Dundee is already a top technology city. The Tech Nation Report for 2016 lists:

• Since 2010 Dundee’s digital turnover has risen by 129%
• Dundee now has the third fastest growing digital turnover in the UK
• Since 2010 Dundee’s GVA (Gross Value Add) has grown by 42%
• Dundee’s GVA now sits at £61.4 million
• There are now 3,318 jobs in Dundee related to the digital tech economy

Now, Dundee company, Exscientia, which specialises in Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery has just agreed a collaboration with Sanofi worth about £210 million. This is a major breakthrough for the company. Sanofi are huge with more than 100 000 employees in 38 countries globally. Here’s what Exscienta can do for Sanofi:

‘Instead of using traditional and very time-consuming lab-based methods to bring forward new drug candidates, Exscientia has developed artificially intelligent algorithms that carry out the drug design work on outsourced cloud computing networks. The model significantly shortens pre-clinical trials and also improves the chances of the candidate drug making it through the clinical trial process and, ultimately, become a widely available medication.’

Yes, me neither.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/business/business-news/422873/dundee-aidrug-design-firm-secures-e250m-deal/

© SSE

I wrote a few weeks ago in response to a comment that little of our renewables hardware was being built in Scotland. Are things shifting in the right direction now? See the above headline and the previous massive contract at:

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

 

I know it’s not the actual turbines, just the sub-station but £2.5 million seems quite a big deal for Moray-based AJ Engineering and Construction Services Limited and it is their biggest ever deal. The construction will have to be built 2 000 ft up at the Stronelairg wind farm on the Garrogie estate near Inverness so valuable experience will be gained in building something strong enough to withstand the weather at that altitude.

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/138828/moray-engineering-firm-lands-wind-farm-contract-worth-25m/

 

© johnogroat-journal.co.uk

This is a big one. I’ve quoted the Energy Voice headline as it captures the likely impact on the local community. The Beatrice Wind Farm will be a massive 84 turbine array in the outer Moray Firth. The first foundation piles have been laid. The project will mean several onshore infrastructure benefits including:

• An operations and maintenance base in Wick
• Berthing income for the Port of Cromarty
• 71 new jobs on Lewis
• A substation at Blackhillock
• An export cable from Portgordon to the substation
• Infrastructure and construction work and up to 100 new jobs at Nigg
• A 2 000 ton capacity storage tank at Nigg to fuel the ships calling there
• Numerous smaller supply chain contracts for the local economy

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/135705/work-commencing-2-6billion-beatrice-wind-farm-energises-north-scotland/

Prices for Scottish oil hold up as the glut begins to shrink

US crude stockpiles fell for a fifth week in the row this week. I take this as evidence of the inevitable consequence of rising demand especially from Asia outstripping new discoveries of supply of cheaper oils explained by Oil expert and geological consultant Art Berman:

Why Scotland’s oil is going to be worth a fortune in the years to come

Regardless of Berman’s mid to long-term predictions, experts quoted in Energy Voice yesterday seem confident of prices holding up in the short term:

‘There is a general belief that OPEC will leave its quota system in place. If that is the case, then global inventories should fall about 1 million barrels a day in the second half of the year.’

Currently millions in taxes are flowing into the UK Treasury as North Sea oil is tankered in huge quantities to China and other parts of East Asia. See:

Scottish oil in new and much increased demand from Asia ‘like never before!’

 

Luckily there are vast new discoveries west of Shetland so we can hopefully get most of the remainder as taxes into a Scottish Treasury before too long:

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

 

https://www.energyvoice.com/marketinfo/138863/oil-steady-us-stockpiles-dropping/

Here’s how BBC Scotland headlined the same results:

‘Figures show drop in Scottish pupil literacy rates’

Here’s an extract from the Scottish Government release:

‘As in previous surveys, the majority of P4, P7 and S2 pupils are performing well or very well in reading, with around four in five pupils in both P4 and S2, and around nine in ten P7 pupils reaching this level. In both P4 and P7, reading performance was slightly lower than in 2012, whereas performance in S2 remains similar to 2012. The figures also indicate that almost around two-thirds of P4 and P7 writing assessments demonstrate pupils performing well, very well or beyond the relevant level for their stage. At S2, 49% of scripts demonstrate pupils are performing well, very well or beyond the level. Performance in P4 is similar to that in 2012, whereas P7 and S2 show declines over the period. In listening and talking, three in five P4 pupils, two thirds of P7 pupils, and around half of S2 pupils are working well, very well or beyond the level. These are similar to the 2014 results.’

It’s all a matter of what you want to report.

