ALL of Scotland’s oil was stolen. Although 90% came from Scottish waters the entire value of it went to the UK Treasury – a ministry under English law. The first 91% of it was spent in England, benefitting mainly London and the south-east of England, on infrastructure, weapons of mass destruction and vanity projects including nuclear weapons, the Jubilee Line, Channel Tunnel, Eurostar, Canary Wharf etc.
Scotland’s 8.2% by population share was spent by Mrs Thatcher on closing down Scottish industries, paying redundancy money, and destroying whole communities and the lives of many of the people of Scotland. The current high death toll from drugs is a direct consequence of this. There were no benefits to the people of Scotland, only damage, still continuing.
READ MORE: Big corporations ‘could make Scotland’s water the next oil’
Insult was added to injury when just before the Scottish Parliament was reconvened a secret order stole 6.000 square miles of Scottish waters – with six oil wells and all the fishing – putting them under English jurisdiction, to further remove value from Scotland. We need to ensure that the people of Scotland’s are not similarly robbed – as is happening already – of resources in green electricity/power and fresh water.
Currently much of electricity produced in Scotland is sent to England – but suppliers have to pay to put it on the grid rather than getting its true value. And many hydro schemes are at reduced power, only filling in supply gaps – an extraordinarily wasteful situation. Local people are deprived of any benefit from the power produced right beside them.
Scotland has 90% of the UK’s fresh water, with England due to run out in 25 years (Big corporations ‘could make Scotland’s water the next oil’, Aug 16). Water is presently sent to England. The people of Scotland should be the ones to benefit from this export.
READ MORE: Mark Frankland: Here's why water is set to be Scotland's new oil
The fact that 40% of our taxation is still kept by the Treasury by means of forcing us to pay a share of all Westminster/ London expenditure even when it is of no benefit – and is often harmful – to the people of Scotland. This includes the House of Lords, Crossrail, HS2, etc and the “London weighting”, in which the richest city in the UK, with nearly twice the population of Scotland, is subsidised to pay salaries, wages, benefits etc at a higher rate, thus overheating the economy, especially the housing market. (Being in the “Union” has reduced the Scottish population from 25% of the UK to 8.4% today – by cannon fodder, Clearance, forced eviction and genocide).
It is also the case that changes in England lead to a loss of funding, eg the 35% privatisation of NHS England leads to a 35% loss of funding to NHS Scotland.
The British Empire has form on this, as in India the railways etc removed food from the local population to be exported to England/Britain, increasing famines, and treating Ireland in a similar way, although it, like Scotland now, was part of a “Union”.
Susan FG Forde
Scotlandwell
TORY MP Douglas Ross was right to point out “it is Scotland’s oil” (‘Petulant troll’ Ross slammed for Cambo oil letter to FM, Aug 14). It is, therefore, Scotland’s decision to extract or not to extract. Oil is a very different and dangerous commodity today than it was seen as 50 years ago; climate change was hardly on the agenda then.
READ MORE: Douglas Ross labelled 'petulant troll' over Nicola Sturgeon oil letter
I can’t see anything bordering on an apology in Ross’s letter for the oil revenue that to Westminster being squandered on nuclear weapons and invasions into Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria which cost many lives and hundreds of billions, ending up in humiliation and making the world a more dangerous place.
Like most of his attempts at discrediting the FM, he has shot himself in the foot again.
Mike Underwood
Linlithgow
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