Goodbye, Darling

We were never very kind towards Alistair Darling here.  Well, a Labour Chancellor, who once supported a Tobin tax - what do you expect?

But, to be charitable - as today we should - how could anyone have followed Gordon Brown in that a role, which meant reporting to the man hour by hour, being second-guessed all the time?  Quite amazing that he maintained the dignity he did.  BTW, he wasn't at the Treasury when Brown did most of the damage (1998-2007).  Oh, and he chaired the 'No' vote campaign during the Scottish Inde1 referendum.  Yes, we did have a bit of regard for the Badger.

RIP, Darling.  Tough trade, politicis.

ND

Reality closing in on 'decarbonisation'

Returning from the annual Drew westwards foray - having gloriously reunited with C@W stalwarts from that neck of the (rather damp) woods - I find the wonderful story circulating of Wee Nicola being put on the spot by 'climate protesters' who'd like her support for their opposition to the Cambo oilfield development.

Her turn, then, to be skewered in the run-up to COP26.  Boris has of course already backed off fracking and that Cumbrian coalfield for reason of adverse green COPtics, but those English would-be developments have rather limited** strategic impact on the economy.  Rather different in the case of Cambo, because of course Wee Nicola wants the Scots to believe in oil revenues as the underpinning of their economy post IndyRef2.    To come out now as being opposed to all future oil & gas developments (and somewhat surprisingly, in Scottish waters there are plenty of those 'in the pipeline', so to say) is to slit her own throat.  They don't come much more strategic than that.

Haha!  The SNP spin-merchants will need to be pretty creative on this one, given that there's no end of troublesome leftie-greens lined up to needle her relentlessly.  What price a new SNP "green future" policy that will conjure 100,000 new jobs out of thin air, all faithfully promised to materialise starting, errr, 2024...

ND

___________

**Though not zero ...

Scots Booze and, errr, Frictionless Borders

This is Gretna Green.  Once there was a toll ... but now, the border is marked by those flowers on the right.  I believe this type of crossing is called "frictionless".

Pic:  google

Shouldn't laugh, I know - but what do we imagine the consequence will be of the scotties hiking the price of three litres of antifreeze industrial-strength cider from £3.59 to £11.25?  There's quite a few quid's worth of cross-border abritrage in that spread.   

You could call it a dry run for for the post-Brexit Irish.  (Dry run ... geddit?)

ND

Scary Scottish Politics

One of these horrors comes out in the run-up to Halloween, is round and orange, and alternates between beaming at children and radiating menace.  The other is a pumpkin. 

Politician                                               Pumpkin

ND

Queen's Speech - Referendum moments

The real action today in the Queen's Speech is the move to put into law the referendum on EU membership. This it eh political action which will dominate the next 18 months and in many ways is the most dangerous Tory bill (for them!) to come to Parliament since the Maastricht treaty in 1997 - maybe even as dangerous as the Poll Tax bill of 1989.

The only competition it has really is the new Scotland act that also plays out the next stage of the Scottish 'neverendum'. The bill devolves huge powers to the Scottish Parlilament but also will be met by the SNP party as a 'betrayl of the Vow' given back in September. Whether it is or not is irrelavant to the politics of the situation. Parliament is about to find out how much fun it is going to be having nationalists who want their own Country sitting on the benches of the Government of the  Colonial masters.

As for the EU referendum, I think the Tories have a good chance of getting the outcome they want as long as they learn from the SNP playbook and play very nasty all round.

1. Agree to Referendum at end of 2016
2. Try to negotiate for 6 months from now
3. Announce in January that France, Germany et al have not given enough concessions and that Cameron is minded to back an 'Out' vote
4. Wait for the EU to fold as it sees subsidies and indeed its existential existence threatened (especially if Greece has exited Eurozone too, a distinct posibility)
5. Finally receive some small but meaningful concessions by summer 2016
6. Decide to campaign afte long and hard thought for a vote to stay in
7. Win the referendum, shoot the UKIP fox, be seen as great leader for the UK until Scotland leaves...

