How it works

Or not

And of course doesn’t affect the main point, which is that Sir Wood has presented us 2 wildly different figures

You sound from the the rest of that post like you’ve dug into the issue, so presumably you’ve read his report? So you’ve seen his concerns about dropping extraction efficiency, the impact and recommendations to improve it?

So his argument makes sense – if there are 24Bn barrels, we’re heading to extract much less, here’s some ideas to get a bit more, but there’s still going to be some of that we leave behind. Because of that, extrapolating future oil revenue on the basis of current revenue levels from a total of 24Bn barrels is false.

Working on current revenue generation from his mid teens Bn barrel numbers plus lower revenue from another slice assuming the recommended changes in fiscal environment from the Oil & Gas Commission Scot Govt ran (and containing the guy whose blog WML highlighted earlier) plus recognising no income from a slice we’re going to get out might have been a more reasonable assumption to include.

I can see why the headlines don’t aid understanding and the Wood Review and Oil & Gas Commission report are 140 pages between them which few are going to read.

That looks like the final one rene59.

which places the proven reserve at no less than 30.3 billion barrels

Are you sure you’ve not got a decimal wrong there? 404 million T at 7.5 barrels to T = 3030M barrels = 3.03billion barrels.

https://www.gov.uk/oil-and-gas-uk-field-data

two of which are supposedly from the same source

That says it is from his interim report. Go to the final one.

Not a particularly useful addition WML as it plays the man, not the ball. The Oil & Gas Commission recommends implementing in full the conclusions of the Wood Review. Hardly undermines the Wood position.

There’s a difference of opinion on the volume of recoverable oil. Differences of opinion on investment incentives and earnings to flow from it are to be expected because that’s what stimulates debate and forms policy. Differences of opinion on how much of the stuff there is to have a policy on ought not to be so far apart.

THM’s frustration has shown for some time. The rational explanations given much earlier in the thread which attempted to explain why the nonsense was nonsense have slowly been replaced by the sort of ridicule which our leaders probably deserved in the first place.

So, back to Oil. Sir Ian Wood says Scottish Government’s estimates are too high. If there’s one man who should really be listened to on the subject, it is probably him.

BBC linky

So which part of that quote which talks about not taking debt unless we get Sterling (the white paper proposal for CU) supports your assertion?

I don’t think that anyone has ever said that we would default on our share of the debt if we don’t get currency union

The Scotsman thinks so

I personally believe even the comfortably off are willing to pay a little more tax to stop their fellow citizens starving

OK, so anecdote =/= evidence, but anyone I’ve discussed the issue with recently is of the mindset that government takes quite enough thank you very much and ought to waste a bit less rather than come back and ask for more.

The other public sector contracting thread going on at the moment perhaps illustrates a little of that. Certainly my time as a public sector FD and then negotiating contracts with public sector customers leads me to the conclusion that removal of waste and inefficiency could fund several major omissions from current government policy.

Are you having a laff?
I can live with that if it means the ending of food banks for the very poor and the very vulnerable
You?

No, not having a laugh. The burden won’t just fall on the top 10% of earners and I can’t see the next 20-30% offering to take it.

theres a reason why I changed from the Z-11

Hmmm. Ninfan. Nin. Fan. Nine Inch Nails? You are Trent Reznor’s stalker?

You can have less money and still have less absolute poverty. It depends on how you distribute it not just how much you have.

Indeed. And the less you have to achieve that end the more you need to hit the rich. They’re not likely to take that without migrating or rearranging their affairs, so you have to put more of the burden on the comfortably off. Who, of course, are going to vote for that year after year.

Visit a foodbank, then make your decision either way

If that’s the priority, then I’d have thought the economic prospects for the country were paramount in decision making as to redistribute wealth you must first have it.

The economic case is muddled and ill thought through. Unlikely to deliver the outcome you seek, which is why I’ve been No since the white paper was published.

Scotland will not kick out EU citizens. It’s utterly ridiculous to think we would.

Agreed, but when the Dep First Minister suggests it, the ridiculous becomes a possibility.

You see, I think that the politicians who go around threatening to throw their dollies out the pram every five minutes live on a different planet

if we don’t get currency union, we’ll default on our debt,
if we don’t get EU citizenship, we’ll remove Europeans right to live here,
if we don’t get EU membership, we’ll ban EU fishing boats from passing through international waters
I’m all confused now. Is that bullying or negotiating?

