Talking-up Scotland

Like most of you, I guess, my heart is with the renewables energy developments of which Scotland has many to be optimistic about but we can’t let the No campaign use the myth of a terminal collapse in the oil and gas sector to argue the Scottish economy is weak. See this for a wee reminder if you need to or if you need to remind a doubter.

North Sea oil and gas is on the crest of a ‘Third Wave’ and the SNP Government is already supporting plans for it

As I understand it, ‘heavy oil’ is difficult to extract from the oil fields but, as you might expect a new technology has come along, and the sort of Victorian sounding ‘Steam Oil Production Company’ aim to recover up to 500 million barrels from the North Sea’s ‘Western Platform.’ Reporting in Energy Voice yesterday, here’s how they’ve done it before:

‘In general, the onshore method of steam flooding involves pumping hot water vapour into a well. This heats the oil to a higher temperature so that it flows more efficiently through the underground formation and into the production wells.’

I’m no technologist but does that sound kind of obvious? Nevertheless there will be a pilot run before the company start seriously on the four blocks they’ve been awarded and which they estimate will allow recovery of that headline figure.

https://www.energyvoice.com/uncategorized/134716/operator-steams-north-sea-frontier-areas-pioneering-spirit/

Writing in Scottish Construction Now, on the 22^nd March, Bellway, a UK-wide housebuilder, made clear that independence would not change their Scottish growth strategy. With revenue over £1 billion, the company has now seen eight years of continuous growth and were unaffected by the Referendum in 2014. They expect to be similarly unaffected by Scottish Independence. Here’s what they had to say:

‘If you do end up with a scenario where Scotland becomes a different country to the UK, to separate that, it’s so embedded I can’t see how it becomes structurally a different country to invest in, in the way it’s different to invest in France…..The barriers to entry can’t be that great. Of course it has a degree of uncertainty for people but we’re still investing in Scotland and Scotland is doing very well for us. Demand is strong, we’re buying land and reservations are coming through well. We’ve got a good business so I don’t see how the referendum will change that.’

There’s a message there for all the companies tempted to join in with Project Fear 2. An independent Scotland is going to be a country free to make its own decisions but also one that will remain familiar, welcoming and convenient to work in.

http://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/18098/bellway-says-independence-would-not-change-scottish-growth-strategy/

 

© conservativehome.com

It looks from the polls that support for Scottish independence is at worst 44% and at best 49%. You might have been dismayed by the poll that reported only 44% and a wee bit excited by the 49% but it doesn’t really matter as much as the fact that support is being polled as solid from 44% up to 49%. I say this because the polls have a built in conservatism and a tendency to predict a status quo outcome. I’ll come back to why that means the real level is probably clearly above 50% for Yes.

First though, even within that 44% to 49% range, we have no idea which end of it is more likely to be the more accurate point upon which we can then add our confident if approximate supplement. Why? Well Scotland’s top psephologist said in his blog Polls Swing High, Polls Swing Low on 17^th March:

‘But, of course, we always have to remember that even when there has been little or no change of opinion, polls can sometimes swing high and then swing low simply as a result of the chance variation to which all polls are subject.’

I’ll translate. He doesn’t know. They only poll about 1 000 people typically. The polls are all in that range but he has no idea what is the most accurate figure. No one does. Again, it doesn’t matter as even 44% is close enough.

Here’s the point: 14% of UK adults live in a mobile-only house with no landline and so cannot be auto-dialled by the polling companies.  They are also more likely to be young or poor. We know already that support for yes is at 72% for the under 24s and at 65% for those living in the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland.

So, in landline-telephone-polls, 14% of the electorate is being missed, they are mostly young and/or poor and mostly Yes-supporters. At worst if we only took half of them to be yes-supporters, the entire 44% to 49% Yes support in the polls turns into a majority of between 51% and 63%. If we reasonably assume around 65% of them are Yes supporters. Then that adds another 2% pushing the range up to between 53% and 65% for Yes. Remember the 44% figure was a bit of an outlier. Now we’ve seen how the polls failed to predict the last Tory win, Brexit and Trump. We know the campaign has not even begun and that the last one took Yes support up nearly 20%. We know the Tories will do something stupid soon. We know the No campaign are divided and have no credible leader. We know the bookies say Yes.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/facts

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2017/03/polls-swing-high-polls-swing-low/

http://www.ssa.natcen.ac.uk/media/38910/ssa16-2fr8m-1ndyref-2-1ndyr8f-tw0-two.pdf

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/09/voted-yes-voted/

You can get one at:

https://www.avenzamaps.com/maps/555385/scottish-european-union-2019-post-brexit/

Maybe if we all just start using one it’ll become a reality.