Sounds easy, requires real balls to execute - I doubt they can do it that well!

Reality Rains on the SNP's Parade

Just when the SNP's tails are up and they are looking forward to dictating terms in May, along comes one of those unwelcome intrusions of cold, dull, solid reality.  The very large Longannet power station in Fife now looks set to close next year, quite a bit sooner than many anticipated and certainly much too soon for any like-for-like replacement to be built in Scotland.

A brief account of what this means in electricity supply terms.  Longannet is the biggest power plant in Scotland and it is coal-fired, meaning it can produce electricity reliably on cold, still days.  This of course is in stark contrast to the wind-power which in terms purely of theoretical capacity is what is replacing it north of the border.  There won't be much reliable power left there soon, with Peterhead's capacity (gas) much reduced and the nuclear units at Hunterston and Torness also set to close.   Despite what many imagine, there really isn't as much hydro power in Scotland as its hills and rainfall might suggest. 

The SNP's vision is a Scotland producing "100% of its electricity needs" and indeed exporting surplus to England and Wales.  They like the gullible to imagine this means self-sufficiency for Scotland, and Salmond even claims Scotland's wind power "keeps the lights on on England": but it's at best a numerical sleight of hand, at worst a downright lie.  There are times when there is indeed a surplus when the wind is cooperating, but the coal / gas / nukes have to work hard when it isn't, and indeed there will always be times when imports are required from England.  If (in the green fantasy world) Scotland went fully "renewable" (= mostly wind), there would of course be times when massive amounts of imports would be required.

This is rather like the German situation writ small; and of course it makes Scotland utterly dependent on being a fully integrated part of a much bigger and much more reliable grid.  Economically, it has an uncomfortable further implication: exports will be when the wind is blowing nicely, and will be at rock-bottom prices.  (Germany sometimes exports at negative prices, i.e. is forced to dump "must-take" wind and solar power on its neighbours.)  Imports will be when the grid is struggling and will be at top-dollar, or whatever currency Salmond imagines he'll be using.

Now although there are greens and dumb-Nats who have unthinkingly swallowed the "100%" line (lots of 'em, as a cursory reading of Scottish websites and CiF will confirm) there will be fewer of those this morning as the realities of Longannet and post-Longannet are paraded across the media.

Needless to say, the SNP have found a way to blame the wicked English for the problem - "Grid charges are set deliberately to disadvantge Scotland" which, I need hardly add, is bollocks - and Longannet's owners, the Spanish (sic) have fed them this line.  Well of course: all power generators are down at the regulator's office with their greedy hands out these days.  

The Nats will be sorely disappointing the greens in the coming days because they'll be arguing for (a) a Longannet bail-out, just as the greens are celebrating its demise, and (b) a structural bail-out for Scottish power plants in general, to encourage someone to build a big new gas-fired plant to replace the coal-munching monster.   Amusingly, the only real prospect for this is if the fiercely-opposed plans of INEOS and others for Scottish 'unconventional' gas production (i.e. fracking and coalbed methane) come to fruition.  That ain't gonna be any time soon.

We have C@W readers who can judge the mood of Scottish voters better than I.  But I can't help thinking a blunt reinforcement like this of the dependency of Scotland on being part of an integrated UK set-up is a modest dousing of cold highland water.

ND

The rise of the SNP - alternative history

Alex Salmond was on BBc's This Week.
He said that the incredible deal offered by the Smith Commission, something far in excess of what was on the table before the referendum began, is a sham document that robs Scotland of its right. The report is a betrayal of what the Scottish voters were 'promised' by Gordon Brown and the whole thing has been a massive betrayal by the ruling London parties.

He could provide no evidence of these additional promises. They aren't reported in any news paper. Or recorded in any speech. But apparently Brown promised them. Even though Brown hasn't been PM for quite a few years, he had the power and did promise Scotland full tax raising powers.

