Talking-up Scotland

You’ll have seen the mainstream media reports of NHS Scotland failing to reach its 95% target of starting treatment for cancer patients within 62 days. Needless to say, most media reports will lack the essential contextual information we need to fully understand the situation. Since the 1990s, cancer incidence for all cancers in the UK has increased by 12%. This is largely due to people living longer. There were around 357 000 new cases of cancer in the UK in 2014, that’s 980 cases diagnosed every day. So, for Scotland alone, that would be around 28 000 new cases in the same year, just one year! Meeting the target against the background of an ever-growing elderly population living long enough to develop a cancer is becoming ever more difficult.

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/incidence#heading-Zero

Despite this, NHS Scotland Cancer Waiting Times for April-June 2017 were met in 86.9% of cases and treatment started within the 62-day standard.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Publications/2017-09-26/2017-09-26-CWT-Summary.pdf?29430788756

In NHS England, Cancer Waiting Times for April and May 2017 (June not available) were met in 82.9% and 81% of cases, respectively, and treatment started in 62 days.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/07/Cancer-Waiting-Times-Press-Release-May-2017-Provider-based.pdf

So, the NHS Scotland performance is around 5% better. There were 3 493 referrals in the same period in Scotland so 175 more people were seen in the target time than would have been the case if the NHS Scotland performance had been the same as NHS England.

Now, I know some will say it’s still not good enough. The target is the target and it’s 95% but don’t we have to take some account of the massive challenge being faced here and, on a positive note, remember that regardless of waiting times, cancer survival is improving and has doubled in the last 40 years in the UK?

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/survival#heading-Zero

Footnote: Thanks to Alan Sharpe for alerting me to this story.

 

 

In August, the Institute for Fiscal Studies released a report which showed that Scotland is second only to South-East England, out of eleven regions surveyed, in terms of median income with much of the improvement coming under an SNP administration. Now the Scottish Household Survey, today indicates 56% of households reporting that they managed well or very well in 2016. This is a 15% increase on 1999 but, notably, an 8% increase in the last four years. Given that the government of the day is blamed for negative trends, we have to give at least some of the credit for this and other positive trends, described below, to them too.

Institute for Fiscal Studies reveals Scotland to have become more affluent than every other part of the UK bar the South-East of England and that much (most?) of this improvement has come under the SNP

The survey, summarised on the Scottish government website, suggests other signs of improvement for many in Scotland. I appreciate that this still leaves an unacceptable level of poverty in the country for others.

Here are some of the main points:

• Nine out of ten people rate their neighbourhood as a good place to live.
• An extra 20,000 households owned their home outright in 2016 compared to 2015.

• The number of people rating their neighbourhood as a very or fairly good place to live was 95% in 2016.
• 83% of adults held a qualification in 2016 – compared to 77% in 2007.
• 88% of people who use local schools are satisfied with the quality of service – remaining broadly similar to previous years.
• Recent attendance at a cultural event or place of culture has increased from 78% to 83% in the last four years.

With recent reports on the quality of Scotland’s NHS, falling unemployment, rising wages and the SNP’s progressive policies such as those on tuition fees, care for the elderly, baby boxes and bedroom tax compensation and the above improving results might be predictable to some extent.

Further contributing to the survey results, you might think, Scotland already has the lowest rate of child harm in the UK. See:

‘Latest data: In 2015, the rate of children on a CPP or Child Protection Register was in the mid-40s per 10,000 across Wales, England and Northern Ireland. The rate in Scotland was considerably lower at 27 per 10,000. (p88)

Latest data: In 2014 the Infant Mortality Rate across the UK was 3.9 deaths per 1,000 live births: 3.9 in England and Wales, 3.6 in Scotland, and 4.8 in Northern Ireland. (p15)

 Latest data: The mortality rate per 100,000 population for children aged one to nine years in 2013/2014 was 12.1 in the UK overall and 12.2 in England and Wales, 11.8 in Northern Ireland and 11.1 in Scotland. (p20)

 http://www.rcpch.ac.uk/system/files/protected/page/SOCH-UK-2017.pdf

Education Minister, John Swinney said:

‘Our purpose is clear. We want Scotland to be the best place in the world to bring up children, the best place to grow up and be educated, the best place to live, work, visit invest and do business, the best placed to be cared for in times of sickness, need or vulnerability and the best place to grow old.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/scottish-household-survey-2016

‘Those in the oil market fearing a flood of OPEC supply next year will probably be better off preparing for a shortage’

The headline quote and the one above, are from the analysts Trafigura and from Citigroup in a Bloomberg report today. Both are predicting shortages by 2019. We had earlier predictions of the same by the Aramco chief earlier in the year. With supply falling by as much as 9 million barrels a day and demand from India growing very fast indeed, prices can only rise dramatically. Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran and Iraq are already pumping at their maximum capacity this year.

