I EXPECT most people will share Derek Louden's bemusement at discovering that, in a referendum in 1905, the Norwegian people opted to run their own affairs rather than allow their larger, southerly neighbour to manage their resources and decide their national affairs (Letters, March 8).
Of course, they are, like Scotland, cursed with the burden of large North Sea oil resources and must now harbour bitter regrets at that decision. If Up Pompeii's Senna the Soothsayer were Norwegian she would be running about wailing: "Woe, woe and thrice woe" (or whatever the Norwegian equivalent is).
Then again there is the sage advice from massive Luxembourg warning Scotland against opting for independence. I now fully expect tiddlers like France and Germany to be clamouring to unite with, and be run by, the Grand Duchy.
Incidentally, I wish Michael Moore had been around to advise me during my working life ("Scots '£824 richer' than rest of UK", The Herald, March 7). I was in a job where my remuneration was largely made up of commission and this made my monthly salary "volatile". I realise too late, since I am now retired, that it would have been better if my employers had paid my wages into my next-door neighbour's bank account rather than my own.
Woe, woe and thrice woe. I now suffer the same sort of regrets the unfortunate citizens of Norway must feel.
David C Purdie,
12 Mayburn Vale,
Loanhead.
SCOTLAND'S finances are still relatively healthy. Official figures show that Scotland contributes 9.9% of UK tax revenues while receiving only 9.3% of its public spending. Even the leaked Scottish Government paper ("Leaked paper shows SNP fears over cost of benefits", The Herald, March 7) shows Scotland's relative advantage continuing for years to come. Its caution on long-term oil revenues stems from its use of Office of Budget Responsibility forecasts of a sharp fall in the oil price to $90 per barrel. Interestingly, the UK Government's own (arguably better-qualified) Energy Department forecasts an oil price that remains consistently above $110, rising to $130 by 2030. Such scenarios would instead result in a marked increase, rather than a decrease, in Scotland's relative financial strength.
The leaked paper also changes my perception of John Swinney in two ways. I have marginally less respect for him as a political operator, as in these days of the black arts it was perhaps naive to commit such a warts-and-all discussion of sensitive issues to writing and expect it to remain under wraps. But I have a lot more respect for him as a thoughtful steward of Scotland's finances. Initiating a grown-up, honest, long-term debate about financial sustainability is exactly what politicians in his position should do more often. We can only wish that the UK's finance ministers had done the same before plunging us into record levels of debt.
C Hegarty,
7 Glenorchy Road, North Berwick.
I AM in full agreement with Douglas R Mayer (Letters, March 8). His personal experience in public finances and economic affairs make his comments well worth listening to.
Every year when the Gers Report is published North Sea oil revenues become the story. The report now allocates a 90% geographical share of the UK oil taxation receipts to Scotland, and the media is immediately full of dire warnings from the usual suspects that this revenue is about to collapse, leaving an independent Scotland as an economic basket case. And every year, when the actual figures become available and are reported, it turns out that the oil tax revenue is much greater than was previously forecast, often by several billion.
This time the UK Office of Budget Responsibility (surely an oxymoron?) warns that oil revenues will shrink rapidly, and by 2017/18 will amount to only £4.3bn compared to the 2011/12 level of £11.3bn – indeed a catastrophic fall if correct. Yet the oil industry itself is adamant that there are still 1.5 trillion barrels of oil to be recovered from the North Sea, lasting another 30 or 40 years, and there are also vast oil reservoirs being identified in the North Atlantic which will also come to full production within the next 10 years.
We are also constantly reminded that oil prices are very volatile, and can go up or down depending on a variety of factors. But the long-term trend is always upwards, and if recovery does become more expensive and oil becomes scarcer, the basic law of supply and demand will push prices up, not down. And if global market prices go up, so will the UK tax revenues calculated on these prices.
So one way or another, it seems that the desperate warnings about Scotland relying only on oil to keep its economic head above water is just another scare story put about by the increasingly desperate Unionist No campaign, which seems to be permanently mired in gloom and despondency about the future. Perhaps, like Mrs Mopp in ITMA (older readers will know her) "it's being so cheerful that keeps them going".
Iain AD Mann,
7 Kelvin Court,
Glasgow.
AS a supporter of Scottish independence, may I thank Tony Blair for his latest outburst on the subject ("Blair likens Nationalists to Ukip", The Herald, March 7)?
In his confused thinking he fails to recognise the possibility of a Scottish Government negotiating membership of the EU just as a rump UK state votes to withdraw from Europe.
Much like his predecessor in No.10, he has done a lot to convince people that the real problem is the concentration of power in London.
Mr Blair is worth every pound of the £1m JP Morgan pays him.
Allan Smith,
40 Mitre Road, Glasgow.
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