from her
Big Golden Heart X
Peace Love and Poetry
And coffee with links. 🙂
link to sputniknews.com
link to evolvepolitics.com
link to politicalstorm.com
link to uk.businessinsider.com
I cannot tell you how angry the squandering of our resources makes me feel and all to make Tories (blue and red) and their chums rich.
What Scotland could have done to improve the lives of her people we can only imagine.
Time to take back control and since EVEL breaks the terms of the Treaty of Union, IMO, Scotland could just walk away any time she liked!
The Police Constable has a problem with Alzheimer’s. Too many innocent people are being ‘arrested’ and put in cells. 50% of charges never come to court. The Police are arresting innocent people and putting them in cells or are ignorant of the Law. The Police should be given more training in Scottish Law and additional needs. Then they might save public expense’s, overtime payments and get a week end off. The tail is wagging the dog. Back to front. There are too many unfilled Police vacancies.
The Police are patrolling too many Orange Marches in the cities which should be banned by the Police and local authorities. The Orange Lodge is a minority, exclusive society which discriminates. It should not be supported by public funding. Against the majority wished and the public interest.
Tommy Sheridan should be admonished and given compensation for lies told in court by the Murdoch organisation. Blair and Murdoch the biggest criminals of all. They break the Law with impunity. Blair is now shifting £Millions into charitable status because he could be sued for murdering people. Blair maimed and killed millions of innocent people.
Before police would investigate a complaint and give a rebuke or warning, Now they arrest people and put them in cells and then investigate. Putting innocent people in overcrowded cells wasting time and public money and trying to criminalise half the population. Is this an attempt to put up the arrest rate? Too many people with additional needs are in prison because they did not receive essential help in the community. Scotland is proportionately an essential Law abiding Nation.
Most crime is committed while under the influence of drink or drugs. Proper ”one chance’ total abstinence rehab counselling is cheaper than prison. Saving public, police time and money. Local council authorities should be providing essential services with the money provided. Instead of building grotesque, non mandated, monstrosities projects on borrowed money. Wasting £MillionsBillions of public money. Creating traffic chaos. Against the majority wishes and the public interest.
Vote SNP/SNP twice May 2017. For a better more equal and fair prosperous place.
We need “Sir” Ian Wood on the case for us
(Now there’s a man you can trust)
Jeezus!! I even have trouble typing that sarcastically
The delicious irony. Kez, leader of the UK’s Abstention Party (Northern branch office) wailing over buttongate.
It’s still a wake up call for the SNP though, that was too close for comfort.
O/T
link to facebook.com
There are no friends in Polotics only the Controled.
and… chatting to a helicopter pilot who operates in the North Sea – he said you could always tell whether the platform was Norweigen or UK; the UK platforms were in an absoluet state of underinvestment compared to top-notch Norweigen platforms.
Breeks: UDI should be the last option, once all democratic means have been denied or when we have been acted upon illegally or unjustly.
Independence is easy: you use a stubby wee pencil and put a cross in the right place on a bit of paper. If we can’t get enough of us to do that, how could we pull off UDI with the complete opposition of rUK and the EU?
An article like the Rev’s on the scandalous mismanagement of our oil industry is just the kind of thing to change the minds of Soft Noes.
It’s our job to make the difference in the next referendum by persuasion. We have even more arguments than
last time.
Dave McEwen Hill @ 12.57: I would agree with your analysis regarding Syria. The USA/UK want Assad removed simply because he is an ally of Russia. As they did in Afghanistan and elsewhere, they funded Islamic extremists for short-term goals who then predictably went rogue and now threaten all of us in Europe. At the same time they are in cahoots with the religious extremists in Saudi Arabia. The atrocities in Yemen are ignored in our press because Saudi Arabia is carrying them out.
The MSM have normalised USA/UK acting illegally in invading other countries but only foreign forces invited in by the government of a country are there legally.
The UN is supposed to be the world’s policeman, not individual states.
Syria was a cultured and ancient culture which is now a wasteland.
@ Sharney Dubs
We share a couple of things with the Ogoni. We are governed by the British state which exploits our resources for its own benefit, not ours. We have international oil companies extracting oil and profiting but no profit comes to us.
Nigeria became independent in 1960 after a nationalist struggle but was left carved up along ethnic lines to create division. Similar to other British former colonies.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
@Smallaxe
Thanks for the morning poem! Just got the links posted before my computer installed updates so apologies for not replying sooner.
Looks like another big decision for Kezia.
Just after the EU vote, she (like everyone except the Tories) voted to try to find a means to keep Scotland in the ESM. Nicola was charged to find a solution.
Now we hear that Labour are contemplating giving up on the ESM and presumably just going along with their Troy chums.
So what’s it to be Kezia? How does British Labour in Scotland stand on Brexit? Insist on ESM as a minimum, or go hard with the Tories?
Personally, I reckon BLiS want to be part of a united Unionist side as IndyRef2 approaches, so lining up with the Tories will be their choice.
Of course, a disintegrating and fragmenting Labour might be more of a problem in the short term.
