Talking-up Scotland

According to a report on their own survey, Insider magazine stated today:

The picture of an increasingly confident business community despite the wider challenges emerges from this year’s Insider State of Scotland survey. I’ve summarised the key findings below:

• Much more confident                                                24%
• Marginally more confident                                     38%
• Profits on a par with last year                               48%
• Profits better than last year                                   29%
• Profits worse than last year                                   24%
• Panning major digital investment                        57% (up from 44%)
• Not planning major digital investment               38% (down from 43%)
• Planning new equipment/technology                   81%
• Not planning new equipment/technology           10%

https://www.insider.co.uk/special-reports/business-insider-state-scotland-survey-11872351

Needless to say, most were against Brexit and Scottish independence and none gave (were even asked about?) credit to the Scottish Government’s business-friendly initiatives such as those reported here:

£226 million given in relief to small businesses in 2017-18 as part of most generous scheme in the UK

‘£1.2m from Scottish Government scheme for affordable housing in Fort William’

EU Nationals living in Scotland to be helped to stay by Scottish Government

https://www.moneysupermarket.com/business-insurance/best-co-working-cities/

From the Scottish Business News Network (A Douglas Fraser bookmark surely?) today:

‘MoneySuperMarket analysed and ranked 18 cities across the UK to determine where in the country best caters for new businesses. There were a number of key factors included in this ranking such as the cost per workstation, business insurance and the number of office spaces available to see which cities are deemed the most desirable places to set up shop. The research found Edinburgh to be the best city to set up a new business, due to its excellent cost per workstation, strong local broadband speed and low number of business insurance claims. Brighton and Hove, on the other hand ranked last, due to the limited and costly desk space.’

https://sbnn.co.uk/2018/01/22/scotland-revealed-top-place-uk-launch-new-business/

Original report at: https://www.moneysupermarket.com/business-insurance/best-co-working-cities/

Scotland was the best place, over all, to start a business. The above is, of course one of many in a continuous stream of good news stories contradicting the GDP and GERS reports favoured by our ‘Scottish media.’ See these examples:

17% increase in number of Scots planning to start a new business as Scottish economy strengthens

Silver medal and second in list of best places to start a new business 2017, it’s….. Edinburgh? No, it’s Dundee. Sit down Edinburgh.

Oh no, not more good news about the Scottish economy! Quick get more tissues for Ruth and Kezia. Far Less [Fewer] businesses failing in Scotland for the second quarter in a row

Scottish businesses showing signs of greater health than those in the rest of the UK

(c) businessforscotland.com

In Oil and Gas People on January 15, 2 018, Takayuki Nogami, a chief economist of the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, predicted growing demand and the possibility of prices rising to $100 per barrel. This followed, the July 2017 comments from the Aramco chief describing the outlook for oil supplies as ‘increasingly worrying’, arguing that the transition to alternative fuels will be ‘long and complex’ and that this will result in huge shortages. Discoveries are down 50% in the last four years. See:

Second prediction that Scottish oil may rise beyond $70 per barrel to as much as $100 per barrel and that demand will grow over the next ten years.

Yesterday, London-based consultancy, Energy Aspect,s predicted, in Energy Voice, that Brent prices will rise above £100 next year:

‘A slump in new production outside the U.S. shale patch in 2019 could help to send Brent crude briefly back above $100 a barrel next year, according to London-based consultancy Energy Aspects.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/opinion/161520/oils-rout-hail-return-100-crude-maybe/

This is an even more dramatic prediction in terms of the timescale foreseen. In addition, their apparent confidence in shale may be misplaced making the prediction even more accurate. See:

The Scottish Third Wave of Oil Productivity is built on solid foundations but those of the Shale Oil Industry are built on sand and on sand that is disappearing fast

Finally, further reinforcing the predictions of $100pb oil, we’ve already seen that those presumably well-informed hedge fund managers are piling in to invest heavily in oil production:

Scotland’s oil prices look optimistic as hedge funds invest and shale drilling boom passes peak

Luckily for Scotland, there have been massive finds west of Shetland in the last few months. See:

Estimates of Scotland’s oil reserves West of Shetland now massively increased to around 8 billion barrels! ‘A super-resource now on the cards.’

The signs of a ‘Third Wave of Prosperity’ from Scotland’s oil keep coming now. Make sure everyone knows in time for Indyref2.

As the Scottish media hang on grimly to the supposed negative economic picture for Scotland revealed by GDP and GERS figures, a continuous flow of evidence of real strength comes in.