Salmond sounded ever more extreme and unpleasant. Promising the Scots things that the UK can never deliver, and then complaining that when they won't agree to his demands, they are reneging on their promises. 

It may all have sounded a little familiar to history students.

2014 - SNP surrenders to the British  government after failure to achieve a YES vote. 
After years of  political warfare and many, many millions of pounds wasted the result is a stalemate.
Disillusion with traditional political parties rampant. 
The defeated SNP Tartan army is allowed to march back to their homes in good order. The victorious allies decide against occupation of the homeland.
The myth of 'the Westminster stab in the back' is born.

2015 - Alex Salmond discharged from the Tartan Army . Formation of the Scottish FraeKorps from SNP & ex-Labour voters.

2015 - Treaty of AuldLangSyne. Harsh terms are imposed upon the Scots. They have to incorporate the 5 a day fruit regime and minimum pricing for alcohol into their culture. 

2016 -  Adolfine Sturgeon becomes leader of the fledgling new Socialist Nationalist party. She ceases bleaching her mustache. 

2017 - Tennent's Extra Hall Putsch, to forcibly occupy Scottish parliament and expel other parties,  led by Sturgeon and Salmond fails. Authorities fear making them martyrs and sentence them to one month community service. Salmond writes his autobiographical manifesto "Mein Kilt"

2018 - SNP take up seats in the parliament. English students forced to pay for education that is free for non-English.

2019 - 2nd global recession. The Prince's Street Crash. EU enters 10th year of recession and loans to fund Scottish benefits and education dry up. Scotland enters sharp downturn. The Socialist Nationalists blame 'foreigners' for the cut backs that follow. The persecution of the English intensifies.

2020 - Socialists Nationalists and the Green Party take seats from the Communist-Red-Eds. Salmond stirs up his supporters with fiery rhetoric and promises. He demands more powers of taxation and a Scots army and airforce that was [always} forbidden under the treaty of AuldLangSyne.  Running street battles, fires, looting and extreme violence break out in Glasgow and Dundee..Which is quite normal behaviour.

2021 - Adolfine Sturgeon becomes Chancellor of Scotland.

2021 - Holyrood Parliament burns down under mysterious circumstances. Civil unrest in the major cities. And  Aberdeen. Sturgeon demands emergency powers. "English foreign saboteurs' blamed for fire. Oppression of the English, something that has been on the rise since 1968, increased.
New laws banning 'Australian people' from owning newspapers or having involvement in the media passed. Murdoch press forced to sell to SNP supporting moguls.

2022- Night of the deep fries - Green party leaders eliminated under Sturgeon's orders. The Greenshirts are incorporated into the SNP.

2024 - English banned from all public sector jobs in Scotland. Which is basically all jobs in Scotland.
English forbidden to marry Celtic citizens or date people with ginger hair. Sturgeon demands Anchluss with Isle of Man.

2025 - Pact of Steel mills announced with Wales. England calls up all 200 of its reservists. Scotland demands control of Northern Ireland and claims Celtic citizens are being mistreated in that country. Sturgeon says war will follow if demands not met.

David Cameron flies to Melrose for talks with Sturgeon. He agrees to allow occupation of the Irish border region and Scottish control of the Northern Ireland subsidy in return for a time extension on the naval base at Faslane .
He returns to Croydon claiming "Lease in our time." 
Adolfine Sturgeon posts Cameron back his umbrella that he had left behind "I thought you might want this. It folds up very quickly."


2026 - Scotland occupies Northern Ireland. England arranges to lease St Nazaire so as to have somewhere to base its aircraft-less carriers.
Cameron says, no ifs no buts,Sturgeon will not demand anything more if we just accept this final humiliation.

2027 - Sturgeon demands the port of Hollyhead from Wales. 
Miliband-Cameron coalition formed.