Misleading headlines (well photo captions) # 1320
On Lothian MSP expenses, Edinburgh Evening News features photos of three SNP MSPs under caption Hey, Big Spenders.
However at bottom of the article one learns that Labour’s Iain Gray claimed more than any of the three SNP MSPs £4000 more in one case and £3000 more in another.
List MSPs normally claim a lot less than constituency MSPs but Labour’s Neil Findlay and Sarah Boyack claimed more than the SNP’s Gordon Macdonald.
Lazy journalism didn’t even tabulate the MSPs in order of claims or differentiate between constituency and list MSPs.
Political anoraks know the difference but not most of the readers.
@G H Graham says: 23 September, 2016 at 12:30 am:
” … But you have to hand it the BBC Shortbread. First class job on disseminating decades of “oil is actually a bad deal for Scotland” propaganda”.
Och! G H!
Their success was a simple thing as it followed the BBC’s rubbishing of the SNP campaign that was headed, “It’s Scotland’s Oil”.
After the Westminster Establishment had laid claim to all the Oil & Gas as being from the United Kingdom’s, “Extraregio Territory”. It was easy for their propaganda wing to then rubbish the Scottish sector as bad for Scotland.
The really sickening thing was the blatant way the Scottish Unionists elected members gleefully stood firmly behind the Westminster Establishment knowing full well they were ripping off Scotland’s natural resources for the Establishment.
Remember also how they colluded in the hiding away of the McCrone Report for all those years. Any genuine Scottish politician, with Scotland’s interests at heart, should have been fighting tooth & nail for Scotland, and for their own constituency electors best interests.
Quite obviously they were looking after their own, and the Westminster Establishment’s best interests.
frogesque
What is surprising is the Greens must have voted with Lab, Libs and Conservatives on a Conservative amendment. The Conservatives don’t support the Greens at all but many SNP voters gave Greens their ‘second’ votes.
@ Smallaxe
“… it’s maddening to feel as if we are sitting here with our hands tied…”
Our hands aren’t so tied as to prevent us from placing a small X in the YES box come IndyRef#2. Enough of us do that then we will have our indy. UDI not required and will lead only to an utter mess and misery. END OF.
Coffee time with Crash. It would be great to be able to ask the mad bastard why exactly there is no Norway style oil fund, just debt, giant Scottish democracy bludgeoning UKOK debt.
link to archive.is
The former Prime Minister has been offering his private advice to wavering backbenchers, stressing that voters will only back Labour if it is united, one party source said.”
Fcuk off Crash.
David Milliband in there too, WoS RT’s he gets nearly a half a million a year as the boss of International Rescue in NY NY. The trough extends around the planet for these bizarre UKOK failures.
I like many was surprised at the amount of opposition to the proposed change to the (poll tax renamed whatever tax )every single party was consulted on their proposals for the changes they themselves were jumping up and down for,These idiots many of who sneaked in the back door at Holyrood via the list couldnt agree or even propose to agree on the time of day, if left to this moaning bunch nothing would be done , this lot have previous ” the named person act ” we like it we dont like it we oppose it – preparations to protect Scots voters in the aftermath of the Brexit vote we are with you we are not with you we oppose it , all this shite is going on and is being activly and conveniently covered by our oh so neutral press and media .
Our hands aren’t so tied as to prevent us from placing a small X in the YES box come IndyRef#2. Enough of us do that then we will have our indy. UDI not required and will lead only to an utter mess and misery. END OF.
Me no psephologist, but ref 2 third option Devo-max with YES/NO is maybe the way forward. It does 2 things, provides a choice for Brits in Scotland that do not want Scotland to actually exist or usurp the UK and it protects proud Scotbuts Britishness. So what if the union jack flaps rampant over Scotland, for another decade or so, if Scotland is actually being run by Scotland.
Question mark left off for obvious reasons:D
Also chrome spellcheck says Britishness is actually Brutishness. We have a thug media but are we thugs?
link to peeblesshirenews.com
Heath/Wilson/Callaghan/Thatcher/Major also spent countless hundreds of millions of North Sea revenue in ensuring the north of Ireland did not re-join the Republic of Ireland from 1969-1999.
Their sense of Empire would not allow them to lose face to Irish catholic civil rights desire for a better life. Oil revenues paid for this hubris.
If you want to know why a Hard Border doesn’t work read about the absolute sqaundering of our revenues that built the necklace of watchtowers in the 80’s. At no stage did they stop the illegal movement of contraband arms, fuels/oils/alcohol and tobacco goods and insurgents across the border.
link to belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Nana:
Please,please do not ever apologise to me for whatever reason,
as you already know, I and many many others await your posts in great anticipation every day but and it’s a big BUT we do
realise that you do, like all of us have a life,home,family
and other commitments to attend to,over and as well as Wings.
You are an unpaid volunteer on a zero hour contract and worth
Westminster Palaces weight in gold young lady (he patronises)
When you are ready to send your links we are ready to receive
them,At your convenience not Ours.
I send you Peace Love and Gratitude from all of us (Fans)