Today Insider online business magazine reports:

The number of businesses failing in Scotland last year dropped to lows not seen since the onset of the financial crash in 2008, new figures have suggested. According to statistics gathered by accountancy group KPMG, there were 832 corporate insolvencies in Scotland in 2017, the least for nine years, when 803 were recorded.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/business-failures-scotland-lowest-2008-11892829

This news is just the latest of a series of reports revealing underlying and growing strength in the Scottish economy, actively supported by the SNP administration, such as:

England ran a massive trade deficit in 2014 and 2015 too. Scotland had an even greater surplus in those years. Who knows how much we’ve been subsidising the UK balance of payments and reducing debt over the years?

Business booms in Scotland under SNP-rule

77% of Scotland’s small and medium-sized businesses report success as Scottish Government reports record numbers exempt from rates and in the wake of figures revealing much greater signs of distress among rUK businesses.

£226 million given in relief to small businesses in 2017-18 as part of most generous scheme in the UK

40% increase in number of new Scottish businesses mainly under SNP government

There are many more comparable reports on the site. Just search for ‘business’ if you’d like to access them to win an argument. These are factual, evidence-based reports unlike GDP and GERS. Both are heavily based on estimates rather than actual measures because the latter are not available for Scotland on its own. See this on GERS:

25 of the 26 GERS income figures are estimates and not the real figures!

As for GDP, even the DAVOS elite have turned against it. See this from 2016:

‘Three leading economists and academics at Davos agree: GDP is a poor way of assessing the health of our economies and we urgently need to find a new measure. Speaking in different sessions, IMF head Christine Lagarde, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, and MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson stressed that as the world changes, so too should the way we measure progress. A country’s GDP is an estimate of the total value of goods and services they produce. But even when the concept was first developed back in the late 1930s, the man behind it, Simon Kuznets, warned it was not a suitable measure of a country’s economic development: “He understood that GDP is not a welfare measure, it is not a measure of how well we are all doing. It counts the things that we’re buying and selling, but it’s quite possible for GDP to go in the opposite direction of welfare.”’

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/gdp/

Despite this, the Scottish media continue to use these unreliable and inappropriate figures to undermine the case for Scottish independence because they’re all they have.

(c) Guardian.com

‘Future-proofed against austerity: new Scottish social security system’

Can you imagine that headline in the Herrod or the Hootsman? Remember the speech marks are mine and were not in the original. The writer means it literally and they are right behind it. Positive and without a hint of an ‘ah but’ to come, this was the Observer’s headline yesterday for a report on the Scottish Government setting up an independent body that will check to make sure any changes preserve human rights before the Scottish Parliament gets a vote. This is, to my mind, another example of how the SNP administration has a real commitment to acting as if they ‘live in the early days of a better nation.’ It’s utterly divergent from current trends in England and makes me a bit more pleased to be living here.

Here’s part of what Libby Brooks, their Scotland Correspondent had to say:

‘Scotland’s new social security system will include an unprecedented degree of independent scrutiny – with the express intention of future-proofing the powers against the kinds of austerity measures that have devastated vulnerable groups in the rest of the UK. Scotland’s social security minister, Jeanne Freeman, announced on Sunday that there will be a Scottish Commission on Social Security, an independent body that will scrutinise any proposed changes to the new system – and give its view of their compliance with human rights protocols – before Holyrood can vote on them.’

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/21/future-proofed-against-austerity-new-scottish-social-security-system

There’s little point in me repeating the article. Go and read the whole thing yourself via the above url link. The point is, it’s not balanced. The writer is enthusiastic about the idea and sees no need to scrape up some opposition voice to find something, anything, to moan about. Notice, they are prepared to compare this favourably with the rest of the UK without a Brian Monteith figure calling it diversionary, ‘whitabootery’.

Now, some people, some journalism students, some journalists, seem to thing you always need to have balance, at least two differing views and certainly not enthusing about things. This a fallacy. Some topics have no reasonable alternative viewpoint. Equally, some developments are so humane, so morally correct, so just, it’s perfectly reasonable for the writer to join in. It would be hard to imagine a two-sided balanced debate on tobacco today thought we did have in the past. Would a writer enthusing about disability rights legislation feel the need to find some argument why the disabled should have less rights? There have been times in the past when that might have been argued but to do so would be to challenge an almost total support for equality of treatment, today in Scotland.