You probably know the Scottish Government has developed a detailed plan to improve things further. See:

National Improvement Framework for Scottish Education

In the light of comments by Theresa May and Ruth Davidson about the Scottish Government getting on with the ‘day job’, you might like to know what Professor Andy Hargreaves of the Lynch School of Education in Boston, who is one of the Scottish Government’s international education advisers had to say about the situation in England

‘England is now a policy vacuum. No character, no focus, no sense of what England’s citizens, its young people should become. Just markets, academies, grammar schools. Choice, fracturing, segregation. More of the inequalities that separate each of us from all the others around us. More intersecting identities less interacting identities.’

Looks like a mess to me. At least we have a coherent plan.

https://news.gov.scot/news/scottish-survey-of-literacy-and-numeracy-ssln-2016-literacy

https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/top-adviser-john-swinney-attack-standardised-testing

In England, the National Housing Federation has warned that housing associations cannot afford to build new sheltered homes due to new Tory funding rules, the shutting-down of services and the ‘crushing’ of investment. They predict a shortfall of 240 000 by 2030 of the kind of housing relied on by the elderly, the disabled, victims of domestic violence and ex-servicemen and women.

 

Also, poorer pensioners will lose between £300 and £1700 per year due to occupying allegedly under-occupied homes due to the second ‘new bedroom tax’. This could mean thousands of pensioners forced away from family and friends into flats unsuitable for them. In most cases, there are not even smaller homes available so many of these pensioners will be forced into poverty.

 

In sharp contrast, the SNP has launched a series of welfare reform mitigation actions. See this:

 

Welfare reform mitigation

Across 2013-16, the Scottish Government invested £296 million to mitigate the worst aspects of UK welfare policy, via the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF), Discretionary Housing Payments, Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) and other activity, such as advice and advocacy support services. The Scottish Government is providing a further £100 million in 2016-17. This investment continues to support people affected by the UK Government’s welfare cuts in a range of different ways:

• fully mitigating the bedroom tax – spending £35 million in 2016-17 and £47 million in 2017-18 – to help over 70,000 households in Scotland, an estimated 80% of which contain at least one disabled person, to sustain their tenancies; the Scottish Government is committed to using newly devolved social security powers to effectively abolish the bedroom tax
• a further £10.9 million will be available to local authorities to mitigate the impact of other UK Government welfare reforms and help claimants of Housing benefit or Universal Credit maintain tenancies
• providing another £38 million this year for the SWF. Between 1 April 2013 and 30 September 2016, the Fund has supported over 230,000 households in Scotland, including around 77,000 families with children. 77,000 awards were made to households containing at least one disabled person
• since April 2013 the Scottish Government has committed £92 million for the CTRS over and above the funding transferred from the UK Government upon abolition of Council Tax Benefit. In 2017-18, this funding will increase to an additional £31 million, resulting in a total of £351 million being included in the local government finance settlement paid to local authorities in relation to the scheme
• In addition, the Scottish Government is making significant investment in advice and advocacy support services to enable people to access expert support in applying for benefits and appealing adverse decisions.

 

Those involved in the Tory ‘surge’ in Scotland need to know about this. I have to assume they don’t know. If you know one of them, please print this out and put it through their door.

 

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/04/5025/14

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bedroom-tax-pensioners-social-housing-housing-crisis-council-houses-a7340136.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-housing-policy-disabled-pensioners-crisis-warning-a7720721.html

 

Those former Labour voters who put the Union before progressive politics and voted Tory have gone. They’re backing the Tories now to beat the SNP. It didn’t work. The SNP won by a landslide – 431 to 276 seats. Labour lost 112 seats to the Tories who campaigned on an explicitly Unionist agenda, nothing else.

The Scottish Labour party cannot win them back nor should it want them back. They weren’t real Labour people if they accept Tory policies such as the Bedroom Tax in return for preserving a Union with one of the most right-wing administrations we’ve seen for decades.

It’s time for Scottish Labour to embrace independence, move to the left of the SNP and start again.  This way they can build a new party with a coherent and principled manifesto firmly placed on leftist values and over the next few decades come back as something Keir Hardie would admire.

Yet, here’s Kezia’s plan:

‘Kezia Dugdale shifts focus to unionism ahead of general election. Scottish Labour has moved to shore up its unionist vote in the wake of suffering losses to the Conservatives in the local elections last week….Ahead of the launch she urged voters to “send Nicola Sturgeon a message” to reject a referendum on June the 8th, exactly the same line as Davidson used ahead of the council elections.’

