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U13925730

Listed below are comments made by U13925730 between Monday, 30th November 2009 and Friday, 4th December 2009.

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The battle over class sizes 10:52am on 04 Dec 2009 Since the subject is education, a basic maths question How much is a minimum of 23 billion BOE of oil worth? Please remember to factor in the Scottish share of value to UK economy and balance of payments by some £30billion per annum

Why? Interesting article form the Press and Journal:
"26th round screening study that analysis of its databases showed that on currently unlicensed acreage there were 57 undeveloped discoveries with unrisked potential reserves of 513 million barrels of oil equivalent.

It said that in addition there were six abandoned fields with redevelopment potential, and 518 undrilled prospects, with 22.65 billion barrels of oil equivalent of unrisked resource."

The unionists are right, this union dividend we give to the uk is certainly substantial.
The battle over class sizes 6:34pm on 03 Dec 2009 Online Ed - Dont be so hard on Brian, this is the first time he has had the opportunity to report that Iain Gray managed to, at long last, string a few questions together. At best a Pyrrhic victory for the Gray man.

So, well done Iain, a researcher managed to get some info on class commitments. This is so NOT going to remove Labour council responsibility for their own failures. Will Labour be arguing for budgets to be re-allocated to achieving this goal then and ensuring their councils comply where they have already failed? Which budgets? Trams perhaps? Answers on the back of a brown envelope.
Soft landing 11:10am on 03 Dec 2009 The increased vitriol and negative press against the SNP in particular and Scotlands ability to govern itself or even to have an option to choose, is telling.

The vitriol is directly proportional to the SNPs chance of success and the fear that this generates within the British establishment.

It is therefore no surprise that the SNP are more than holding their own in the polls despite a tirade of negative press and political attack.

The vitriol will only get worse as the GE nears. Where can the unionists go? The attacks are already so pathetic people are either becoming immune or concluding that the unionists have completely lost it. If it gets much worse the attacks will resort to complete lunacy.

All I can see this achieving is people being put off totally with politics in Scotland (it is already happening) but galvanising existing SNP support.

The unionists can no longer patronise, ridicule and belittle the SNP nor our desirve for increased self governance.
The unionsts can attack and accuse the SNP on anything they feel like (in Labours case its pretty much everything) but this is a tactic of diminishing returns.

Finally, if the unionists can not gain through insult and attack they will actually have to have POLICIES the Scottish electorate want AND a leadership we can have a degree of trust and confidence with.

Clearly, they have neither.
Taking it to the max 6:35pm on 30 Nov 2009 93 FatherMacKenzie,

Yes, No 75 seems to be misreading Labour central propaganda. You can tell because he talks of Scotlands political leaders, when we know there are none in the British unionist parties in the Scottish region, just British leading figures and some regional hacks. In fact he is so confused the poster may even be Iain Gray, whom we already know cannot count to 3 and doesn't know much of what is already reserved or not.

However I doubt your Q1 will be posed given that nobody or at least no party is arguing or pushing for Dev Max. That may change though as soon as the referendum can no longer be blocked.

However this may take some time. Even if the SNP double or triple their current MPs it won't change much imo. Then, if the SNP get a bigger majority in the SP they would only get a coalition with someone changing their tune ie. Lib dems. It seems credible that the 3 unionist parties could still block the referendum.

However I think the lib dems are going to have a disaster and change their current policy and perhaps agree as long as dev max does indeed get added. Are the lib dems a party that change their minds...tricky that one :)
Taking it to the max 4:06pm on 30 Nov 2009 26. Reluctant-expat,

Calling me a liar by completely misrepresenting what I said is something against forum rules. Its better your post remains visible though.

I was talking about CROWN ESTATE REVENUES, revenues of which go to Westminster. I was NOT talking about oil. Your post starts on this subject, changes to a completely different one and then makes baseless allegations of your own.

The crown estate is a reserved body, run by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency which determines the use of the seabed eg ports, fish farming, inshore wind in the near future etc. Revenues collected by this agency from Scottish coastal business do NOT stay in Scotland. The paper doesn't break down how much exactly, probably because the stats are not available to extract out the Scottish part.

Either apologise or come up with something resembling a factual argument.
Taking it to the max 2:34pm on 30 Nov 2009 #17, maybe you should read the white paper and other stats about actual broadcasting spending in Scotland?
Scotland currently gets less than 50% of what we pay to the BBC spent back in Scotland. Therefore if we had the same level of revenue, 100% parity, actally spent in Scotland I could hardly imagine that quality would go down.

Is it not more likely that the current dire quality is in part due to this misallocation of funds?

Elsewhere your unsupported statement that in Scotland "It's too small as it is, can you imagine BBC Scotland t.v being anymore parochial?" is nothing more than cringe. In fact its the very definition of cringe.

Instead of thinking 'parochial' think 'parity', level playing field, then judge the results. Not before.
Taking it to the max 2:15pm on 30 Nov 2009 Initial impressions of the paper.

I was disappointed by the intro. It is too much of a photo op. for government ministers which detracts from the rest of paper. You could be mistaken for an SNP party political publication. This may put people off reading the report because they may dislike the SNP ministers or MPs/MSPs in general (who could blame them) even if they were interested in the constitutional aspects.

However when it gets into the details each section and subject is presented well and at enough detail to give a general idea.
Some aspects are missing important detail, like just how much are we being ripped off through Crown estate revenues going straight to Westminster coffers?

It was interesting to read that withholding Barnett consequentials is officially called "formula bypass", but is in reality a Scotland bypass, which the UK government decide to adopt as and when they feel like it.
recently they have felt like 'bypassing' Scotland on a number of occasions.

