Spell out the facts to voters about the value of North Sea oil and gas
Elsewhere in the same edition, Fergus Ewing MSP accuses the SNP of failing to support oil and gas workers.
READ MORE: Patrick Harvie and Angus Robertson face-off over Israel divestment
SNP independence literature should emphasise, once more, the vast riches earned from Scottish North Sea oil and gas. We should print the number of barrels produced per day in Scottish waters and the value of each barrel and how this could be used to benefit the ordinary people of Scotland. Simply state these basic facts to the voters, without tying ourselves to political doctrines. No oil-producing country in the world is reducing its oil and gas outputs. Indeed, other countries, such as Norway and Israel, merrily make cash for themselves through 'burn-baby-burn' enterprises in Scottish waters.
It's time to arouse the people with the simple, basic facts.
Councillor Tom Johnston (SNP)
Cumbernauld
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The Herald Scotland
43 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
What the row over Edinburgh's Tour de France bid really shows
However, that's just the start, as it were, and in 2015 then London Mayor Boris Johnson turned down the opportunity because total costs came in at around £30 million. But a local audit in Bilbao calculated their institutions benefitted from a return on investment ratio of 1:8.5, with €12.2 million generating €103.9 on the back of global exposure. If true, the £1.7 million Edinburgh Council is being asked to contribute for the Grand Départ to set off from the Castle Esplanade in 2027 sounds like good use of public money. It's obviously the view of Edinburgh's Chief Executive Paul Lawrence who, with a tight turnaround for a decision ─ the full agreement must be signed by this Monday ─ approved the spending in principle without first seeking formal council committee approval following detailed scrutiny. 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By comparison, Edinburgh was saddled with the previous CEO's vacuous 2050 City Vision, a colouring-in book where a proper economic strategy was needed, and despite four years' preparation was so poor it had to be relaunched just three years later in 2023. The Grand Départ shows Edinburgh has the assets for international competition but not the effective decision-making structures needed to build on it. Holding out a begging bowl to the Scottish Government while local politicians bicker about priorities ain't no way to run a bike race. John McLellan is a former Edinburgh Evening News and Scotsman editor. He served as a City of Edinburgh councillor for five years. Brought up in Glasgow, McLellan has lived and worked in Edinburgh for 30 years
Scotsman
2 hours ago
- Scotsman
SNP accused of deceitful strategy after 'grotesque' plans to cut 12,000 jobs
Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Scotland's most senior trade unionist has accused SNP ministers of deceitful behaviour amid claims thousands of job cuts will take place alongside public service improvements - in a strategy branded 'grotesque'. Trade unionists have been put 'on alert' and have hit out at Finance Secretary Shona Robison effectively ending the Scottish Government's policy of no compulsory redundancies. This came after she admitted that if not enough jobs were cut over the next five years through other means, workers would be forced into losing their employment. 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The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Maybe we can start talking about the issue we've been ignoring
A commentary on the new survey written by Sir John Curtice (love him, who doesn't) delves into some of the stuff that might be going on with the figures. The public are well aware of Britain's problems, he says; indeed, lots of them are feeling it directly. But Sir John also says that rather than turning their backs on the state, for the most part the public are still inclined to look to government to provide solutions. They also feel that most people on low and middle incomes are paying enough tax already but suspect some of the better-off could pay more. If the people who run the survey had asked me for my opinion, I would have said pretty much the same thing. However, it's the consequences of all this for the political parties that really interests me because the public's view of how it's working now is remarkable. For example, just 19% think the current system of governing Britain needs little or no improvement. As for trust in government, only 12% trust it to put the country's interests before party interests 'just about always' or 'most of the time'. This is even lower than the previous record low of 14% in 2023. It's bad. The specifics of the findings are particularly troubling for Labour. The report says only 30% of people in what sociologists call semi-routine and routine occupations voted Labour, compared with 42% in professional and managerial jobs. To put it another way, Labour won the election but failed to reconnect with its traditional base of working-class voters, which is a big change. The working-class Tory and the posho socialist have always been a thing, but broadly speaking, support for political parties in this country has always been pretty much in line with social class. Now the traditional class-based support for parties is breaking down. Read more Tunnock's is being blamed for society's problems. Step away from the teacakes Are you 'upset'? The dangers of flags in Scottish schools These are the latest plans at the Glasgow School of Art. Really? The Social Attitudes Survey suggests that one of the new alternative influences on voting could be age: only 6% of 18 to 24-year-olds voted Tory compared to 36% of those aged 65 and over. But the age factor isn't new really: young people have always been drawn more to the left before tending to become conservative as they grow older. Again, there have always been exceptions – the teenage Tory like William Hague in the 70s or the ageing socialist with a mortgage and an ISA – but on the whole, oldies are less likely to be lefties. Education as a factor is also hard to pin down. The Attitudes Survey says just 5% of graduates voted for Reform compared with 25% of those with less than an A level or equivalent, but this isn't a completely different issue from class if we consider how levels of education are broadly linked to background. And we know Reform is polling better than Labour among working-class voters. A recent YouGov poll found that among the social and economic groups C2DE – I hate all this pseudo-scientific terminology but it's hard to avoid – Reform has around 30% support compared to 20% for Labour. In other words, it's class that's the factor here. Even the Attitudes Survey's results on the culture war and 'equalities' issues follows the same sort of pattern. The survey says people with liberal attitudes on culture war and equalities issues mostly voted Labour (53%), Lib Dem (17%) or Green (14%) while those with more conservative views were more likely to support the Tories (32%) or Reform (28%). You could take issue with the terms liberal and conservative here, but the survey's conclusion is that the way people vote reflects their views on culture war issues – trans, gender, race, DEI, all that – just as much as where they stand in the traditional debate between left and right. Nigel Farage of Reform (Image: Ben Birchall) But again, it's all about class. Is it any surprise that identity politics focused on gender and race has failed to catch on in working class communities when they're the ones dealing with the effects of economic inequality based on class? Thanks to multiple reports from the Social Mobility Commission, and the fact that we can see it for ourselves every day, we know that although only 7% of the population is privately educated, they're dominant in politics, business and the media. And yet when it comes to diversity quotas or lessons on DEI, social class doesn't get a mention. There are at least some people talking about it though. The Education Select Committee did a good report on the subject in 2021 in which they said ideas such as 'white privilege' were the opposite to what disadvantaged white children experience and were alienating to working class communities. They hear all the talk about their privilege and they don't hear much talk about how disadvantage affects their lives and, as we can see in the Attitudes Survey, it's started to have an effect on how they vote. Bottom line: class. Where we need to go from here would seem obvious then. As the survey points out, trust in government and party politics is low. The connection between Labour and its traditional working-class base has also been severed and it won't be restored while politicians and commentators, with that Nelsonian blindness, are talking about other things instead. Reform are scooping up votes because they're benefitting from voters who feel ignored. So stop ignoring them. Start talking seriously about economic inequality. Start suggesting solutions (it might be taxing the better-off more, who knows). But above all, start talking about what's really going on here: class, class, class.