I presume they’d have been elected on a platform proposing that, so why not?

If it is in the manifesto, surely that’s just democracy in action?

They don’t have to. They can cover a position in their manifesto.

The referendum vote is being based on a white paper which proposes a desired shape of iScotland. It would be perfectly reasonable for Labour to be elected on a platform that they’ll proceed only if the negotiations get exactly what the electorate has given them a mandate to sign up to and they’ll put the proposal to Holyrood if it falls short. It falls short, Holyrood votes against.

they were an unbelievably big vote of confidence in the SNP

They might have taken it that way, but I remember commentary at the time about them benefitting from many people feeling unable to vote labour after the Blair / Brown years. Whether what they did right will extend to Holyrood 2016 will be interesting. What if referendum vote goes Yes and then Labour get into Holyrood (seeing as they’re very unionist)?

That might be because there are many areas covered in the white paper and there is some evidence. I don’t believe there’s no evidence. Just nowhere near enough to make the case credible.

Well, they’re making a proposal to change the world a fair bit. Some evidence they can deliver on their vision would be handy and there really isn’t that much. Why does no-one else need to do it? Well, they’re not proposing to change the world.

You said you were sure. You may well be, but there’s no evidential basis for it. I’m sure industrial quantities of political and diplomatic fudge will get Scotland in the EU in the end, but on what terms and when is anyone’s guess.

WML – an interesting read. But it is not certainty. It uses words like “opinion” and “believe”. To quote its own opening position:

Within EU law, there exists no precedent for what happens when a territory of an existing Member State becomes independent, and wishes to retain EU membership, and the treaties do not provide for such an event. The process by which a separate Scotland may become a member of the EU is therefore subject to speculation.

Speculation. That includes that paper itself. I don’t think anyone seriously expects Scotland not to get in, just when, how and on what terms. Assertion of rights and entitlements when negotiation seems the only certainty is well wide of the mark.

Wrong. Individuals are citizens of the EU

Are you sure? The EU explanation makes a very strong link with citizenship of a member state. So, by implication, those in a state ceasing to be a member state would cease to have EU citizenship. Academic point if / when Scotland gets in, but not something to be taken for granted.

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/%5B/url%5D

Read it, though – if I was in England I’d be furious about what was happening

I did, although I found it quite a contrived argument on the funding impact for Scotland.

since no-one seems interested in the future of the NHS

Interested, but given it is a devolved issue so Scotland can vary funding if it wishes. Even if Barnett changes. What is a bigger deal is that NHS funding has been rising pretty much since it was born and at some point we have to have some sensible debate about what we want from it and what we want to pay. Treating all aspects of it as sacred doesn’t help us get the best from it.

Your story about US banks is interesting. But as the EU is supposed to be getting its financial transaction tax proposal back on the rails, they might later find reasons for that not to be appealing.

No. I’m taking their words at face value.

Though
an option in the short-term, it is not likely to be a long-term solution.

That’s the quote from the Fiscal Commission Northwind – pretty sure that means not suitable. Were they to consider it in any way suitable it is reasonable to expect they’d have suggested which of the other options were the preferred long term solution to follow it.

On the rest of what you say, this isn’t about what I think. It is about the difficulty yS would have in proposing sterling without union as Plan B when the Fiscal Commission discounted it. Because AS made such a big deal about the independence of their advice and how he’s just following it, he’s got real trouble in disagreeing with any of it now.

If he says sterling without union, then as Fiscal Commission limited its worth to a transitional approach he’s still got to say what follows transition. As the other options they considered were Euro and Scottish Currency, to mark either of those out as being the ultimate destination might make for a challenging proposal to the electorate this close to the vote.

Northwind, it dismissed it in one paragraph and spent the rest of its report discussing 4 other currency options. You’re right that it said it could only be a short term option, but in dismissing it so quickly it clearly discounted that approach as not being suitable.

if the comparison is with a separate Scottish currency then there will be transaction charges, but if Scotland uses the pound outside a currency union there won’t be

As we’ve covered several times before, the Fiscal Commission dismissed the pound without CU approach.

For those defending AS, fortunately he seems to have recognised he’s been a bit short on detail:

Salmond to clarfiy his position on currency

This’ll save KB the trouble

I’m a Green

So, do you support their manifesto in part or in whole – on the original subject of this thread, they support a separate Scottish Currency.