An interesting statistic was the 1000s of lost defence jobs in Scotland under Labour in the last decade and our poor and deteriorating relative share of defence spending.

One thing missing is any analysis of Nuclear power as part of Energy mix, our ability to legislate or not on different energy policies under the different proposals and how to handle existing nuclear waste from a Scottish perspective.

With devolution we have full responsibility for running certain devolved services. But zero control of the money to run them. How is this good for Scotland?

Money we should receive from extra public spending going to England and Wales often gets stopped from coming to Scotland. How is this good for Scotland?

Clearly this system should be changed if we want an accountable parliament, but this is not even proposed under Calman.
Calman does think we can control Air gun usage defence but not national defence and weaponry.
Calman thinks we can control speed limits on our second rate A and B class roads but not be given controls to finance modern transport infrastructure.
Calman thinks we could decide on a safe limit to drink and drive, but not on alcohol taxation or powers to preserve our whisky industry.

Come UK election, no UK party will implment Calman anyway, so we will a Status Quo.
Come Scottish election, the SNP will campaign for a simple yes no on indepencence and not opt for a multi option referendum. The other parties will argue some points but Tory policy will be the likely benchmark.

Devolution Max with fiscal control is dead in the water, while favoured by many it is not proposed by any major party. Calman is dead in the water, was dead at launch in any case, and wont be re floated. A referendum is also dead in the water unless the Scottish voters return a substantially increased share of the vote in both of the next elections.
Taking it to the max 1:19pm on 30 Nov 2009 1st comment.

Immediately after the Calman commission published its white paper a direct link for the BBC article was available from the front page link. The link to the Calman White paper is still available on that article.

The Scottish government publishes its White paper and there is no link whatsoever on the initial article. There still isn't one. Brian at least provides a link buried in this blether blog.

How does this, in an way or form equate to balanced and fair coverage from the UK state broadcaster as part of its charter?
Talking drink 11:35am on 30 Nov 2009 Hamish42,

I can't really answer your questions from a technical perspective.
Concerning Brown, I am not so worried about his motives towards Scotland, than his general incompetence on just about anything. Except maybe the history of the Labour party. Which, after him as PM, will be History :)

There are many isolated events surrounding the UL Oil and GAS industry which on their own don't give too much cause for concern, however, together they show a clear trend against our national, even 'regional' interest (within or without the union) imo.

Surprisingly, most of UK oil production does not get refined here. It goes onto ships as crude and sent elsewhere eg US. Most UK refining is from other oil sources heavy in Sulfer content akaik.
Interestingly little refined product travels by road. The UK has a pipleine netwotk but is all in England and Wales. The taxpayer also financed a government MOD run network (GPSS) also in England and Wales.

There is no such infrastructure in Scotland. When Grangemouth went on Strike this created a major Shortfall in Scotland. If you view Scotland as a region as unionists tend to do this situation is in any case worrying. If you view Scotland as a country, that requires its own security of supply and infrastructure, as I do, then there is further cause for concern.

Put simply, the UK has a track record of working against our interests on just about any industry you can think of. On the subject of Energy and oil and Gas in particular the UK Govenment(s) have a poor record even in the UK context.
Talking drink 08:43am on 30 Nov 2009 376. GAberdeen and Oldnat.

There is great cause for concern here. I agree fully with GAberdeen.

First of all the North sea was split up into blocks for fishery usage. This was more or less based on equidistance from the coastlines of neighbouring states. Hence the different sector layouts we see.

The international norm that Oldnat points to is a more recent convention is primarily used where there is disputed territory, not where there is no issue. The norm does not come in and override existing agreements. that would be ludicrous.

Here we have the multi country UK State intervening of its own accord to change a national boundary. Not an international boundary but an established national boundary within the UK nonetheless and without any consultation whatsoever. Also, there is no real logic in changing an internal state boundary from an intra state convention.
Unless there is an ulterior motive.

This is a pre emptive and cynical move by the UK state. Who can blame them though when it can be done easily and with impunity while we argue amongst ourselves.

Things could get interesting in the future anyway and the Route of the Langeled pipeline is one. It goes from Sleipner (just next to the Scottish Sector) to East England, passing through the Scottish Sector for some time (even with the current territory theft).

This raises the question also why spend millions piping everything undersea to the South East UK, when there was already the St Fergus terminal in close proximity?
Note also: Scotland exports 6 times more Gas to England than we use.
Note also: Langeled provides the 'UK' with 40% of its gas needs.
Scotland has 0% gas shortfall and 600% overproduction.

The Langeled project was unprecedented. You do not see such gas piplelines going long ways undersea due to the technical challenges unless they have too. Was it necessary? The argument is that the St. Fergus infra and connectivity to the South overland was too small.
However surely upgrading the existing route overland makes more sense from an engineering and OPEX perspective compares to Langeled route?
(Which has already had major problems)

In any case Scottish consumers have:
a) Paid pro rata for this pipeline that they have zero use for and zero benefit from.
b) Consumers in turn pay extra from their supplier due to the added cost of supply from a Norwegian Gas field at international market import prices.

This is another example of - UK State : Membership is a privilege.
Once you are in you cannot leave.
Membership means we have the privilege of paying for infrastructure of the South because it somehow benefits us. Infra in the North is too expensive and doesn't benefit anyone.
Membership means we get to give all our resources (natural, mineral, taxables...) for exploitation and in return we get back dole money and a fixed budget. A budget based on no fiscal accounting whatsover.

Bargain.

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