However, II can find no mention of this development in the Scotsman, BBC News or STV News and the Herald offers only a dry, grudging (?) acknowledgement that the SNP claim it will stop the Tories:

‘SNP minister Jeanne Freeman says commission would stop Tories bringing in benefit sanctions’

Why are the Scottish media not enthusing about a ‘new social security system [which] will include an unprecedented degree of independent scrutiny – with the express intention of future-proofing the powers against the kinds of austerity measures that have devastated vulnerable groups in the rest of the UK’?

Is it because it’s an SNP initiative? Is it because it makes Scotland seem better that the UK? Is it because the Unionist media are so bitter and full of hatred for the SNP, they cannot enthuse about anything they do, no matter how close to the values they at other times profess?

Finally, look at the photograph they used. Talk about making the SNP look positive, bright, optimistic.

Kermit, how do you know I’ve been listening to Emmylou Harris more than Miles Davis? The shirt gives it away?

Only very serious and respectful readers should continue! (c) heraldscotland.com

I should say at the outset that I’m having a bit of fun with this. I don’t really have the data to really prove that the answer to my headline is definitely ‘yes’, but things are happening which suggest it may not be so far off and whacky an idea as it might have been even a few years ago.

The Herald’s daily average paper sales fell 10% to only 28 900 in the second half of 2017 with the website getting around 88 400 visitors.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-39076470

There are perhaps around 100 other stories in the print edition and even the online version will have around 50. How many actually read the David Torrance piece? That photo must scare off thousands. How many just skim the headlines and pass him by? I don’t have the answer, but I’d guess it’s a lot less than the overall sales or visitors. According to research by Campaign, 8 out of 10 only read the headline.

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/eight-ten-people-read-headline/1374722

Could David be getting only a few thousand readers? Five thousand? Does that seem harsh or generous?

Talking-up Scotland, on a good day, comes close to 10 000 visitors with the more controversial  reports getting around 4 to 5 000 actually opening the full text. On top of that, four or five bloggers will re-blog reports to an unknown number, some of whom may re-blog again, and so on. I’ve just heard (below) that one reblogs to another 5 000! In these cases, typically, 50% of my text can be seen without having to come to my blog for the full report. In addition, around 1 500 follow me on Twitter and Facebook and some of these people re-tweet or share the link to followers and friends, and so on. Many of these are, of course, in the first group of those who open the full text, but others will get the headline.

I know this is full of uncertainties but is my headline completely out of the question these days? Now, some readers may remember this from 2016:

Savaged by David Torrance is like being savaged by…..well, whatever, it was still a bit hurtful

and think I have a wee grudge. Well maybe I do but it’s just a wee one after watching the SNP broadcast allegedly spoofing him, twenty times.

Finally, I was a hipster back in the day when it was a real thing – full-beard, jazz collection, Kerouac novels and claiming to be an existentialist. Luckily all photographs have been lost or destroyed after Dylan told me ‘Ah but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’ and I got out from up my own arse.

(c) gegroup.com

This looks like very good news for the area around the Nigg Energy Park in the Cromarty Firth which has lost many jobs in the past. According to Energy Voice yesterday:

‘A jobs boom could see 300 jobs created at Nigg Energy Park in the Cromarty Firth if ambitious plans to diversify from the oil and gas industry to offshore renewables are given the green light. Global Energy aims to expand the oil fabrication yard to enable it to deal with massive 100-metre steel towers for windfarms.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/161279/hope-300-renewable-energy-jobs-boom-nigg-energy-park/

This looks like an extremely wise move as the demand for the more reliable, in terms of supply, offshore windfarms and tidal energy plants, grows in the wake of early successes such as the huge offshore windfarm off the Moray coast and the world’s largest tidal energy plant in the Pentland Firth. See, for more detail:

A monstrous offshore wind-farm is planned for the Moray coast, to power 750 000 homes and create 2 000 jobs. More evidence we need the Union to survive?

As world’s largest tidal energy plant in Pentland Firth generates 1GWh which is enough for 700 000 homes, will Scotland become the most energy-rich country in Europe?

This can be the beginning of much greater growth in employment in the renewables industries which I’m sure we all would welcome as an independent Scotland re-industrialises at the same time as it reduces its carbon footprint. See this for more on that potential:

Scotland’s offshore wind electricity generation capacity could be five times greater by 2030

(c) thetimes.co.uk

According to Energy Voice on Friday, the Brent price for March sales is £69.37 after breaking through the $70 price on 12^th January. See:

Scottish oil crashes through $70 per barrel figure. Time to reap this fortune and to remind BBC Scotland News?

