A vulgar diversion

I know. Sorry. But I feel I've kind of earned the right to post it on the basis of the man-hours involved alone. You would not BELIEVE how many languages there are in the world.

The big picture

Oil & Gas UK, the independent offshore industry body, estimate that there are more than 24 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent to be recovered from the North Sea and that of that 90% (85% of gas) lie within Scottish waters. The Scottish/English maritime border would be determined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and no-one seriously disputes that this would mean an independent Scotland inheriting the vast bulk of this resource (see for example, Vince Cable recently).

So, lets say 22 billion barrels. That puts us in the top-20 oil producing countries. So how do we compare with  some of the others?

Iraq (pop. 33 million) 143 

Kuwait (pop. 4 million) 102 

Russia (pop. 143 million) 74 

Libya  (pop. 7 million) 47 

United States (pop. 316 million) 27 

China (pop. 1,325 million) 20 

Brazil (pop. 194 million) 13

So, we've got nothing like Kuwait but for a country of 5.5m to have reserves that are proportionately (by population) comparable to those held by Iraq, approaching a third of Russian and half of Libyan reserves, about the same as the US and actually more than Brazil, and China makes the point: we have a LOT of oil.

This debate is about what's best for our children, and theirs, and what we can do to leave them something better than we have now. A fairer society and a more prosperous country. International dialling codes and the price of parcel delivery are, to be charitable, details to sort out later. Let's not lose sight of the big picture.

Black holes and white lies

Another day, another "black hole" (though I see the online version is a lot more restrained). Surely the No side will have to start upping their game on the astro-physical-metaphor front. Plans for defence found full of anti-matter particles, or not to contain any Higgs bosons, maybe.

Anyway, here's what ICAS actually said.

And here's their (pretty bemused sounding) executive director, David Wood, on Good Morning Scotland (links last a week, I think) (2.09.00 onwards) . He said the biggest problem would be if no-one thought about pensions, at all, before the referendum. Forgot about them altogether. I'm sure that would be a problem but I don't think it's one he suggested was likely. The other problem (and the one about which the Scotsman was dissembling) was that, on independence, "pan-UK" pension schemes would become cross-border schemes and subject to the EU cross border rules. No, me neither but he was asked whether there were not lots of existing cross border schemes. Turns out that, yes, of course, there are. Then, this exchange:

"Q: But wouldn't it be as simple as splitting the pension fund into two bits, one for Scotland and one for the rest of the UK, and just carrying on as before....?

A: Yup. That is...that is exactly right."

He then said that there should be some planning for that, by companies, in advance, before September next year and ICAS were just trying to highlight that so companies weren't taken by surprise.

So, an important administrative task but one of the most puzzled sounding interviewees I've ever heard. And "black hole" is just, simply...inaccurate.

Minding the Gap

Glenn Campbell has a strange job, doesn't he? He seems to have been appointed to roam the globe and conduct as many partial, misleading interviews with as many foreign dignatories as will speak to him, ask them a few leading questions, report the bits of their answers he likes, ignore the rest, then move on. The subtext is that those he is speaking to are disinterested bystanders to the referendum debate. So, if they can't say for certain that X is true, why that awful Alex Salmond must be lying when he says he believes that it is. So, this morning in his interview with Kurt Volker, the former US ambassador to Nato, it was quietly accepted that NATO would have enormous goodwill to an independent Scotland. However, the fact that its members would have to agree to admit us as members, after a Yes vote, was juxtaposed with Salmond's stated "certainty" that they would do so, in such a way as to suggest that he was being misleading. The unspoken assumption is that if we don't know, with absolute certainty, that X is true then we must assume X to be false.

But that is, frankly, bunkum. We're adults. We're used to dealing with something less than absolute certainty. This goes all the way back to the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning. I cannot be certain that the sun will rise tomorrow but I would be an idiot if I structured my affairs, each day, assuming there was a realistic chance it wasn't going to. A clever primary school child, finding its intellectual feet, might think it a clever argument to ask "Yes, but how do you know X to be true?" As adults, we ought to be past that stage, particularly if we are going to be permitted to vote.

It is on one view a curse of geography that Scotland lies at the southern end of a naval choke point. The Iceland Gap is the link between the countries of northern Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. The clue is in the name. The idea that the "North Atlantic Treaty Organisation" would refuse an application for membership from the nation sitting to the south of the Iceland Gap is preposterously ridiculous. A fair, balanced item would have involved Glenn asking someone versed in international relations what their view of things was, not repeating sonorously that "all" members of NATO would have to decide whether to admit us or not, as if there was the slightest chance that they would not. As Salmond, said, NATO's concern would be if we were not members.

Our strategic position is precisely the reason why we could never hope, even if we wanted, to follow Ireland's example of neutrality. We would only be neutral like Iceland was in the Second World War: nominally and briefly, before swift occupation.

And I've always liked Ken Macdonald's imagining of Salmond's response to the postulated snub from the NATO representative. Salmond pauses. He says "I see. OK. Can you hang on while I make a quick call". He dials, then says: "Hello. Is that the Chinese premier?"

State hedging of oil price risks

OK. So what it seems to come down to is this: the oil price cannot be predicted years in advance with absolute certainty. Let's agree that the price of oil varies from time to time. So what do you do? Do you give up any aspiration because uncertainty equals hopeless, unmanageable chaos? No. Lack of absolute certainty is nothing like the same as being powerless. That's the counsel of the coward. Most independent analyses of the world economy, and the oil industry's own spending, suggest the price is only going to go up. I remember a few years back someone (I think it might have been "Doctor" John Reid) wisely pointing out that the days of the giddy heights of $50 a barrel would never be seen again. It's now $91.40. That's in the midst of a world recession. As and when the economy recovers, demand for oil will grow. New discoveries, in the US and elsewhere, are expected to "keep a lid on the price" , as a welcome a counter-balance against a price explosion.

Still, you can't know for sure, I accept. So what does the sensible government do?

Simple. It hedges.

Too rich, too small, too stupid

The Herald: "SCOTLAND'S payments to the European Union could rise from £124 million to £673m under independence, official figures suggest."

Me: Oh no! That's awful. Why?

The Herald: "An independent Scotland, with oil reserves, would become the third richest country in the EU in terms of GDP per head. "

[PAUSE]

Me: OK. I see. But...

The Herald: "It is feared this would push up payments."

Me: Yes I get that bit but isn't....

The Herald: "It is said payments would rise as an independent Scotland, with oil reserves, would be among the wealthiest EU countries in terms of GDP per head. Only the Netherlands and Luxembourg would be better off. "

Me: Yes, yes, ok. But isn't being wealthy good and paying more into the EU a sign of, and a result of, being wealthy? And a good and proper thing, too. What you're doing is like telling someone they'd be a fool to take a better job, with a massive pay rise, because they'd have more tax to pay. Are you not, for some reason I can't grasp, searching for a way to present what is essentially an argument for independence as an argument against it? Perhaps in the hope people won't read past your headline?

Separation anxiety

A 19.5% swing to UKIP at Eastleigh. In the words of Nick Robinson, they'd have won if they'd just thought it possible. By God, they'll think it possible now. Ladbrokes will this morning give you evens - evens! - on the Great British public voting for separation from the EU before 2018. If you're a betting person I'd grab those odds now.