The great British Public (inc all 4 nations) seem rather sentimental with regards to the monarchy.

Possibly more apathetic than sentimental given the monarchy is, practically, powerless.

Replacing a Monarch with an elected President as Head of State carries risk given the generally negative view of politicians. Would you get a Mary Robinson or a Nicolas Sarkozy? Would Tony Blair have made it to President had he run for that office after retiring as PM? And given what little the Queen does, what would an elected President do?

WBB mostly references UK government or Better Together sources, after all

You’re kidding, right? First thing I did before reading WBB was look at the sources as they’re listed. Press reports are about half the sources, including the Daily Mail. Second most popular source is Wikipedia. UK Govt / Better Together are way down the list – Wings over Scotland is quoted as a source as often as UK Govt. The reliance on press reports for so much material does undermine the “all the press is biased against us” claim.

No they are not. Go away and read it

I have, dry though it is. Have it open right now if you could point me to the bit where they recommend any informal use of sterling.

That rejection of it which I quoted, by the way, is para 20 on page 4 of the Feb 2013 report.

He has given a very clear answer many times on the question off currency. Scotland will continue to use the pound and it will more than likely be in a currency union at least for the short to medium term. It is the only logical solution for both sides.

Eh, no. That’s his preference for Plan A.

Have you read the Fiscal Commission’s Report? It discounts using Sterling in anything other than a formal currency union. That’s why AS has never formally listed it as plan B – because to do so would undermine the credibility of the “experts” who recommended Plan A and so undermine the proposal itself. Just to quote it again as you must have missed it:

International evidence suggests that informal monetary unions tend to be adopted by
transition economies or small territories with a special relationship with a larger trading
partner (e.g. between the UK and Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man). Advanced
economies of a significant scale tend not to operate in such a monetary framework. Though
an option in the short-term, it is not likely to be a long-term solution.

The Fiscal Commission’s Plans B and C are the Euro and a Scottish Currency.

And plans A&B are using sterling, plan D is using the Euro and plan C is the Cameron is a Bawbag (rather catchy name for a currency.)

Well, if you could get the leader of the Yes campaign to state that very clearly and say if he agrees with everything his beloved Fiscal Commission had to say on the subject, that would be handy.

You don’t quite understand how independence works. Sure, we’d be tied into a currency union, EU treaties, NATO treaties, WTO treaties, whatever, same as every other country.

But if we didn’t like it, we could elect a government that would pull us out of those treaties. We could decide for ourselves whether we wanted to be in those clubs or not.
On the contrary, I understand entirely how this works.

However, how long do you think it takes to negotiate a way out of treaty commitments and how much do you think it costs? It is a contract. It will have penalties designed to be much worse in the event of departure than staying. No party to a treaty will be happy to (say) see Scotland benefit for 10 years and then leave the deal once it is Scotland’s turn to let the support flow the other way without paying for that. Once you’re in, departing is a nuclear (in political and diplomatic terms) option.

A/ a currency union would place no more restraints on the Scottish Government than it currently has.

You sure? If Scotland is to be richer and fairer as promised, then it is going to diverge more from the rUK than it does at present. So the impact of CU would be greater in that the terms of the CU would prevent it moving too far from rUK (otherwise the CU would fail). With no MPs and only an observer role on the MPC, there’s less influence on policy being proposed.

B/ no nation is fully independent as long as it has treaties and agreements with other nations… and creditors.

Correct. Which is why claims along the lines of “if they’re mistakes, at least they’re our mistakes” or “if we don’t like the government, we can change it” are optimistic about the amount of control which can be exercised.

As I’ve said before, I’m not opposed to independence in principle. I’m just opposed to the current vision of it.

At present, if the UK government acts in a way that’s detrimental to Scotland, there’s not much the Scottish voter can do about it. After independence, if we don’t like what the government is doing, we can just elect a new one.

I’m afraid not, which is why this isn’t actually a vote about independence.

Even if the legendary negotiating skills of AS do create a currency union, that’s an economic straitjacket for Scotland which would remove many policy levers from the Holyrood Government. Don’t like what it is doing? Tough – the terms of the currency union would prevail no matter the party in government.

The EU opt outs which UK has are unlikely to continue for Scotland so the EU would have more impact than at present.

That’s why this is a crap proposal. It isn’t independence. Its a difference shape of interdependencies which may or may not work but certainly don’t count as a repatriation of all sovereignty to Holyrood.