Mind you, if the two Irelands unite first, you’ll need another one.

© http://newspeep.us

I read that headline in online new tech mag Silicon yesterday and thought that it required few changes to make it more clearly good news – 150 000! Here’s the main content:

‘The Scottish Government says that it hopes to create 150,000 digital jobs by effectively creating the right conditions for this to happen. To this end, it will ensure that every premise in Scotland is able to access broadband speeds of at least 30Mbps by 2021.

But speedy Internet access is just one of its priorities. It also plans a new digital schools programme, as well as a new round of funding for community digital inclusion projects and an expansion of Scotland’s Digital Participation Charter.’

In addition a new Digital Growth Fund is to be introduced to massively increase the supply of trained workers’ This comes on top of the 2014 launch of a digital procurement initiative. This was designed to make it easier for small businesses to bid for public sector contracts.

http://www.silicon.co.uk/e-innovation/research/scotland-150000-jobs-207529

© greenhighland.co.uk

In previous reports I’ve described a number of projects varying from the largest in the world to smaller local projects, all moving Scotland confidently toward not only reliable energy self-sufficiency but also massive over-production which we can export. See these examples:

Fighting Tory austerity again, the SNP Government steps in to help 100 000 small businesses, district heating schemes and small-scale hydro schemes.

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

Today, the Scottish Government has announced yet another fund for rural parts of Scotland to develop innovative local energy projects.

 The Minister for Business, Innovation said:

‘Our recently published draft Energy Strategy sets out our vision for 2050 for Scotland to have a modern, integrated energy system that delivers reliable, low carbon energy at affordable prices to consumers in all parts of Scotland. The low carbon and renewable energy sector has been a major driver of Scotland’s economy in recent years, supporting 43,500 jobs. Many of these are in rural areas, where we have developed expertise in solar, wave, offshore wind and tidal, as well as more established technologies such as hydro and onshore wind.’

http://news.gov.scot/news/support-for-low-carbon-rural-energy-innovations

This sort of good news seems endless these days. If you scroll down my blog you’ll see story after story on Scotland’s very optimistic future in energy production of all forms. All this and the debunking of the GERS figures make me wonder how critics can talk of a weak Scottish economy and keep a straight face. Give us the kind of control over our own affairs Denmark has and we’d soon outstrip them, in everything but pigs, with our greater natural resources.

Data extracted in March 2016. Most recent data:  Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: June 2017.

Only Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Iceland have significantly higher GDPs across the whole country, than Scotland. All of Eastern Europe, Southern Italy and Southern Spain have far weaker economies than Scotland while France and Finland are no stronger. Sweden is only slightly stronger across the piece. England, Ireland and Italy are horribly unequal with some regions as poor as Lithuania and one as poor as Bulgaria. Wales is clearly not better together with the UK. They’d be better off with Ireland. How many of them are not independent countries. How many of them are applying to join the UK?

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/GDP_at_regional_level

 

This is not specifically about Scotland but is a fascinating and very articulate account of how propaganda operates in our allegedly ‘quality press’. Try searching for ‘second Scottish referendum’ and see the flurry of venomous pieces lying about the supposedly ‘weak’ Scottish economy. The Guardian, you might remember, supported the Iraq invasions and the No campaign in the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014. I know they do allow one or two dissident voices such as George Monbiot who supported Scottish Indepedence but this, in the context of the wider agenda, can be see as no more than ‘repressive tolerance’ as Marx would have had it. I strongly recommend a full read.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/22/mccarthyite-anti-semitism-smears-and-racism-at-the-guardianobserver/

Research carried out by the Social Market Foundation as far back as 2012, warned of the extreme dangers in rolling out Universal Credit without proper planning for transition and crucially in the midst of an economic crisis. Tellingly they titled the report ‘Sink or Swim?’ neatly catching the historical Tory ideological position on the poor that many of them are poor because of their own laziness or ineptitude rather than their circumstances, trapped in an environment from which escape is possible for only a few rare exceptions. Here’s the concluding statement:

