WHILST I share Chris Deerin’s lament about the moribund state of SNP policy at present, and endorse his hope that Andrew Wilson’s growth commission will sparkle with new ideas, he makes the mistake that most others do when comparing Scotland to Norway in respect of oil (“Nationalist movement is bogged down in intellectual slow lane”, The Herald, August 22).

Debates in Scotland have been solely about the take from oil tax revenues, because neither we nor the UK Government own even a bucket of the black stuff; whereas Norway’s ownership of that black stuff has enabled it to accumulated one of the world’s largest sovereign funds. Our eyes have been on the wrong ball for years.

While I am at it, can anyone explain to me why, with some £10 billion to be spent on rig decommissioning over the next decade, Scotland is not seeking to become the decommissioning capital of Europe, and why a rig passed us by on its way to Turkey? We really must be the saftest of the family to miss out on the oil wealth first time round, and then miss out again on the decommissioning bonanza.

Jim Sillars,

97 Grange Loan, Edinburgh.

I WRITE in response to Chris Deerin’s column, which I feel was unbalanced, unfounded and inaccurate.

In raising the research briefing by Business for Scotland (BfS) into the UK Government’s track record on oil and gas resource governance, which made the front page of the Sunday Herald (August 20) and was also reported in Energy Voice, he didn’t dispute a single fact because he couldn’t; instead he chose to attack BfS and attempt to cast aspersions on our findings and staff to distract from facts that clearly don’t fit his world view.

He said BfS’s suggestion that Westminster had let the oil industry off paying billions of pounds in taxes is “cheap and incoherent political puffery”, yet the facts are clear – BP and Shell paid millions of pounds in taxes to every other country in which they do business, yet they receive millions of pounds from the UK; statistics sourced from the oil companies’ own financial reporting.

He claimed BfS’s research was “feeble, nonsensical and methodologically unsound”, but our briefing is a detailed, major piece of work with multiple credible sources ranging from company and financial reports from BP and Shell, UK Oil and Gas, revenue figures sourced from UK and Norwegian governments, a letter from Ingrid Rasmussen, deputy director general of the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Finance and comment from leading economist Professor Michael Danson. The methodology is completely sound, intelligent and ultimately highly credible; we accept newspaper columnists promote their own opinions but Mr Deerin is inventing his own facts.

He said BfS is a “two bit organisation”, clearly not true considering the size of membership and support, and the fact The Herald itself gave comment from BfS in the front page lead three weeks ago ("SNP business backers warn over swing to left", The Herald, July 31). I don’t see a newspaper of The Herald’s stature giving that sort of coverage to an organisation that is not credible.

BfS’s research team investigated previously unasked, yet vitally important questions on oil and gas revenues and how that affects Scotland’s fiscal position as part of the UK. The findings are clear and substantiated:

• Norway generated £381 billion more than the UK Government in tax revenue from North Sea oil and gas – 1964 to 2016 – whilst producing 4.7 per cent less.

• In the two years since the oil price dropped, Norway generated more than £29bn in oil and gas revenues, whilst the UK Government is predicted to lose £23 million in the same period.

• Over the last two years the UK’s taxpayers gave Shell £179m in tax rebates, whilst Shell paid Norway £4.589bn.

• UK taxpayers gave BP £342m in tax rebates in the same period, making the UK the only country out of 23 where BP operates where they received money rather than paid taxes.

• The UK tax rebates were not specifically linked to any commitment to save jobs and the UK sector seems to have shed significantly more jobs (120,000 since 2014) than the Norwegian sector (47,000 since 2013).

For all the sneers and personal slight in Mr Deerin's ramblings, these facts remain unchallenged.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp,

Chief Executive, Business for Scotland, 290 Bath Street, Glasgow.

DAVID Torrance (“Why nationalism cannot be masked by a change of name”, The Herald, August 21) argues that the SNP by any other name would still retain the negative connotations of "nationalism". On the other hand, he seems to suggest that "Unionism" would appear to be largely devoid of any such unwanted associations. Why? Unionism shares all the characteristics of traditional nationalism. It is thirled to a particular area of land, it defines its citizenry by who they give allegiance to and it assumes that it is the best political state for achieving democratic governance. Unionists make the assumption that their form of nationalism is merely the right to self-governance and self-determination - the natural right of any state, country or nation. Yet it seems that, when it comes to the UK, only one of the nation states that makes up the whole has this right. The others are largely subservient and, given the apparent power grab currently under way with the Great Repeal Bill, are likely to become more so in the future.

As a lifelong supporter of independence for Scotland and a current member of the SNP I am, and always have been, uncomfortable with the term Scottish National Party. Quite apart from the fact that Scotland is already a nation and has been so for longer than England, nationalism does have unpleasant connotations that have been manipulated by the British press and media for many years and are not helped by the "nasty" narrow nationalism that exists elsewhere in the world. I would therefore be happy to see the SNP change its name to the Scottish Independence Party. It will not stop attacks by the mainstream media or Unionist trolls but it is a clear and unambiguous statement of what we stand for - a self-governing nation, able, for good or ill, to decide its own direction of political and social travel, to live in harmony with its neighbours and to accept that it is not, nor does it wish to be, a great world power: simply a small successful country trying to do its best for its own people and outward looking to the needs of people in countries less fortunate than we are.

Ann McClintock,

19 Grahams Point, Kilmun, Dunoon.