I know most readers want Scotland to become renewable energy-based, as I do, but in the debate over independence, low oil prices have been used (effectively?) against us.

Low oil prices have boosted demand for petrol greedy SUVs and the growth in the number of electric vehicles has come too late to avoid the impending shortages. According to Trafigura, it would take 12 years for the US to replace all petrol-based vehicles even if it started a massive programme now.

What about shale oil, some will ask? Well productivity in the biggest oil basin, the Permian, across the southern United states, is diminishing as costs rocket and investors pull out.

Once more, please don’t let this boom be used by a Westminster government to save its otherwise failed economic strategies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-25/citi-says-get-ready-for-an-oil-squeeze-than-an-opec-supply-surge

The last Panelbase Poll reported on the 17^th September on Westminster voting intentions. It  put the SNP up 10% to 41 seats. See:

Latest poll of Westminster voting intentions suggests SNP are recovering from temporary effects of Corbyn and Davidson with 10% increase

Yesterday, a week later, Survation have them up to from 35 to 46 seats, a 31% increase. I think we can now safely answer Common Space’s question ‘Is the independence movement in retreat or re-bounding?’. See:

C’mon Common Space; which is it? Is the independence movement ‘in retreat’ or ‘re-bounding?’ Gonnae stop this inward-looking rumination and get on with attacking the Union?

I wrote the above on the 21^st, mystified by one Common Space writer’s apparent confusion given that the last Survation poll had support for independence clearly rebounding from 40% to  46%. Remember, only Survation correctly predicted the last General Election result.

Based on current polling, Survation suggest that even a small swing to the SNP would mean Labour would lose Glasgow North East, Rutherglen and Hamilton, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, Midlothian to the SNP. The Conservatives would also lose Stirling and Gordon.

Survation put their poll’s boost for the SNP largely down to Nicola Sturgeon’s pro-remain stance which is improving the party’s prospects. I suspect Ruth’s disappearance and the Labour leadership shambles are playing a part too.

Finally, with regard to independence the outcome of the Scottish Labour leadership contest seems likely to push those 24% pro-independence supporters in the Labour party firmly into the Yes camp for the next referendum.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/survation-snp-labour_uk_59c944e4e4b01cc57ff47d51

Footnote: Why is Alex Rowley not standing for Labour leader? Much more appealing to working-class Scots voters for or thinking about Yes support?

(c) tibet.cn

The Herald and other commentators have suggested Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is afraid to damage trade links by criticising China’s regime in Tibet. See: ‘Tibet campaigners accuse SNP of ‘cosying’ up to China’ (link below).

While the Chinese regime is undeniably oppressive toward minority groups, it’s less so than many of the UK’s trading partners such as Saudi Arabia or Indonesia. However, there’s another reason. The current situation in Tibet is, for the majority, better than it was under the previous feudal regime. See this extract, from a rarely heard story, with the link to the full piece below:

‘What we don’t hear about Tibet’ by Sorrel Neuss

While the world moralises over China’s occupation, feudalism and abuse in Tibetan culture has been conveniently forgotten. 

Sexual abuse in monasteries and oppressive feudalism in traditional Tibetan society has been factored out of the argument against China‘s occupation, oversimplifying it.

Han Chinese guards deliberately obstruct the pilgrim route through Lhasa to the holy Jokhang temple by sipping tea at strategically placed tables in the middle of the road. In front of the Potala, the Dalai Lama’s former seat of power, an imposing guarded concrete square glorifies China’s occupation.

Tibet seems like as a celestial paradise held in chains, but the west’s tendency to romanticise the country’s Buddhist culture has distorted our view. Popular belief is that under the Dalai Lama, Tibetans lived contentedly in a spiritual non-violent culture, uncorrupted by lust or greed: but in reality, society was far more brutal than that vision.