‘The research finds that major changes are required if the system is to support rather than frustrate the stated aims of Government policy. The new Universal Credit system will go live from autumn 2013 following five years of economic stagnation and in the midst of the Government’s fiscal consolidation drive. The context into which Universal Credit is set to be launched could hardly be more sensitive. When the financial crisis and recession hit many households had insufficient savings set aside and were highly indebted. Low income households in particular were poorly placed to cope with the economic challenges. Ten million of those in low income households are in unsecured debt. In short, the resilience of low income households was low going into the economic crisis, and their vulnerability has only increased since then.’

Five years later, it is evident, in Scotland, that the payments system is causing real hardship where it has been rolled out in full. This requires claimants to have an online account and to wait six weeks for the first payment so those already in debt or with no savings end up with a build-up of debt including rent arrears before they receive any benefit. This traps them in the debt if they are to eat or to heat their homes. Travelling to a job interview, as the Tories would surely wish, also becomes more difficult. Here’s what the Scottish government Communities and Social Security Secretary had to say today:

‘It is clear that the system simply isn’t working and the UK Government is not prepared to make the necessary changes. The six week delay in receiving a payment – with longer delays for some being experienced – is a completely unacceptable situation and one which has the potential to push low income households into further hardship and homelessness. Despite the UK government having these issues highlighted in the pilots for Universal Credit and by councils, charities, housing associations and parliamentarians, absolutely no meaningful reassurance has been received…..It is time for the UK Government to admit their mistake, and put people at the heart of their system, instead of ideology.’

It’s not even as though the UK welfare system was particularly generous in the first place. See this from Glassdoor:

‘The UK is in the bottom four [of 14 most developed nations] overall taking into account factors such as maternity and paternity leave, general parental leave, paid holiday allowance, paid sick leave and unemployment benefits. Only the Swiss, the Irish and the Americans have a more frugal government policy.’

 http://news.gov.scot/news/call-to-halt-full-service-roll-out-of-universal-credit

http://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Publication-Sink-or-Swim-The-impact-of-Universal-Credit.pdf

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/blog/social-benefits-europe-isnt-britain/

© www.gov.uk

Here’s a headline from the Independent in 2014:

‘Just like after the Great War, Britain is celebrating the soldiers who died and neglecting those who survived’

The treatment of war veterans in the UK is a national disgrace with around 2 000 living on the streets. Readers will know that Scotland contributes more personnel to the armed forces than other parts of the UK and so has more veterans to care for, per head of population. The USA, Canada and Germany already have schemes like the one being announced in Scotland so it’s long overdue. The essential features of the scheme are:

‘A toolkit aimed at encouraging businesses to proactively recruit and benefit from employing veterans…..Delivered by Business in the Community, the toolkit highlights tried and tested techniques being used by leading employers to successfully attract and recruit talented veterans. This includes advice on how to;

• Inspire and prepare veterans for civilian life
• Create recruitment processes that are friendly and accessible to veterans
• Create a supportive culture that helps to retain, develop and progress military talent within business.’

The scheme has been welcomed by Business in the Community Scotland. Sandy Macdonald, Head of Sustainability, Standard Life, said:

‘When entering the workplace armed forces veterans bring with them a unique set of skills and experiences, which we have found to be ideally transferable to our business. Despite this, we are well aware of the challenges and difficulties that many veterans face when making this transition and are fully supportive of efforts to help tackle these problems. Through our Armed Forces Network, we are actively engaged in a number of initiatives and programmes that help raise awareness and increase support to veterans.’

Fine words and good intentions are a start but we’ll need these converted into real action by the business community and, of course, publically-funded employers. With particular regard to the latter employers, considerable efforts have already been made.  Details can be found at: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2012/09/9981/5

Other sources:

http://news.gov.scot/news/supporting-veterans-into-work-1

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/just-like-after-the-great-war-britain-is-celebrating-the-soldiers-who-died-and-neglecting-those-who-9826243.html

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13130045.Revealed__2000_military_veterans_living_on_the_streets/