Talking-up Scotland

(c) http://subseaworldnews.com

Writing this April, noting how Scotland’s subsea expertise has grown dramatically over the five decades of oil extraction in the North Sea, I quoted from the Aberdeen Evening Express:

‘Scotland’s “expertise in renewable energy” is in demand around the world, with businesses working in more than 40 countries, according to new research. Projects include advising the government of Japan, providing cranes to build wind farms in Morocco and South Africa and working with the World Bank in Chile, industry body Scottish Renewables said.’

Scotland’s expertise in oil extraction leads to opportunities far beyond the North Sea

Scottish subsea expertise to the fore again

Now developments seem to be growing and becoming more formalised:

‘Economy Secretary Keith Brown has met with the Japanese Ambassador to the UK, Mr Koji Tsuruoka, the President of the Nippon Foundation, Forrest Wang, and representatives from Scottish Enterprise, for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Japan and Scotland, designed to capitalise on opportunities in the growing subsea technologies sector.’

Economy Secretary Keith Brown said:

‘By working together, we expect both countries to maximise their subsea technologies at a greater rate, and to increase our respective shares of the sector accordingly – which is worth some £50 billion annually. The MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] should also consolidate the strong economic and diplomatic bonds which exist between our two nations.’

Readers may already have noted the links being developed with Japan in the food and drink sectors:

SNP Government-funded agents in China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan and Singapore, help Scotland increase exports of food and drink to Asia to more than £1 billion.

https://news.gov.scot/news/scotland-and-japan-sign-mou-on-subsea-development-keith-brown-comment

You’ll remember the trillions Gordon Brown gave to the big UK banks and his expectation that they would use at least some of that to lend to new and growing businesses. They didn’t. They stashed it away to make their accounts look good and, of course, gave themselves bonuses. Announcing the commitment to a Scottish National Investment Bank, the First Minister neatly summed up the rationale for having one:

‘A significant constraint faced by many businesses with growth potential is access to long term, patient capital. I can therefore announce today that we will begin work to establish a Scottish National Investment Bank.’

In other words, if RBS and the others won’t help us grow the economy, we’ll have to do it ourselves. This is an already established idea in many European countries:

‘The Council of Economic Advisers has highlighted the important role National Investment Banks play in providing long term investment to support economic growth in many European countries.’

When Jeremy Corbyn suggested UK have one in 2016 it was shot down as a crackpot leftist idea. Of course, Germany has the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau. I think they know a thing or two about running an economy.

https://news.gov.scot/news/scottish-national-investment-bank

(c) wikipedia.org

In September 2005, the Guardian wrote:

‘Scotland has the second highest murder rate in western Europe and Scots are more than three times more likely to be murdered than people in England and Wales, according to a study by the World Health Organisation. The study, based on the latest crime figures from 21 western European countries, finds that only Finland has a higher murder rate than Scotland….Scotland’s homicide rate is 2.33 deaths for every 100,000 people each year, compared with 0.7 in England and Wales. In Spain it is 1.02, and in Italy 0.96. Germany has western Europe’s lowest murder rate: 0.68 per 100,000 people.’

The population of England & Wales is 53 million or 530 hundred-thousands. There were 723 homicides in England & Wales to March 2017. That’s 1.36 for every 100 000 people.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/20/official-figures-show-biggest-rise-crime-in-a-decade

The population of Scotland is 5.3 million or 53 hundred-thousands. There were 74 homicides to end March 2017 after a ten-year fall to 2016 ending up below the English level. However, there was an increase in 2016/2017. So, that’s 1.39 for every hundred thousand people and approaching the level of other western European countries like Spain.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39780647

In sharp contrast murder in England and Wales has been climbing as the Scottish figure has fallen.

According the Guardian again but in 2017, we read:

‘Police record 10% rise in crime in England and Wales, with 18% increase in violent crime and 26% rise in murder rate. The home secretary, Amber Rudd, at Southwark police station in London this month. There has been a 20% surge in gun and knife crime.’

Whether the increase in the Scottish murder rate was a return to higher levels or a blip in a downward trend will be revealed next year.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/20/official-figures-show-biggest-rise-crime-in-a-decade

Why might this be happening? One popular theory has it that poverty is the key component to what makes one place more dangerous to live in as compared to another. See:

‘Recession ‘boosted murder rates’ at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4348238.stm

I wrote this in August:

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

Could some credit for Scotland’s falling murder rate go to the progressive polices of the last ten years of SNP government and some blame for England & Wales’ climbing rate go to the austerity policies of Tory and Coalition governments?

Archive image c.1977, courtesy of Alistair Kerr.

