Scottish Independence
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State Pension for Britons living abroad : Directgov - Pensions and retirement planning
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Post #1
I had a conversation with a Scottish client sometime in the last century re: an independent Scotland, his almost indecipherable reply was that this would be a disaster because of the cost of a standing Scottish army to defend against the historical enemy.
Salmond will posture, he'll have his bluff called and he'll back down. Probably.
So Alex Salmond says that an independent Scotland will have its own Armed Forces. Any of our Scottish cousins in the RAF, Navy or Army fancy moving back north to help Salmond defend his kingdom.........? Might be able to keep Leuchars and Kinloss open, not sure what they'll base there though?
Salmond will posture, he'll have his bluff called and he'll back down. Probably.
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Salmond is anything but bloody stupid, hence the sudden arrival of this bloody Devo Max thing. It should be a straight in or out question but I suspect we south of the border need to stand by to bend over and take it up the tail pipe 
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but I suspect we south of the border need to stand by to bend over and take it up the tail pipe
As a civil servant in London, and being part of the establishment, I always accepted the general view that an independent Scotland would not be able to survive on its own without financial help from the London Exchequer.
However, when in 1968 I was able to examine the so-called "books" for the first time, I was shocked to find that the position was exactly the opposite and that Scotland contributed much more to the UK economy than its other partners. This was, of course, before the oil boom.
I realised that the Treasury would wish to keep this a secret, as it might feed nationalistic tendencies north of the border, which at that time were very weak. I took the decision to keep an eye on the situation to see how long it would take for the true facts to emerge, which I felt would only be a short time. However, the Treasury and the Establishment did an excellent job, aided and abetted by the media, to keep the myth about Scotland alive.
In fact it took another 30 years before the first chink in their armour started to appear. This came unexpectedly on 13 January 1997 when, in reply to a series of questions put by SNP Leader in the Commons, Alex Salmond MP to the then Tory government, Treasury Minister William Waldegrave admitted that Scotland had paid a massive £27 billion more to the London Exchequer than it had received since the Tories came to power in 1979. Statistically this works out at £5,400 for every Scot.
There were no attempts to refute these figures, which caused much embarrassment to the Tory Government of the day. However, the facts were quickly covered up by the Unionist controlled media.
Then a year later with a Labour government now in power came a further bombshell. Following further promptings by the SNP, on 21 August 1998, Mr Salmond received a letter from the House of Commons Library (ref. 98/8/56 EP/rjt) which gave a table showing that based on Scotland's GDP per capita, Scotland would occupy 7th place in the world's wealth league. The UK was at 17th Place.
When the Labour government came to power it announced a 1p cut in the standard rate of income tax. From my detailed knowledge of income tax, I felt that this was the worst possible thing that they could do, as extra monies would be needed following on from the Thatcher era, if they were to fulfil even a fraction of their promises to the electorate. I came to the conclusion, and I still feel that I was right, that this was done by Labour to prove to the voters of Middle England that they could match the Tories in tax cuts.
Despite the disclosures of 1998, attempts to deceive the Scottish electorate did not end there. In March 1999 a Labour Party leaflet appeared which said that if the SNP were to forego Gordon Brown's 1p cut in the standard rate of income tax, every family in Scotland would be £250 worse off. This became the major topic of a TV debate between Alex Salmond and Donald Dewar. Salmond tried to point out to Dewar that he was using the wrong figures. Watching the debate, I saw Dewar's eyes roll in his head for a few moments but he carried on regardless.
After the debate it took the Labour Party a whole week to admit that they were wrong. There was in fact a whole chain of errors which the Labour Party tried to blame on "printing mistakes". However Labour could not deny the fact that in their calculations the UK average figure, which included the high wage earners in the city of London and the booming economy in the South East corner of England (which if I may say so were the result of the selfish policies of Mrs Margaret Thatcher), the figure used was almost double those of the average Scottish wage which at that time stood at £17,000 per year.
Looking closely at the figures and taking the year 2006 as a benchmark, I found that Scotland had an annual relative surplus of £2,8 billion, which works out at £560 for every man, woman and child. In contrast the UK had a deficit of £34.8 billion.
In November 2006, the U.N. published its annual "Human Development Index". For the sixth year running, oil rich Norway topped the list, and won on such factors as generous welfare payments, education, high income and a long life expectancy. Norway, has of course, less than a third of the amount of oil than Scotland in its waters. Norway wisely created an "oil fund" in 1995 which in 5 years reached a total of £250 billion, so that Norway sailed through the Credit Crunch.