Labour for independence had 2 000 members in 2014. There’s potential support at the highest level in the party:

Scottish Labour deputy leader Rowley: “I have never considered myself a Unionist”

 

http://labourlist.org/2016/11/scottish-labour-deputy-leader-alex-rowley-i-have-never-considered-myself-a-unionist/

 https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/scottish-labour-pushes-indyref-rejection-wake-tory-council-gains

100. newstatesman.com

     All countries disappear eventually. The UK has had quite a long run (310 years) compared to many others. Germany is less than 150 years-old and that’s only if you don’t count the years after World War II when it was split for forty years or so. Even since 1945, thirty countries have become independent of their former imperial masters. Altogether around 60 countries have left the British Empire. To my knowledge, none have sought to re-join.

A survey by Eskify.com has included Great Britain as one of the ten most likely to disappear along with Ukraine, Libya and Spain. Here’s what they say about Great Britain:

‘The UK is a union of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern-Ireland. If any of these countries were to leave the union, it would be a big deal. But if Scotland or England were to leave the union would effectively disappear. Last year the people of Scotland voted against independence. But the Scottish government wants nothing less than full independence. The population of Scotland is currently split at around 50/50 on the issue. So it’s not beyond the imagination that Scotland may one day leave the union. If that were to happen, it’s unlikely that the union could survive.’

http://eskify.com/10-countries-that-may-soon-disappear/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21344264

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom

(c) businessforscotland.com

Right now there’s plenty of cheap oil selling at less than $50 per barrel. However, the demand for that same cheap oil from Asia is growing much faster than we can extract it. Fortunately there is plenty of oil out there but it’s going to cost more and more to find it and to to extract it. There won’t be a shortage of oil just a shortage of cheap oil. The US shale boom won’t last. In a global context it’s small. As for technological advances, they’ll just help you use up the reserves faster.

The recent discoveries west of Shetland put Scotland is a very strong position to take advantage of these high prices when they come and they will according to Oil expert and geological consultant Art Berman today. For more on this 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.’

Scottish oil in new and much increased demand from Asia ‘like never before!’

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4070455-art-berman-get-used-todays-low-oil-prices

100. fifeconservatives.uk

If you’ve read Tory blogs and tweets you’ll know there are some very nasty people in their ranks – racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and just plain offensive to most of the rest of us. You probably also know of the secret undercurrent of paedophilia in the party elite but that was largely covered up by police collusion in the interests of ‘state security.’

I had a feeling the Tory ‘surge’ in the local elections would bring some of them into the light where media exposure can only damage their party just in time for the next independence referendum and I was right. I’m not suggesting any of this lower order in the party are paedophiles. I’ll take them in alphabetical order rather than in order of offense.

Donald Gatt elected to Keith and Cullen stood for UKIP before and commenting on free meals for P1 pupils, is reported to have said that those who cannot afford to feed their children should use a contraceptive.

Neil Graham, a Paisley councillor, had his contact details on a leaked BNP database. I downloaded that myself at the time and found a near neighbour on it!

Ian James, for Strathtay, was reported to have praised a speech by UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe and bemoaned the lack of characters like Enoch Powell in the tory Pary leadership campaign.

Most pathetic was Fife teacher Kathleen Leslie (above) who described Nicola Sturgeon as a “drooling hag”, a “wee fish wife” and a “walking horror show”. This is a teacher, a role model for young people, who teaches what…..English? Is she that braw hereself

Ken MacBrayne for Benbecula and North Uist, Roxana Iancu for Glasgow and George McIntyre for midlothian were caught in time and dropped, after anti-Muslim rants by them were allegedly identified.

Finally, David Wilson of Inverclyde was reported to have asked gay people to out themselves during a public meeting during which a donation to an LGBT group had been moved.

 

Of course, there is also the suggestion in the Herald from the Orange Lodge Grand Master that ‘at least six of its members had been elected as councillors, with dozens more sympathisers also returned in the local elections.’

 

Before I go you might like to be reminded that the Holyrood contingent are capable of a big foot in the mouth sideways too:

@murdo_fraser

Rangers 5 Celtic 4 – The Queen’s 11 deliver Her Majesty the perfect Birthday present #ScottishCup #GSTQ

All of this can only go well for the Yes campaign as the new councillors and the soon to be reinforced Tory ranks at Westminster get more and more opportunities to say what they really think.

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/15270046.Meet_the__extremist__Tories_elected_to_Scots_councils/?c=v4cfw

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15270068.Orange_Order_elected_to_councils_as_Labour_and_Tory_members/?ref=rl&lp=1