HUGH Andrew (Letters, April 11) takes the SNP to task for its use of forecasts about North Sea oil during the last referendum that were “so outlandish that even Pinocchio would have been embarrassed”.
The forecasts he refers to can be found in the Scottish Government’s Oil & Gas Analytical Bulletin for March 2013. The key diagram is “Chart 3 – Forecasts of Future Oil Prices ($ Per Barrel)”, which cites as its sources Westminster’s Office for Budgetary Responsibility, the Department of Energy & Climate Change, the international accountancy firm Ernst & Young, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and the US Energy Information Administration. It does seem that Pinocchio fair gets about, doesn’t he?
Of course, it can readily be argued that the forecasts all turned out to be wrong. The fact is, though, there was not one forecaster who by August 2014 had predicted that oil prices would go to where they have since, though they are now recovering. More than just one Pinocchio perhaps?
To identify London, as Mr Andrew does, as “by far the richest portion of the UK” is of course correct, and that it is “the goose that lays the golden egg” is certainly arguable, but we should also bear in mind Margaret Cuthbert’s incisive argument that “the UK economy has become overwhelmingly geared to helping London, meaning Scotland and other UK regions suffer from being denied the specific, local policies they need”. London might be the richest part of the UK, but we need to ask whether its tendency to suck in resources from all over the UK, as Professor Tony Travers suggests, when he described it as “dark star”, or to “drain the life out of the rest of the country”, as Vince Cable suggested, makes continuing to support London something Scotland should continue to do? Indeed, as Richard Holt (regional economist with Capital Economics) argued, “if London and other parts of the country are growing at the same rate, then the absolute gap between them will still increase.”
Therefore, London introduces a major and systematic distortion into the UK, something we would do well to remember when Theresa May next speaks about the post-Brexit UK Single Market. Even if London does lay golden eggs, it might be worthwhile to debate their cost to the rest of the country. Perhaps a better analogy would be “the elephant in the room”?
Lastly, in his conclusion, Mr Andrew describes the Scottish Government as “a grossly overweight porker”, which “bray[s] loudly and monotonously about the quality and quantity of swill”. Does it not say a great deal about his argument that Mr Andrew can suggest, even as an analogy, that Scotland deserves no better than swill?
Alasdair Galloway,
14 Silverton Avenue, Dumbarton.
HAVING lost the 2014 referendum on the economic facts, it is now clear that Scottish Nationalists wish to muddy the water by discrediting the Scottish Government's own GERS figures and creating a fact-free zone for any future repeat.
I would refer your readers to the excellent Fraser of Allander Institute blog on the derivation and status of GERS by Graeme Roy, and to the approval of the UK Statistics Authority, which is the "kitemark" for such data. They can then make their own minds up.
In the meantime, we can also consider two implications of the claims of the unreliability or inaccuracy of GERS.
The first is that margins of error work both ways. If the GERS deniers believe that the gap between our revenues and expenditures is, for example, a mere £10 billion rather than the eye-watering £15bn identified, they assume a margin of error of £5bn. By that same token, it could also be inaccurate by the same sum in the other direction: anyone fancy starting a country with a £20 billion per annum deficit? (No, me neither.)
The second point is to imagine that the GERS deniers are correct and that the figures are completely useless. Then we must consider just how completely crazy the proposition would be to embark on independence with no idea whatsoever about our revenues and expenditure, nor about the balance between the two. (Count me out of that one, too.)
Peter A Russell,
87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.
RICHARD Mowbray (Letters, April 10) says with deep conviction that there are those “on the left who still embrace class war and violent revolution”. Nothing could be further from reality. The exponents of class war and violent revolution are called Conservatives. They are the people in power who have been waging class war against the poorest with zero hours contracts, food banks, constant cuts to public services, chronic low wages, attacks on benefits including disability benefits. They are responsible for rising homelessness, suicide and attacks on migrants with their bellicose “we want our country back” chauvinism.
It is conservatism in all its forms that has used austerity to make its own privileged elites even richer with tax cuts and tax havens. This is violent revolution that goes by the name of austerity. We never were in it all together and we certainly are not in it together now.
The abject performance of Labour over many years has now given rise to two competing nationalisms. One is the Scottish brand that is inclusive and the other one is the British brand that is reactionary, embedded in notions of Empire. There has only been one side waging the class war and it has continued to amaze me how anyone who is not filthy rich could ever contemplate voting for it.
Jim Aitken,
2 Carlton Street, Edinburgh.
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