Who are the real subsidy junkies?
Any lingering doubt that Scotland more than pays its way, or survives on subsidies, was dispelled by a new report published in October 2007. Whilst the Daily Mail, which by no stretch of the imagination could be described as a supporter of Scottish nationalism, devoted a whole page to the analysis of the report which was based on tax paid per capita as against spending, Northern Ireland received £4,212 more than it paid in tax, North East England £3,133, Wales £2,990, N.W. England £1732, South West England £978, West Midlands £931, East Midlands £185 and lastly Scotland £38. Only the South East corner produced a small surplus due to tax paid on the high wages within the city of London at this time (pre-Credit Crunch).
Analysis
It is no longer refuted that Scotland exports more per capita than the rest of the UK. In 1968 when I first discovered that Scotland was in surplus in relation to the rest of the UK, its exports could be broken down into whisky, meat, timber, fish, and of course tourism which is a huge hidden income. Those exports are supported by a population of only 5,000,000 as against 45,000,000 for the rest of the UK, quite a substantial advantage.
With the oil boom, Scotland's economy was transformed. Scottish oil has to date funded the Treasury with £300 billion, which has pushed Scotland up from 7th place in World Wealth rankings, had it been in control of its own resources, to 3rd place.
On 29 May 2008, Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted in a back-handed way, that Scotland's oil revenue had been underwriting the UK's failure to balance its books for decades. There is still 30 years of oil supply left in the North Sea (some 150 million barrels) valued at 2008 prices at 1 trillion dollars. This excludes the new fields being brought into production in deeper waters west of Shetland.
Meantime whisky exports, which I listed in 1968 as one of Scotland's top assets, have risen at a phenomenal rate. For example, whisky exports to China amounted to £1 million in 2000/2001, by 2007 they had risen to £70 million. They have continued to rise, although I don't have more recent statistics.
On the economies of Independence, Scotland has also 18 times its requirements in North Sea gas, which on current trading is more expensive than oil. The country exports 24% of its surplus electricity south of the Border, with much of the back-up by Hydro Electric unused.
Even if nuclear is excluded, the future looks bright, the new Glen Doe hydro station on Loch Ness which was opened by Scotland's First Minister last year can produce enough electricity for 240,000 homes. Further projects down the Loch which have now reached the planning stage will increase this to over 1,000,000 homes. Wind and wave energy will also contribute significantly in the future.
No doubt as the time draws nearer to the referendum on Scottish Independence, politicians will do their best to distort the figures, but the truth is something that never varies.
____________________________________________
Before retiring, John Jappy was a senior civil servant in the Inland Revenue, working for the Accountant & Comptroller General's Branch based at Somerset House in London. His duties involved liaising closely with Treasury officials to prepare accounts and financial information for UK government ministers.
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"Salmond is anything but bloody stupid, hence the sudden arrival of this bloody Devo Max thing. It should be a straight in or out question but I suspect we south of the border need to stand by to bend over and take it up the tail pipe
"you will struggle to find, as is the case through out this thread where I suggest the Scots cannot go it alone. My thought is that the sudden, but no doubt well planned introduction of the Devo Max thing is where we south of the border are going to get hooped
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In fact it took another 30 years before the first chink in their armour started to appear. This came unexpectedly on 13 January 1997 when, in reply to a series of questions put by SNP Leader in the Commons, Alex Salmond MP to the then Tory government, Treasury Minister William Waldegrave admitted that Scotland had paid a massive £27 billion more to the London Exchequer than it had received since the Tories came to power in 1979. Statistically this works out at £5,400 for every Scot.
It's no surprise that Scotland provides a surplus with oil.
Sorry, maybe I'm not being too bright, but I don't see how the numbers work out in terms of this "North Sea Oil Bonanza"....
rab-k quotes that there is still 30 years of north sea oil left, worth $1 trillion at 2007 prices.
Is that $1 trillion at open market prices? So how much would any government, whether that be Scottish or UK, see of that - in terms of taxation?
Assuming for a moment 100%. Then $1 trillion = £630 billion at todays exchange rate. £630 over 30 years is approx £21 billion a year. Scotlands current GDP is £131 billion. So, if all the oil revenue went to Scotland it would provide 16% of GDP.
But if an independent Scottish government only saw 40% of oil revenues in taxation, which is still a very generous figure, then it would be getting approx. £8 billion a year, which is 6% of GDP. Hardly a game changing scenario surely?