Last December, Ye Xiaowen, head of China’s administration for religious affairs, published a piece in the state-run China Daily newspaper that, although propaganda, rings true. “History clearly reveals that the old Tibet was not the Shangri-La that many imagine”, he wrote “but a society under a system of feudal serfdom.”

Until 1959, when China cracked down on Tibetan rebels and the Dalai Lama fled to northern India, around 98% of the population was enslaved in serfdom. Drepung monastery, on the outskirts of Lhasa, was one of the world’s largest landowners with 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. High-ranking lamas and secular landowners imposed crippling taxes, forced boys into monastic slavery and pilfered most of the country’s wealth – torturing disobedient serfs by gouging out their eyes or severing their hamstrings.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-china-feudalism

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13575679.Tibet_campaigners_accuse_SNP_of__cosying__up_to_China/

 

 

 

(c) wonderopolis.org

An extremely bitter tasting chemical compound discovered by Scottish scientists at Johnson Matthey has been awarded a Guinness world record for its huge and varied contribution to safety. The bitterest substance in the known universe forces people who ingest anything dangerous to spit it out immediately. You can detect its bitter taste at a ratio of one thimble-full to one swimming pool!

In particular, it has been added to sweet-smelling cleaning fluids and to anti-freeze which is appealing to some pets. However, its first application was to Danish pigs’ tails to stop them biting each other’s tails off. Bitrex in a cream applied to the tails solved the problem. Bitrex is itself harmless and is currently used in 60 countries.

http://www.matthey.com/media_and_news/news/2017/the-world-s-worst-bitter-discovered-brewed-and-tested-in-scotland

I’m losing track of the stories of Scottish researchers making a useful contribution well beyond our shores. Here are four recent examples:

Scottish research first to identify ways of reducing cattle-fart with view to saving the planet

Scottish Association for Marine Science to lead seaweed research to benefit developing nations

Scottish Veterinary researchers working to improve the health and productivity of farmed animals in sub-Saharan Africa.

Scottish university research to help developing nations remove arsenic from water supplies

Now researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University are working on ways to recover phosphorous from sewage. Phosphorous as some of you know is a vital element in food production. Here’s a bit of detail from the BBC website:

• It’s in our cells. In fact – just for once – it’s not an exaggeration to say it’s literally part of our DNA.
• Most importantly it’s an essential ingredient of the fertilisers that put food on our tables.
• Whether it’s fruit, vegetables or the plants we use to feed livestock, they all need phosphorus.
• And unlike nitrogen, that other element essential for growth, we can’t pluck it out of the air.
• The planet’s phosphorus reserves are limited and diminishing.
• Our bodies use only a little of the phosphorus contained in the food we eat.
• The rest of it we are pouring down the drain.
• It goes into our sewage and is washed irrecoverably out to sea.
• It has to be mined in a relative handful of countries, not all of them beacons of stability.

The BBC website, it has to be noted, does not seem to have any anti-independence agenda comparable to Good Morning Scotland or Reporting Scotland and often tells good news stories about Scotland. Readers have often noted this before. I think we have to assume it’s under different editorship (younger?) and recognises its audience is different (more Yes-orientated?)

Professor Ole Pahl, leading the research team said:

‘The statistics say that every person uses about 22kg of the original material – in rock – per year. So, multiply that by the world population and you can imagine how much of it we use.’

I’ve done the calculation based on a world population of 7.5 billion, it’s 165 billion kgs or 165 million tonnes (?).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41374541

Footnote: Professor Ole Pahl. As pub land-lord Al Murray might have said ‘Pahl’, beautiful Scotch name meaning ‘friend.’

(c) http://caithness-business.co.uk

An announcement is expected soon that the revitalised Nigg plant will soon be producing steel towers for the offshore wind energy sector.  Owners, Global, bought the yard in 2011 and have since invested £45 million in a major upgrade. The site has already built the first turbinefor the world’s largest-planned wave energy park in the Pentland Firth. See:

‘The Biggest in the World!’ 270 tidal energy turbines to be installed to provide sustainable power to Scotland

This will be the second major development in Scotland’s development as a manufacturer of renewable energy plant and not just a location for its installation after the comparable revitalisation of the Kishorn Plant in Wester Ross to build the floating windfarms for the massive farm off the Kincardineshire coast. See:

‘The sleeping giant is being stirred’ Owners of former oil fabrication yard at Kishorn are understood to be preparing to make major jobs announcement

Four more major wind farms off east coast of Scotland

We must hope this is just the beginning as Scotland begins to develop the infrastructure for renewable energy technology to be developed and built here and not simply imported and installed here.

