Rush for new oil gets old response

BOOM sparks new North Sea goldrush. You'd think a headline like that in a serious English broadsheet newspaper would be enough to make even the most pro-Union Scot or anti-SNP party political activist pause for thought. But you'd be wrong.

The hardcore opponents of anything that might give political nationalism a leg-up have responded as they've done for the three decades the oil's been flowing.

Whether old Tories, New Labour or futile federalists, the common comment boils down to an all-season "Bah humbug".

Regardless of the benefits Scottish ownership of North Sea oil might represent for Scots, including those in the various interest groups supported by the different parties, the comments are predictably Pavlovian.

Unionists and others have refined the old put-down about the estimated oil tax revenue that would go to a Scottish Treasury being short of the amount needed to run Scotland. With the price of oil rising to $139 a barrel, the cheerleaders for Westminster now preach their false gospel on the impossibility of basing an economy on one main resource – oil.

Does their willful refusal to acknowledge the opportunities afforded by oil revenues directed to a Holyrood-based finance minister indicate an ignorance of the facts, or is it just petty politicking?

Norway's wealth comes from one big tax resource. Sure, by staying out of the EU, Norway's fishing industry hasn't had to contract as much as ours.

But the engine of the economy is oil and the cash in the bank for future investment, in infrastructure or skills training, comes from the taxes paid by the same oil companies with contracts on the Scottish side of the Norwegian trench.

Kuwait produces roughly the same volume of oil as Scotland. How wide a tax base does this very wealthy country have, apart from the state oil company?

As these two very different countries demonstrate, provided enough tax is paid to a government, and provided it's used sensibly, with a proportion retained for investment in other sectors of the economy when needed, it's quite feasible to have one, main, lucrative tax source.

So aren't we lucky to have other sources of government revenue from taxation – such as whisky for example? The UK's single biggest dollar earner is whisky, and the biggest single tax contribution to the Westminster treasury is from the oil industry.

Cue the Unionist response, filed under "selfish". For 30 years, whenever its arguments falter under the facts, the "Leave-it-to-London" brigade plays its trump card: "After all the benefits the Union has given Scotland, it would be selfish to break up Britain and take the oil money."

In the 1970s, this deceitful appeal dissuaded Scots from raising their sights and calling their own economic shots. Ever since, the Union, and Westminster control of the oil, has kept Scotland's growth rates below the UK average.

As a measure of the Union's success in improving life for Scots, a report on child poverty in the 1970s found one-in-ten Scots babies were "born to fail". Thirty years on, the figure is one-in-four.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel, Unionist politicians trundle out the old chestnut at this point: Scots get more out of being part of big Britain – UN Security Council permanent member, big wheel in the EU and member of G8 – than small, independent countries get out of being masters in their own small house.

The pride in that sort of status is long gone if its price is lower living standards, poorer health care, education and pensions than those in Europe's small states.

A political union isn't necessary for cross-border co-operation required on environmental matters, or borders security or transport by adjoining but different countries – as shown by Norway and Sweden, Portugal and Spain or the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Obama's next move
Barak Obama looks to be made of the right stuff for an American president who'll have to persuade Americans to guzzle less gas. All he has to do now is to resist having Billary Clinton on the ticket, and to re-visit the speech he made to the Jewish pressure group, in the course of which he appeared to ride roughshod over the hopes of Palestinians for a just end to their exile from their rightful homelands.

Portugal's my pick
My mind is made up – I'm supporting Portugal. The wisdom of my choice was confirmed on Saturday night when Luiz Felipe Scolari's all-stars showed a useful-looking Turkish team how the beautiful game is played.

I'll own up to a certain level of bias based on the similarities of playing style I fancied I detected amongst players who'd started their careers in either Lisbon or Leith.

The Turkish tussle was good, and tonight's Czech Republic match looks promising. The mother of all grudge matches goes on unseen though ... Sir Alex Ferguson versus Cristiano Ronaldo.