2027 - Kristal-Meth Night . Thousands of shop windows smashed, heavy street fighting and attacks on English owned shops and businesses. The violence erupted after a controversial penalty decision at Wembley in the England-Scotland Euro Qualifier game saw England win 3-2. English taxpayers made to pay for all the damage - so no real change.
SNP passes the Helensburgh laws. All English people must wear a yellow flag of St George and drive a white van. English places of worship, Marks & Spencers and John Lewis are forced to close.

2028 - to the astonishment of the world an SNP-UKIP pact is announced. These two ideologically opposite parties form an alliance.

2028 - Scotland invades Wales. England declares war on Scotland.

Outbreak of hostilities.

Change is Coming to the UK, in comedy form

I don't know about everyone else but this Scottish referendum malarkey is quite the most enjoyable political event to watch from a far as I can remember.

As a distraction for the rather sad and uncertain wide world it is great, here are the highlights for me thus far:

1 - It's all about Hate; hate of the English and the Tories. Scotland already has its own parliament, its own NHS, its own tax raising powers (never used), it own currency notes, its own national football and other international teams, its own culture, its own legal code. It's a Country, it just does not like having remote Tory Government in Europe, although it also has a right wing led Government in Europe and does not complain about that. The undercurrent of anti-English hate and justification for it is hilarious.

2 - Yes or No, its the end of the Union. With more powers to Scotland surely even our pathetic set of Westminster politicians are going to struggle not to sort out the West Lothian question. This means split Government for the UK and an end to Labour being able to pass legislation in England with no majority in the Country. That will be fun, if the Politicians dodge this, then UKIP will make great hay.

3 - All of Cameron, Milliband and Clegg are immensely unpopular in their different ways. Normally one party manages to lead with a duffer, but at the moment we have three duff leaders all in their Prime. The Peter principle of professional politicians has evolved to fulfil its destiny.

4 - One small poll this way or that has moved markets, I even make £20 betting just on the moves to Yes after a single poll. To see the media and politicians gripped like this is hysterical.

Really, it will be sad next Thursday when it is all over No have won (keep going Yes Scotland, my heart is with you, but my head says No will do it 55%-45%).

5 - But it won't be over will it. Anti-English Salmond will still be First Minister or his equally shouty deputy Sturgeon, the vote will be close and there will be demands for a re-count and re-run etc. So maybe that will provide us with some enjoyment for the Winter months.

Prospect of is already Independent Scotland already boosting the UK economy as a whole

The Pound has dropped to a low of $1.61 to the Dollar - its lowest for 3 months. it year low is at £1.57 so it is well on the way to being at this level or better with just 10 days until the Scottish referendum result.

The Scottish referendum is the gift that keeps on giving, not only may the UK soon be shot of its Socialist extremists, but also the 20% over value of the Pound (its trade weight is currently 83 against a basket of currencies, this implies a near 20% over-valuation) will come off.

This will cause imports to be more expensive and so drive inflation, but at the same time will help an export sector that has run into a wall in 2014 in the face of an over-expensive currency rate driven not by fundamentals but by the choice of the Pound as a safe haven currency.

Perhaps the loss of Scotland will permanently diminish the Pound (I doubt it really, Scotland is 8% of the economy at most) as a reserve currency. This would have good benefits for the economy with almost no downsides - those only being that larger corporate transactions would have to move to dollars or euro's, but not matter. The status of long-dated gilts will in reality underpin Sterling's utility for decades to come.

Moreover, the FTSE is harmed by the earnings of so many of its companies being in dollars which is then reflected into poor returns due to currency exchange. The move down of the Pound will improve the overall PE ratio of the FTSE. Of course a high priced FTSE will lose some lustre too in the run up to the referendum.

We can only hope this continues and the whole show is not ruined by a 'No' vote in the election on the 19th September which will return us to the status quo position and represent a significant detrimental adjustment.