First to implement no-smoking bans in enclosed spaces, then whole campuses, and still working hard to implement a minimum price for alcohol, Scotland is first with plans to introduce a deposit return scheme for bottles and cans. Witness as I’m sure you all are to the blight of discarded garbage in Scotland’s streets and places of scenic beauty, I strongly welcome this plan and, once more it’s good to see our government getting on with the kind of things most of us want to see happen.

It’s estimated that, in addition to the obvious aesthetic benefits, the scheme could save Scottish local authorities between £3 and £6 per year on litter clearance alone. Just as in the old days you’d get a refund on returning items to a shop. Shops would, of course, require a surcharge when the items were bought.

I know some folk would still throw their empties away but an army of entrepreneurial wee tykes would soon be organising themselves with big bags and doing the councils’ litter collection job for them. I was part of such a team of wee businessmen back in the 1950s and early 60s. I also seem to remember taking empty jam jars for entry to the proudly named Empire Electric/La Scala in Grangemouth in the same period for the matinee shows when you could hear nothing but the booing and cheering of the bairns in attendance. Used as the illustration above because I can. It’s my blog. I see, too, that a Tyneside community cinema has partly restored the scheme this year. Tyneside is of course, more like Scotland than South-east England.

Similar schemes are already in place in Scandinavia and 78% of Scots expressed support in a poll but AG Barr has opposed it. The Whisky Association oppose minimum alcohol pricing and I feel sure the tobacco companies opposed the measures to reduce smoking. What do you expect? It’s our world not theirs.

https://amaphiko.redbull.com/en/magazine/the-jam-jar-cinema

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/05/scotland-planning-deposit-return-scheme-for-bottles-and-cans

In a previous report, I revealed the significantly better ratio of staff to patients in NHS Scotland as opposed to NHS England:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/08/26/contrary-to-royal-college-of-nursings-ill-informed-carping-the-snp-administration-future-proofs-nursing-in-scotland-as-nhs-england-enters-a-training-and-staffing-crisis/

Even BBC Scotland has acknowledged staffing is at a record high in NHS Scotland:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36471626

I also pointed to one of several media reports of a staffing crisis in NHS England

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/02/nhs-staffing-crisis-70000-go-missing

Despite the above evidence, according to Nursing Times:

‘NHS health boards in Scotland are planning to increase their nursing and midwifery workforce by 594 posts this year, according to official projections. The overall 1% boost is expected to see the number of whole-time equivalent nursing and midwifery jobs rise from 59,650 at the end of March 2017 to 60,244 a year later….Across all NHS health board staffing groups, including nurses, doctors and allied health professionals, the country is expected to see a rise of 1,414 posts (1%) this year.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/hundreds-more-nursing-posts-planned-by-scotlands-health-boards/7021039.article

In a report condemning the UK’s record on disability rights, positive commentary was reserved only for the actions of the Scottish Government:

Governmenthttps://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/09/01/un-condemns-uk-government-and-praises-scottish-government-on-disability-rights/

More recently, the Scottish Government has allocated of £2.5 million to 13 projects across Scotland designed to ‘improve employment support’ by ‘linking with health and social care, justice and housing services.’

Scottish Government continues to show that it takes its responsibilities to care for its people seriously unlike its callous self-centred Tory neighbours

Now, perhaps based on this funding, NHS Scotland has announced the second phase of a programme to give disabled graduates better access to careers in the health service. After a successful first year of the scheme, twenty-two disabled graduates will get a two-year paid work-experience placement and help to secure permanent work on completion.

The National Development Manager at the Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living, Equality Academy, said:

‘Building on the huge success of the first cohort, GCIL Equality Academy is delighted to embark on the next stage of the disabled graduate traineeship programme in partnership with Scottish Government and NHS Scotland. This partnership approach offers life changing opportunities to disabled graduates, whilst demonstrating the commitment of the Scottish Government to challenging the barriers that disabled people face in the pursuit of their career ambitions.’  

NHS England does claim to be a ‘Disability Confident Employer’ but I can find no sign of an equivalent scheme there.

https://news.gov.scot/news/nhs-traineeships-for-disabled-graduates

 

© aspc.co.uk

Based on research by Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, reported in the Scottish Business News Network, the North-east of Scotland can expect major investment in infrastructure from private and public funds over the next 13 years. The research suggests the impressive – total of £8.9 billion. In fact, most of the investment is scheduled for the next three years so I wonder why the 2030 figure was chosen.

The second investment tracker capturing the scale of infrastructure projects planned for the North-east of Scotland reveals that £8.9bn of public and private investment is due to be delivered to benefit the region before 2030.

