A "geographical share": a fair assumption?

It ought to be a cause of surprise and, frankly, derision that so many comments and reports about the economics of Scottish independence include a qualifier along the lines of "assuming a geographical share of North Sea oil". The phrase, or something similar, often features somewhere in the graphs and tables:

The implication is that some other method of allocation might be appropriate or fair or forced upon us. The further implication is that that might be a share by "population".

The reason this remains implication and is never spelled out is that it would be so ridiculous a suggestion. The notion of a "population share" arises only as a budgeting tool in the context of the existing UK where it shows, say, what contribution is made to the UK's economy, on a GDP per person basis, by North Sea receipts. No-one has (to my knowledge) ever seriously asserted that the physical entity "Scotland" should be divided up on a population basis. If it were, the border would be around Inverness, I believe. The proposition would be simply preposterously ridiculous.  

And yet. It keeps cropping up: "assuming". Sort of like "taking for granted without thinking about it". OK. Game on. Let's think about it.

Love, bombing again

So. That's that then. And how did Mr. Cameron's exhortation to hug a sweaty go down with the Great British public? They were told to make their voices heard. Did they respond?

On that metric, the speech must be judged a runaway success. The web, the news programmes, Twitter, all the instantly viewable media were awash with voices responding to the cry to smother us with love, to tell us that of course it's entirely up to us and our view will be respected whatever it is but that we'd really, really be missed. So, was that the message of the tumult: don't leave us, please, because we love you?

On that metric, the exercise must be judged as, charitably, a catastrophically disastrous failure. The rest of the UK responded just precisely as surely should have been predicted. I don't blame them. A people is told, year after year, decade after decade, that a section of them are, at best, subsidised and, at worst, spongers. Knowing and ungrateful spongers at that. That people is then told that the spongers are threatening to leave and that they should tell the spongers not to leave because they love the spongers and that they and the spongers are actually better off together. And, of course, keep subsidising the spongers so they don't leave. How do you think that people would react? How would you react? Well, that's how they reacted.

You say "Goodbye" and I say "Goodbye"

Best photobomb of the campaign, thus far.

Oh.

Oh.

Financial Times reports the facts

 

The Financial Times is not a supporter of Scottish independence. Yet it fell recently to that publication to carry out a fair, relatively impartial assessment of some of the facts underlying the independence debate (and see also here). You won't read any of this in the Scotsman:

• "... the leading players on both sides accept that Scotland has all the ingredients to be a viable nation state";
• "If its geographic share of UK oil and gas output is taken into account [and by the by, why one earth would it not?], Scotland’s GDP per head is bigger than that of France" ;
• "Oil, whisky and a broad range of manufactured goods mean an independent Scotland would be one of the world’s top 35 exporters."
• "An independent Scotland could also expect to start with healthier state finances than the rest of the UK. ";
• "Scotland’s fiscal health will also be challenged by the relatively rapid ageing of its population and the long-term decline of oil output [yet]...greater sway over its own economy could be a real advantage for Scotland. "

Love, bombing

The Sun's done a poll.

Em. Isn't "54% of the rest of the UK want us to stay" just a different way of saying "46% of the rest of the UK don't want us to stay"? Aren't each of those figures fairly described as "about half"? So, "About half of the rest of the country don't want Scotland to remain in the UK".

Man says "Great Britain is great"

Mr. Dudley of BP personally opposes Scottish independence because "Great Britain is great". He makes himself available for interview by the BBC and claims (without any challenge at all by the interviewer) to be "concerned" that it would create "uncertainties" for the company.

If Alex Massie and the Spectator, neither well-known for pro-independence sympathies, can immediately see this claim for the "silly" "poppycock" that it is then wtf is this story (not reported by any other station's broadcast news at all this evening) doing as the second item on the BBC national news, the lead item on Reporting Scotland and plastered all over the BBC website?