CU

A Mere Scottish Pounder: Salmond Has an Attack of Piles

It is often said that Napoleon was distinctly below par at Waterloo because he was suffering from piles at the time.  Alex Salmond gives every appearance of being a man in the same predicament and it couldn't happen to a nicer chap - a mere Scottish pounder after all, as the Duke might have said.

How else to explain his tetchy and unconvincing replies to the really obvious and inevitable question he's getting on the subject of the currency ?  He has had many months to see this one coming, it's a straight delivery (to switch idioms), yet it has caught him lbw and the the finger is raised.

Time was when Salmond held up Iceland, Ireland and the Scandinavian countries as exemplars of what a successful independent nation Scotland could be.  Now it's, errr, Panama and Montenegro for the Scottish Pounder.  

Perhaps, as we wait for the next televised debate, he could put on a one-man silly-season show at the Edinburgh festival to keep us all amused.

ND

Salmond, Boris: Neither To Be Trusted

It will be gratifying indeed if our old friend Badger Darling sees off the ghastly Salmond, or is at least presiding when the caledonian charlatan self-destructs.  Gordon Brown aparently hates the idea of his ex-Chancellor getting the credit both for this and 'resolving the banking crisis' (sic) , which is even better.

It's an odd set of circumstances that sees me having any truck with George Galloway, but his 'just say naw' line captures the matter nicely.  A poond's a poond fer aw that also seems pretty apt, and I'm guessing (from 500 miles away) that most Scots see it the same way.  I expect you'll have had yur tea fits in somewhere, too, in that conservative land. 

Yes, Salmond is as untrustworthy as he looks.  And so, I'm sorry to say, is Boris Johnson, who is clearly on manoeuvres yet again, and with the most inappropriate timing.  On the eve of a Union debate, the outcome of which is pretty critical for Cameron, who wants to hear BoJo announcing that we'd better get our minds around leaving the EU?  There are of course easy answers to that question, but none of them very edifying.

If Boris had been a consistent EU-skeptic there might be a scintilla of excuse.  However, he hasn't.  Quite the reverse, he's been a consistently opportunistic sniper at whatever has been Cameron's position, and in the past hasn't scrupled to let us know that contemplation of leaving the EU is the very essence of madness, and that the City of London would thereby be destroyed.

Much as we love these larger-than-life political rogues, at the end of the day we can do nicely without them.

ND

Gordon Brown's Scottish re-launch

Frequent readers of this blog will know that I hold few people in such low esteem as Gordon Brown. As Chancellor he over saw the biggest boom and bust for 100 years whilst trying to say he did the opposite, plus he has bequeathed us a structural deficit of such large proportions that it will be into the 2020's before it is under control. The list of sins goes on to many pages however brief one could try to keep it.

But it would be churlish of me nonetheless not to recognise his role in the Scottish Referendum. Today he is going to make a speech and has managed through his PR-enabled wife no doubt, to get this run in the Daily Telegraph. This speech will launch his role in the Referendum debate for the rest of the year.

Not for Brown this Independence - far to clean and easy for him. No better still a nice, complex devolution proposal for all four Countries of the UK including England. It's a classic more politics answer with sinecures for himself and his friends for eternity and the game of electioneering expanded to that everyone can get a prize.

If it were that alone, it would be of little interest. the two real belly laugh moments are that he has clearly been told to speak under his own banner, such is the political toxicity of his personal brand. So instead of Better Together he speaks for United for Labour. A real Popular Front of Judea moment (points awarded in the comments for knowing why the Popular front...)

Better still, is the fact that this is the same 'launch' of his independence line that he has made before. It is identical to this hot air served up last September and who could forget his 20 pub questions list of 2012? Might it be he is rather hoping we have forgotten his droning and monotonous wittering on the subject non-stop for the past 3 years - and is instead now hopeful that we have collectively a new found interest in his wisdom and counsel?