Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Tell Scotland the Truth

Oil prices are climbing higher according to The Herald:

Scots petrol prices ‘to hit £6 a gallon’

The SNP's Angus MacNeil leads the charge -

The SNP last night called on the Westminster Government to honour commitments made before the General Election to tackle rising fuel prices, warning that further rises would damage economic recovery.

What recovery Angus? Why not tell them that rising fuel prices will escalate Britain's economic collapse?

What ministers in London forget is that, for people in rural areas, a car is a necessity and not a luxury.

Good point Angus. However the situation is much graver. When fuel prices reach 6% of GDP every country begins to decline economically. What about telling them that Scotland doesn't need to pay more in tax because she is in surplus and higher fuel prices will destroy that surplus and jobs?

Pushing up fuel prices is absolutely the wrong thing to do as we emerge from recession and these increases will actually hinder economic recovery.


We're not emerging from recession Angus. Tell them Scotland doesn't need higher fuel prices or cuts. Tell the people they can pay more and take the cuts or that they can avoid economic collapse by voting for independence.

Come on SNP, tell Scotland the truth.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

A conveners group has already approached the Scottish Government in regards to the fuel situation especially in the Highlands and Islands. The whole network it at crisis point, given the declining volumes sold by the small sites as they get sucked dry by the supermarket sites set up in strategic areas, couple with there being a virtual monopoly in fuel supply in Scotland outwith the supermarkets. There is a OFT report going on now to the prices charged to fuel stations in the Western Isles.
The convener group are more that aware of the problems that exist with fuel supply and cost butit appears getting the message across to the ministers is harder. Couple that with the silence from Danny Alexander who campaigned on this issue and already had a knockback from the treasury for reduced vat on the already expensive fuel.
It is really ironic that we have had oil of the coast of Scotland for 4 decades yet pay more than anyone else.

They seem heel bent on committing to carbon reduction schemes in the short term which will in turn increase the price of the fuel but also makes more money for the carbon traders

Alex Porter said...

@Anon,
What can the Scottish government do? Or are you talking about the SNP as a campaigning vehicle? Who is the convener's group? Will getting the message across involve 'direct action'?

On another point has there been talk about what 'peak oil' is going to mean for the highlands? Or discussion of bio-fuels such as corn or sugar-based ethanol?

Definately can't disagree about Scotland not being a big winner from oil and gas. What a shame!

Anonymous said...

The conveners are from various councils throughout Scotland whose have a knowledge of the logistics and use of fuel for transport. It is headed by the some chap from Orkney Council who again has thorough knowledge. They think by making the SNP Government and the Scottish Parliament aware of the problems we face and more importantly what is round the corner in regards bio fuel implmentation.

Wether the Scottish Parliament as a group can then pressure the treasury to make the necessary changes is another thing.

The whole bio fuels issue is a big con.
It is harder to store, affects the current infrastucture, has a short shelf life, in terms of the ethanol based petrol about 30 days, most sites in rural areas have fuel in their tanks over the winter period for months.
It is not as efficient , it costs more to make in terms of having blending plants installed which they will pass onto the end user just so they can say they have hit a CO2 target.
the payback time taking everything into account ie pollution from fertilizers to grow the crops, deforestation , transport and storage of the ethanol is approx 200 years.
Now don't get me wrong Im all for cleaner air etc, but the whole point of this exercise is that the companies have trading certificates based on wether they have hit their targets or not, and trade them with other companies to comply. City firms are falling over themselves to trade these as there is a lot of money involved.

Meanwhile we will end up with many rural areas without fuel, which in turns hits the scottish economy for tourism for business in remote areas, for more pollution and depopulation of remote areas as more people are drawn to the centres with Fuel and Supermarkets.
Many years ago I heard the term honeypot effect , must be at least 20 years ago, describing the effect of Inverness expanding as it was and what little money being invested there. You only need to look at town centres thoughout the Highlands now, full on non shops takeaways pound shops, shoe shops and charity shops, because th life has been sucked out of the smaller towns and even the town centres of the likes of Inverness , they cannot compete with the Supermarkets.

Is life better with supermarkets ? is the local economies better with supermarkets ? I know the business Im involved with has more or less been wiped out and I dont get any work from the Supermarket sites that took over,they have firms on national contracts doing the work, they dont want it , but they have to take it if they want the lot, even then they are squeezed until their pips squeek. I know of many firms who had the maintenance contracts for supermarket firms and if come contract renewal time they didnt get it, they went bust.

Which forces the bar lower for the next firm who get it, they do the same to their suppliers.

I fear though that it will be easier for governments to let them take over everything, its not as if they have not already mind , you they have control of the food, fuel, getting into insurance and banking means they can point at them and say see you can get exotic fruit all year round and some cheap tat from China and have more money to spend on the ever increasing taxes they use to prop up the banking sector, the political sector, the military complex, etc etc etc

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