Here are some of the more notable examples listed:

Aberdeen International Airport – £20m
Bon Accord Centre George Street extension – £100m
Kingsford Aberdeen Football Club stadium – £50m
Lochside Academy – £47m
Union Terrace Gardens improvements – £20m (circa)
The Silver Fin – £65m

That list only adds up to £302 million so it would be interesting to know what the other projects making up £8.9 billion, are. The Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (‘Bypass not a fancy enough name?) will cost £745 million so that would be an obvious inclusion the list but I’m still way short.

https://sbnn.co.uk/2017/09/04/8-9billion-investment-benefitting-north-east-scotland/

 

As Ruth Davidson’s supposedly strong reputation begins to collapse as Theresa May makes it clear she has little influence of central party policy and as Scottish Labour face civil war between Corbynites and Sarwar supporters, the SNP look strong with good reason to expect further increases in their lead.

Here are the Scottish ‘voting intention’ subset sample figures from the YouGov/Times survey based on fieldwork between the 30^th and 31^st of August 2017:

Conservative   23%

Green                 4%

Labour             26%

Lib Dem             5%

SNP                  40%

 

That’s a strong result after facing the Corbynite surge and the media-constructed inflation of Ruth Davidson and the supposed Tory surge. Things can only improve as the Scottish government continues to impress with policies diametrically opposed to the Tories. The poll as a whole, puts Labour, in the UK, only one point ahead of the Tories on 41%. That tells you something disturbing, especially, for Scots. Despite their series of policy disasters and internal conflicts, England remains a place where the Tories are always a threat and can come through to power regardless of their competence or callous policies (bedroom tax, rape clause etc). Indeed, I have to assume that it is these very callous policies that keep their support up amongst a large section of the English population.

The first past the post system means that the UK Tories on 40% can always win while the Scottish Tories, generally at less than 25% never can. It’s one of those differences between the two countries that suggest the need for separation.

One interesting detail which I think can further increase the confidence of the SNP is in the table of issues which respondents think the most important. Right across the UK, Health was rated the most important but with 58% of Scots rating it so compared with 67% of Southern English doing so. I could be reading too much into to this but does it suggest Scots feel their NHS is performing better than those in the South of England do? Southern English voters were subject to daily accounts of NHS crises, even a ‘humanitarian crisis’, according to the Red Cross, over the winter of 2016/2017 whereas NHS Scotland commonly outperforms the rest of the country. See for example:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/06/nhs-faces-humanitarian-crisis-rising-demand-british-red-cross

NHS Health Check: Which part of the UK is doing the best?

As NHS Scotland’s standards of care continue to exceed those of NHS England, the Scottish Government does not rest

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/zc2c6t9xh2/TimesResults_170831_VI_Trackers_W.pdf

You might have noticed that Chancellor Phillip Hammond has just forced Theresa May’s team to backtrack on a similar commitment. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that increasing public sector pay in line with inflation would cost £4.1 billion. Presumably that means the cost to Scotland will be less than £400 million per annum and that our team have worked out a way to pay for it. Here’s the statement from the Scottish Government:

‘The Programme for Government will make clear that the time has come to ditch the 1% pay cap for the public sector. The cap will go from next year and future pay policy will take account of the cost of living. We need to ensure that future pay rises are affordable, but we also need to reflect the circumstances people are facing, and recognise the contribution made by workers across the public sector.’

You’ll remember that Theresa found £1 billion to bribe the DUP and stay in government so there is presumably money that could be reallocated to this if only Tories believed in rewarding those less-well-off than themselves. Off course, they don’t.

Needless to say Scottish Labour are trying to claim credit for something they couldn’t have costed and the Scottish Tories want to change the subject as once more their London HQ is made to look unpleasant.

http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/sturgeon-to-unveil-legislative-plans-with-promise-of-bold-vision-for-economy-11364209220714

The Bloomberg report based on data from Wood Mackenzie fails to explain just why profit-making concerns would actually be doing this and relies on self-congratulatory but non-explanatory references to earlier investment in the fields when prices were higher but we all know none of that would matter unless they confidently expected that big profits were coming their way.

 

We’ve already seen numerous experts predicting global shortages and consequent price hikes. See just these two examples from the Aramco and Haliburton CEOs:

Independent Scotland’s oil wealth is assured as Aramco chief predicts huge shortages

Will Scotland’s oil hit $100 (or more?) a barrel again after 2020?

This year alone, 14 fields with a projected production of 230 000 barrels will start-up but that will make only a tiny impact on global shortages and prices will be high. Global demand is currently approaching 125 billion barrels per day and 92 million oil-based cars will be bought this year alone. See this if you think, regardless of how green you’d like things to go, the demand for Scotland’s oil is not going to be massive and consequently very lucrative for a small independent country:

‘The Steady Drumbeat of More Global Oil Demand’

https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2017/05/29/the-steady-drumbeat-of-more-global-oil-demand/#372782345e2d

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-04/u-k-north-sea-oil-field-startups-surge-to-highest-in-10-years-j75n10pi