I love the union and being brought up in the thatcher era really think she was the greatest ever PM we had
I love the union and being brought up in the thatcher era really think she was the greatest ever PM we had
I think it's great that you're allowed a computer, but tell me - do you have a release date or are you in there until the Doctors say otherwise?
:hello2:
I am not usually into politics especially Scottish politics but could I ask, what if Scotland voted to leave the union and gain independence and in a couple of years a few of the islands got together and decided they wanted independence from Scotland. They would also I presume want a 12 mile radius around their island which would perhaps take in half the oil and gas platforms in the north sea. Would independent Scotland allow these islands to have a vote for independence? or those islands could want to re-join the UK. There seems a lot of questions that have not been even asked yet. One thing for sure is there would never be a labour government in the UK again. I blame this mess on the Labour party who for some reason thought it would be a good idea if they gave Scotland and Wales their own parliaments. It seems to me if you give 'em an inch they take a mile. But like I said I am not really into politics.
[color=#0000BF]why you no risson[/color]
arsenal (August 3rd, 2016)
Obviously.Originally Posted by giggsy
A mish-mash of hypothetical nonsense, which makes about as much sense as suggesting the Isle of Wight will declare UDI next Tuesday.
I think you should give up your attempts at political analysis and just stick to those racist jokes you like to quote - after all it was my reply to you on another thread which prompted your post above. So, just to keep you happy I've posted what must undoubtedly be one of your favourite Bernard Manning jokes below.
:ymparty:
[attachment=0:1dxhyben]hmm.jpg[/attachment:1dxhyben]
For anybody dropping in from the Vietnamese/Cambodian Bar Boy thread - where Old Git derailed the thread to stick his unwanted nose in to the matter of Scottish Independence.... he then sent me a PM which I wont reproduce (as its a PM).
However, it's fair to assume he disagreed with me on everything I had said - and posited that all the Oil and Gas thats left in the North Sea is basically just a burden now, with Scotch whisky about as popular as a fart in a spacesuit
Below is my response to him (which I CAN reproduce since I wrote it):
Hello
1. It would be either a very brave or a very foolish person who would predict what the Oil price will be in a year or two - never mind what it'll be forever more as you seem to be able to do with absolute certainty. Perhaps you read Tarot cards and do crystal ball predictions in your pub in between selling all that Irish whisky?
Furthermore, now that your glorious Union has squandered every penny of the North Sea bonanza (quite unlike Norway which has an oil fund worth getting on for £900,000,000 and therefore is to an extent immunised against oil price fluctuations) I'd suggest it ill behoves you as an advocate for said Union to tell us in Scotland how poor we'd be in future now that you've fucked us over on it for 40 years AND covered it up (read McCrone Report). The very best case scenario is that the UK has taken 100% of any revenues and given us less than 10% back
2. Moving on to whisky - again, are you seriously trying to suggest that Scotland gets to keep ALL of the taxes raised on Whisky? You say the revenues are "accounted for in Scotland" and we could have an argument about that - but we both know where +90% of them end up.
In both cases what you have failed to mention is that whilst anybody can argue about statistics - the undeniable FACT is that in an Independent Scotland whatever the future revenues from Oil or Whisky (and Scotland is dependent on neither of them) - we'd be keeping the lot - NOT less than (at the very most) the 10% you deign to give us back.
Finally, I'm well aware of the fact that in UK pubs Scotch whisky is unfashionable - but it's extremely popular all over the world and I'm sure you know this
As to UK sales, I'll hazard a guess (and I don't have figures on this) that most whisky consumed in the UK is not in fact sold in pubs anymore. Main reasons I'd suggest being a) the high price of drinks in UK pubs generally (publicans raking in £80-120 from a litre, which people can buy for £18 in a supermarket), b) the smoking ban changing the nature of the public house offering generally, and c) the fact that younger drinkers are far more likely to drink Vodka or other spirits. No doubt you can tell me different of course because you're clearly an expert on everything under the sun.
I think you'll find that it was probably Irish Whiskey he might have been selling though :-p
1) You don't need tarot cards to predict the oil price. For a long time the oil industry only chased liquid oil reserves - they knew full well about tar sands and oil shales, and the fact that those reserves dwarf the global stock of liquid oil, but also knew that only a sustained period of high oil prices would create the impetus to develop the technologies necessary to extract non liquid reserves.
That Rubicon has now been crossed, and it appears that extraction costs are significantly lower than expected. Given the enormity of those reserves, and their wide geographic distribution, the oil price is no longer dependant on the whim of the Saudis, so forward price prediction is vastly safer now than it was a decade ago. What is also apparent is that difficult offshore oil fields such as the North Sea are very unlikely to ever yield significant revenue again.
So the Norwegians have put 900 mil away for a rainy day? - I don't know if you're right or wrong, but that's a chicken feed sum in the overall scheme of things.
And how typical, 309 years after the Act of Union, when Scotland begged a union with England because (through their own vain incompetence) they were broke - you now cry unfair over the thirty odd years when Scotland managed to actually make a financial contribution - and entirely by luck rather than judgement I might add..
2) There is no credible argument to support the notion that tax revenues attributed to Scotland significantly understate the real deal - most tax generation from Whisky is in the form of Income tax and NI paid by distillery workers, and that will certainly be correctly attributed. Remember that exports carry no home duty..
The decline in Scottish whisky sales in English pubs cannot be put down to home consumption - it's a relative thing - Bourbon styles of Whisky are now vastly more popular than traditional ones in the UK, and you can't bank on that trend not migrating to export markets. The current boom enjoyed by the Scottish distillers is in no small part fuelled by the notoriously faddish Chinese market - a market that created a boom in Bordeaux that is now fizzling out as fast as it started.
All Scots should remember the classic line from Hilaire Belloc:
"Never to let a'hold of nurse, for fear of finding something worse"
900 million isn't that much. We spent more than that on the Dome and another 400 million on the Scottish Parliament. However I personally do believe that the price of oil and other fossil fuels will drop for two reasons. Newer (and in fact older) energy sources such as wind, water and sun are moving forward quite rapidly in their use and technology. Secondly I think that fossil fuels are coming to the end of their usefulness because they probably can't do what we (mankind) want them to do.
My final word on Scottish Independence. It's all fine telling the world you want to be like Norway but one glaring problem with Norway is that they can't defend themselves so were virtually taken over and bullied by Britain in WW1 and invaded by Germany in WW2. And if WW3 kicked off they would be highly vulnerable again as indeed would an independent Scotland. I am happy to hear any argument against my reasoning apart from WW3 won't happen. Because it will.
Wrong. Norway's sovereign wealth fund from oil revenues is close to $900 BILLION!
Giggsy has actually made an awesome point. The argument that Scottish is using for another referendum (ie: that the Scots voted to remain in the EU) is the same one that Orkney could use to secede from Scotland and remain as part of the UK. Orkney voted 10004 to 4883 to remain as part of the UK in the referendum. Bloody good point Giggsy, which I am sure that Scottish, being the democratic flag bearer he is will no doubt concede. That oil and those fish aren't looking quite so tartan clad now are they Scottish.
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