(c) oilandgaspeople.com
In the FT today:
‘North Sea oil tax haul gushes to £1bn as crude recovers. Higher prices, increased production and lower costs drive revenue turn-round’
Pretty much ignored by the Scottish media other than reporting on BP profits, the Financial Times, free from a constant obsession with Scottish independence offers us useful evidence. They had more to say:
‘A £1bn boost to the Treasury will be good news for the Philip Hammond, the chancellor, who will give an update on the government’s budget in the spring statement in mid-March. HMRC declined to comment…. Production in the North Sea is also bucking the recent decline. Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultancy, expects it to average 1.9 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2018, its highest since 2010. BP last week announced two new discoveries in the North Sea and reiterated its ambition to double production from the region to 200,000 barrels a day by 2020….’
https://www.ft.com/content/995ad5c8-09c5-11e8-839d-41ca06376bf2
Will Hammond trumpet this good news? Will HMRC comment? Will Reporting Scotland mention it all or think it’s not in their remit as it’s clearly UK oil? See this evidence that it’s nearly all Scotland’s oil even after the sneaky shifting of the maritime border by Blair and Brown:
(c) quora.com Map: Location of UK gas and oil fields with Scottish territorial waters shown in dark blue.
I’ve written before on a related thought when the Guardian enthused about Scotland’s new independent commission on social security. See this for more:
How to get fair coverage of Scottish politics. Read a slightly left-of-centre English newspaper
There have also been times when you could only hear about how well NHS Scotland was doing by reading the website or by watching the ‘national news’ on BBC at 6 before Reporting Scotland at 6.30 went on to either ignore it or distort it into a negative. See:
SNP Gooood report on BBC Scotland News website is unbalanced without comment from Murdo Fraser
A Scottish 6 run by the Reporting Scotland staff? No, thanks!
Footnote: I’m not suggesting you can always trust the English press but Scottish independence is not the first thing on their minds as they worry about Brexit, Theresa and Jeremy and many other issues, so they often report unwittingly in ways supportive of our cause. Only the Scottish Unionist media are relentless in their anti-SNP propaganda.
Talking-up Scotland 
Apparently Theresa was musing aloud regarding the print press today: (from beeb website):
Theresa May announces review into future of newspapers
Theresa May has announced a review into the future of the newspaper industry, warning that the closure of hundreds of titles was a “danger to our democracy”.
In a speech in Manchester, she warned that the decline of “credible” news providers left the public “vulnerable to news which is untrustworthy”.
The review will look into sustainable funding models for the printed press at national, regional and local level.
It will also look at what role the government can play in maintaining a diverse and vibrant press landscape or whether solutions should be left up to the industry.
In Scotland we have learned to our cost that many of our fellow citizens are, indeed, “..vulnerable to news which is untrustworthy” – trouble is, this ‘untrustworthy news’ is being dished out daily and hourly by the msm print press and state broadcaster.
I’m wondering what she is hinting at by the term “..sustainable funding models for the printed press..” and the ‘..role..’ for the govt. Direct state funding for britnat msm anybody?
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BBC are to supply “Journalists” to papers. . . . What About the National, will they be wanting some help from the BBC
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Oh yes Ludo , oh yes , that’s her aim !
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The National website is carrying a most amusing headline re. the endlessly uplifting Noble Baroness Mone of Mayfair. Her timing, as ever, is impeccable: ‘Tory peer Michelle Mone launches cryptocurrency business just as cryptocurrency market collapses’.
Meanwhile the beeb Northern Ireland site carries a couple of interesting headlines: 1. ‘Eight million cigarettes seized at Belfast Port’
and 2. ‘Brexit ‘technical talks’ focus on Northern Ireland’. – And poor old Rees-Mogg wonders why those blasted Continentals have any concerns regarding a ‘frictionless border’.
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Right Wing English newspapers telling their Home Counties readers there’s bucks to be made in NS oil. . . Makes sense. . . . Just don’t tell the (majority of) Jocks. . .
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Doesn’t even occur to them (FT) that we might have something to say about it.
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It would occur to them . . . If they gave a toss about Scots . . .
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To be fair to the FT; its generally trustworthy. It clearly has an ideological standpoint but, unlike the vast bulk of the UK MSM it doesn’t tell lies or twist facts and opinions until they are, in effect, lies. It deals with money which is far too serious to be subjected to the bullsh.t we get from the rest of the MSM. It also has journos who still seem to have a smidgen of professional pride and ethics left. If you want something approximating to the truth from the MSM then the FT’s your ‘go to’ default position. During the Indy referendum it played with a pretty straight bat.
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