Reply to: Only in Scotland

[expat]

Found this: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2409432005
It's a little out of date, but it is from a Scottish source....so must be true...

Thanks. Well, it's from the Scotsman....

BTW I do allow that the majority of English people believe, rightly or wrongly, that England does subsidise Scotland, and they are nevertheless willing to do so. I am as keen to be grateful for the ordinary people's generosity, as I am to be angry about the politicians' deceitfulness.

[hattra]

So - £2200/head per annum. Perhaps the £3000 was a gross figure - it was a few years ago that I read it

[Flubster]

Does anyone have any links to substantiate this figure of £3000/head? I'm genuinely interested.

Found this: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2409432005
It's a little out of date, but it is from a Scottish source....so must be true...

[expat]

A quick look at the figures gives a "subsidy" to Scotland of £15 billion a year (if the £3000/head figure is actually correct) vs oil revenues of £5 billion a year (average over the last 10 years). Quite a good deal for Scotland, I would say. IIRC Northerm Ireland has a similar positive balance with the rest of the UK, for fairly obvious reasons. I don't know about Wales. But who cares? As long as the money isn't wasted on daft schemes (like using roads as solar heating panels )

As mentioned elsewhere above, a large portion of the oil revenue would have been England's anyway (and even more if we hadn't given away UK rights to some of the best fields to Norway).

"if the £3000/head figure is actually correct"

This page, Scotching the Myth gives some good sources and figures for the net cashflow from Scotland to England. Yes, the site is heavily political, but the info is there.

Does anyone have any links to substantiate this figure of £3000/head? I'm genuinely interested.

[Flubster]

As mentioned elsewhere above, a large portion of the oil revenue would have been England's anyway (and even more if we hadn't given away UK rights to some of the best fields to Norway).

But to be fair to Norway, they do keep sending that Xmas tree over to us every year. I wonder whose recycling bin Ken puts this into?

[hattra]

A quick look at the figures gives a "subsidy" to Scotland of £15 billion a year (if the £3000/head figure is actually correct) vs oil revenues of £5 billion a year (average over the last 10 years). Quite a good deal for Scotland, I would say. IIRC Northerm Ireland has a similar positive balance with the rest of the UK, for fairly obvious reasons. I don't know about Wales. But who cares? As long as the money isn't wasted on daft schemes (like using roads as solar heating panels )

As mentioned elsewhere above, a large portion of the oil revenue would have been England's anyway (and even more if we hadn't given away UK rights to some of the best fields to Norway).

[BlasterBates]

What actually happened is that English politicians lied so that England could get all that wealth and spend it.

..ah now I understand during the independence campaigning, the Scottish politicians stayed at home, and the English politicians came over the border to explain to the Scots not to vote for independence. Did they speak with fake Scottish accents ?

..and preumably, these same Scottish politicians are now busy installing solar panels underground..

...aha

[snaw]

I saw an international law expert on TV news a few years ago, who said this was a myth. Even if Scotland were completely independent, something like half the North Sea oil would still belong to the remainder of the UK.

I'm guessing here but taken in it's totality I think the half we're due more than outweights the 'subsidy' Scotland's been getting.

Anyway, if we're getting into that kind of debate then SE england should just branch off on it's own and stop subsiding the rest of the bits of the country that are underperforming. And I wonder how much of that wealth is being generated by Scots who've moved migrated down here ...

[expat]

I saw an international law expert on TV news a few years ago, who said this was a myth. Even if Scotland were completely independent, something like half the North Sea oil would still belong to the remainder of the UK.

Freedom never came at a cheaper price. I'll take it, you can have all the oil.

[IR35 Avoider]

England will steal it all in a repeat of the North Sea oil plunder.

I saw an international law expert on TV news a few years ago, who said this was a myth. Even if Scotland were completely independent, something like half the North Sea oil would still belong to the remainder of the UK.

[expat]

Back to the story though - So it can produce heat/leccy on the 2 fine days scotland gets which laughingly gets called its summer. For the rest of the time you have a series of under road pipes filled with water which obviously are not going to ever break and so need the road constantly dug up.

LOL. No, pipes never freeze in the north of Scotland...

[expat]

Last I heard the subsidy ran to about £3000 per head of population in Scotland - IIRC that was in the Times about four years ago.

Which subsidy is that then? You might mean the often-quoted Barnet formula for distributing funds to local government.

The point about this fallacy (that England supports Scotland) is that in general the outgoings are analysed (and indeed performed) by region, but the incomings are not. So the payments to Scotland are visible, but the much larger income from Scotland is invisible.

Or even attributed quite wrongly: e.g. oil tax income is listed as an English contribution to the government coffers, because the oil companies' offices are in London and pay the tax there. That doesn't, or shouldn't, make it London's oil.

[hattra]

You forgot to include the bit where you come up with some evidence for that.

Oh wait, Ken Livingstone said so when he was standing for election in London, and the Evening Standard agreed with him. Right.

Last I heard the subsidy ran to about £3000 per head of population in Scotland - IIRC that was in the Times about four years ago.

[BoredBloke]

Back to the story though - So it can produce heat/leccy on the 2 fine days scotland gets which laughingly gets called its summer. For the rest of the time you have a series of under road pipes filled with water which obviously are not going to ever break and so need the road constantly dug up.

[expat]

Before you get carried away, I don't agree with the arrangement, and am not English.
.....
Next you'll be picking on the Welsh sheep farmers...

Not to my taste, thanks.

And I have been carried away before you were born, young fellow.