As to the comment that North Sea oil has contributed £300 billion to the UK economy over the years. Well I won't dispute the figure, but over how many years? If it is say 20 (and it's probably more), then that's £15 billion a year, when the government is spending about £700 billion a year today, and even 20 years ago was spending about £250 billion, say an average of £400 billion.
So, £15 Bn from oil vs £400 Bn expenditure, i.e. oil has contributed about 4% to government expenditure???
Once again, while nice to have, I don't see how the North Sea oil revenues have had a bonanza effect for the UK. I would suggest that there has been as much, if not more, benefit to the UK in terms of oil companies investing in infrastructure, employing local workers, etc.
It should be noted that in 2011 28% of Norway's state revenues were generated from the petroleum industry - by contrast that is a "game changing" number!
While I can understand that people talking about £30Bn here or £100Bn there can seem like very impressive numbers, they need to be seen in context. Over what periods of time, and in contrast to what budgets, are these figures being used.
rab-k quotes that there is still 30 years of north sea oil left, worth $1 trillion at 2007 prices.
Is that $1 trillion at open market prices? So how much would any government, whether that be Scottish or UK, see of that - in terms of taxation?
Assuming for a moment 100%. Then $1 trillion = £630 billion at todays exchange rate. £630 over 30 years is approx £21 billion a year. Scotlands current GDP is £131 billion. So, if all the oil revenue went to Scotland it would provide 16% of GDP.
But if an independent Scottish government only saw 40% of oil revenues in taxation, which is still a very generous figure, then it would be getting approx. £8 billion a year, which is 6% of GDP. Hardly a game changing scenario surely?
As to the comment that North Sea oil has contributed £300 billion to the UK economy over the years. Well I won't dispute the figure, but over how many years? If it is say 20 (and it's probably more), then that's £15 billion a year, when the government is spending about £700 billion a year today, and even 20 years ago was spending about £250 billion, say an average of £400 billion.
So, £15 Bn from oil vs £400 Bn expenditure, i.e. oil has contributed about 4% to government expenditure???
Once again, while nice to have, I don't see how the North Sea oil revenues have had a bonanza effect for the UK. I would suggest that there has been as much, if not more, benefit to the UK in terms of oil companies investing in infrastructure, employing local workers, etc.
It should be noted that in 2011 28% of Norway's state revenues were generated from the petroleum industry - by contrast that is a "game changing" number!
While I can understand that people talking about £30Bn here or £100Bn there can seem like very impressive numbers, they need to be seen in context. Over what periods of time, and in contrast to what budgets, are these figures being used.
Last edited by Biggus; 2nd Feb 2012 at 12:32.
If it is say 20 (and it's probably more),
2012-1975=37 years. Recalculate the average annual income from that; getting on to half.
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Now now Rab if you had read and digested the whole post
"Salmond is anything but bloody stupid, hence the sudden arrival of this bloody Devo Max thing. It should be a straight in or out question but I suspect we south of the border need to stand by to bend over and take it up the tail pipe"
you will struggle to find, as is the case through out this thread where I suggest the Scots cannot go it alone. My thought is that the sudden, but no doubt well planned introduction of the Devo Max thing is where we south of the border are going to get hooped
"Salmond is anything but bloody stupid, hence the sudden arrival of this bloody Devo Max thing. It should be a straight in or out question but I suspect we south of the border need to stand by to bend over and take it up the tail pipe
"you will struggle to find, as is the case through out this thread where I suggest the Scots cannot go it alone. My thought is that the sudden, but no doubt well planned introduction of the Devo Max thing is where we south of the border are going to get hooped
Rab,
Interesting post, thanks for sharing. One wonders if the true picture re financial viability, without interference from either side, will ever be disclosed. I guess I'm being naive but I find it so bloody frustrating trying to cut through all the deception and trivia. Ho hum.
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Hval: Bad luck. Just like Alex (perpetually), were you on another planet when the match was on? TBH Scotland played very well and difference was a charged-down converted try so don't feel too bad.
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Not on another planet. Started watching but ended up being otherwise engaged. Flossie the sheep just looked so darned attractive.
I feel a beqaa valley wine shall be sufficient.
I feel a beqaa valley wine shall be sufficient.
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The Scots are clearly capable of making a success should they decide that independence is the way forward. I for one dont think they will though. England just isnt ready to go it alone without Scotland and the Scots are far too decent to leave them to it.
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But will it actually be the Scots voting?
BBC News - Scottish independence: Swinney defends referendum EU voters
BBC News - Scottish independence: Swinney defends referendum EU voters