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/151328/plan-secure-nigg-energy-parks-future-create-hundreds-jobs/

(c) youtube.com

With Brent (sweet light crude oil) prices settling at around £56 per barrel and the BP chief expecting costs to fall as low as £12 per barrel (see previous reports here), hedge funds have started to pile in and buy up shares in oil. See:

North Sea oil companies making $40 profit on every barrel and costs are still falling!

‘Oil Giants Still Love North Sea’

One analyst reported in Energy Voice today put it like this:

‘The fundamentals are looking a heck of a lot better. We still think this market is a breakout to the upside waiting to happen.’

Sounds good – ‘a breakout to the upside?’

Again, in earlier reports, I’ve mentioned that the International Energy Agency has increased its estimate for global demand growth while at the same time the OPEC strategy to trim the previous glut seems to be holding.

As for shale, the main threat to North Sea crude prices looks to have passed its peak with predictions of output falling.

Shale Oil’s threat to Scottish oil prices look s like fading

US Shale’s threat to North Sea oil profits fades further as Total snubs it

https://www.energyvoice.com/insights/151359/hedge-funds-returning-oil-market-looks-heck-lot-better/

(nice colour choice for the logo?)

You might remember this from June 2017:

With only 8% of the population, Scotland accounts for more than 28% of UK food and drink exports. Too wee to survive on our own?

Scotland’ maritime sector, outproduced rUK by a factor of more than 3 times in 2015. A reported for Maritime UK, titled: ‘The economic contribution of the Maritime sector in Scotland’ was published in September 2017 (reference at foot).

The main conclusion is in my headline above. However, here’s some detail from the report:

1. In this context, the Maritime sector has been defined as consisting of the Shipping, Ports, Marine and Maritime Business Services industries.
2. It is estimated that the Maritime sector directly supported just under £9.3 billion in turnover, £3.6 billion in GVA and 39,300 jobs in Scotland in 2015. This respectively equates to approximately 23% of turnover, 25% of GVA and 21% of employment directly supported by the UK-wide Maritime sector in 2015. Scotland therefore accounted for approximately one-fifth of the UK Maritime sector by these measures of economic activity (and one-quarter in the case of GVA).
3. With a large proportion of employment in the Marine Oil and Gas activities concentrated in Scotland, the Marine industry is the largest constituent industry within the Scottish Maritime sector in terms of economic activity, directly contributing £2.9 billion in GVA and directly supporting around 30,900 jobs in 2015. This compares to £440 million and £200 million in GVA directly contributed by the Shipping and Ports industries respectively in Scotland.
4. Not only this, employees in the Scottish Maritime sector are found to be highly productive in the six years considered in this study. The average job is estimated to have contributed around £91,600 in GVA in 2015; this compares favourably to productivity in the UK Maritime sector of £77,900 and£48,971 across Scotland in general. There is thus a large proportion of high value jobs in the Scottish Maritime sector.
5. By extension of its significant direct contributions to GVA and employment, the Maritime sector in Scotland also helps to raise a significant amount of tax revenue each year for the UK Exchequer. The Maritime sector contributed an estimated total of £1.1 billion in tax revenues in 2015, spread across VAT, Corporation Tax, Income Tax, National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and Business Rates, an increase from just under £850 million in 2010.
6. After quantifying the aggregate economic impacts through the industry supply chains and induced effects on expenditures, it is estimated that the Maritime sector in Scotland helped to support a total of £7 billion of GVA in 2015, an increase from £6.5 billion in 2010. This implies that, for every £1 in GVA directly contributed by the Maritime sector in 2015, a total of £1.94 in GVA is generated across the wider Scottish and UK economies. 
   

https://www.maritimeuk.org/documents/…/Cebr_Maritime_UK_Scotland_finalised.pdf