This comes as predictions are repeated that prices will rise further as demand soars in Asia and US stockpiles fall faster than expected. See:

Second prediction that Scottish oil may rise beyond $70 per barrel to as much as $100 per barrel and that demand will grow over the next ten years.

https://www.energyvoice.com/marketinfo/161386/oil-hovers-near-3-year-high-u-s-stockpiles-forecast-drop/

I’m not seeing much sign of this story outside of the specialist industry outlets. Surely, the Scottish mainstream media have a duty to keep their audience up to date. It’s looking like the familiar strategy of bias by omission so its up to us on social media to keep sharing and wearing down the case against independence.

Remember it only costs $12 to $15 per barrel to raise the oil so the profit margins are now immense and ripe for taxation.

So, what’s wrong with this? I’ll try to keep it short and to the point:

1. There is no hard, objective, evidence of a ‘crisis’ in NHS Scotland, as a whole, though there has been a temporary problem caused by overload in (only) Scotland’s A&E departments.
2. The ‘evidence’ of a crisis offered by 38 Degrees comes entirely from newspaper sources. 7 of the 9 sources used come from 4 outlets with a clear anti-Independence and anti-SNP agenda – Scotsman, Telegraph, Record, BBC.
3. There is little use of sources from less-partisan newspapers such as the Guardian or independent. The one Independent article actually makes the case for the robust and communitarian nature of NHS Scotland and its ability to pull together to deal with additional temporary pressure. The final Telegraph article is entirely about NHS England and has no relevance to the case being made.
4. More importantly, there is no use of reliable, rigorous, research-based evidence at all, despite the fact that examples such as those from the Nuffield Trust and Audit Scotland are there to confirm the overall success of and crisis-prevention mechanisms in place in, NHS Scotland. See these, 38 Degrees: Research Report, July 2017, Learning from Scotland’s NHS at: https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/files/2017-07/learning-from-scotland-s-nhs-final.pdf and http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2017/nr_171026_nhs_overview.pdf
5. Even if they found the above a bit long difficult to read, they might have used this from the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42648951?SThisFB

So, to use their own words, that’s just not good enough 38 Degrees. I can’t tell for certain whether you’ve been taken in by someone from the Unionist groups and have naïvely wandered into their camp or whether 38 Degrees does actually hold an explicit anti-independence position and is prepared to let it bias its campaigns. Your Scottish supporters have a right to know.

Footnote: Several comments below add fuel to the idea that 38 degrees may have been infested with Scottish Labour ideas for campaigns.

(c) offshorewind.biz

A report by Aurora Energy Research, in Insider, for the whole of the UK suggests:

‘Offshore wind capacity could increase five-fold by the 2030s, cutting carbon emissions and saving on consumer bills, analysis suggests. The step change in the amount of wind turbines in the seas around Britain’s coasts could be achieved with contracts that by 2025 are effectively zero-subsidy.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/offshore-wind-projects-2018-predictions-11868267

We already know that subsidy costs for renewables generally are falling fast and below those of other forms of generation and presumably heading toward what they mysteriously refer to as ‘effectively zero-subsidy’. See:

Subsidy costs for Scottish off-shore wind and tidal energy farms likely to fall below those needed for new nuclear plants making the latter an even more stupid choice

We also know that 25% of the offshore wind available lies (blows?) in Scottish waters so it seems likely that around a quarter of that overall five-fold increase would be there. See:

Re-opened Scottish dock to build state-of-the-art floating windfarm to begin to exploit Scotland’s 25% share of all of Europe’s offshore wind potential

However, in the light of other knowledge, I’m not clear if Scotland would actually need a five-fold increase given that we are already exporting energy and that we are close to 100% sustainability in the next three years unless, of course, we plan a humungous level of energy exporting to rUK and Europe. Our current overall demand is less than 17GWh

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/01/3414/6

Current supply (September 2017) is 9.7GWh and is projected to reach 21.3GWh before 2020 (see graph above). This suggests oversupply of at least 5GWh which can be exported. Though a relatively modest figure, it can be added to the overall energy exports from Scotland. 73% of all primary energy worth £16 billion is exported to rUK and beyond.

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00514475.pdf

Remember ‘exports’ of energy to rUk are not included in Scotland’s already healthy, and unique in the UK, trade surplus figure.

So, a five-fold increase would be around 100GWh of which Scotland would only require around 17GWh? How much would 83GWh earn?