are the SNP "managing" news of 10,000 job losses?

I’d hoped to have something a bit cheerier to write about on Burns’ Day, but was alerted to a haemorrhage of jobs by a Scottish friend: 5,500 late last year, forecast to rise to 10,000 soon, mostly in Aberdeen. I replied I was surprised that I hadn’t read about losses on such a scale in the national press, to be told "the SNP is managing the news".

The Scottish National Party (SNP), I should say, is the party that won 56 out of 59 Scottish seats in Westminster (with 50% of the national vote), making them Britain’s third largest party in the process.

Much of their astonishing performance was based on their own predictions of a new oil field discovered off the East Coast of Scotland which, they said, would add a minimum of £15.8 billion to the nation’s coffers, and a maximum of £38.7 billion.

After they had won 94% of the nation’s seats in the Westminster election, they were forced to admit that the true range was £2.4-£10.8 billion, but it turns out this estimated sum had already been factored into figures available before the election and therefore adds nothing new to anybody’s coffers.

As if the misery caused by unemployment on this (or any) scale were not enough, a brain-drain of highly skilled workers formerly employed in Scottish oil is taking place, taking not just income but know-how out of the country. If they’ve settled down by the time (please God) the industry recovers from what looks like turning into a global financial meltdown, how will they be replaced?

The Scottish National Party is a socialist party. Socialism and nationalism have been mixed before and it didn’t work. Personally, although I’m Scottish I live in England and, much as I value my Scottish heritage, in neither country have I ever voted for a party whose name ends in –NP.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Resources

Oil explorers predict 10,000 more job losses in North Sea sector Kiran Stacey, Financial Times, October 18 2015

Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce survey highlights challenges facing North Sea Mark Williamson, The Herald, 26 November 2015

SNP dramatically cuts pre-referendum oil predictions Simon Johnson, Daily Telegraph 25 June 2015

SNP MSP apologises after causing outrage with comments over North Sea oil crisis Catriona Webster, Daily Record, 6 January 2016

Nicola Sturgeon told to quit blame games and deal with oil crisis as union chief demands summit Andy Philip, Daily Record, 25 January 2016

Click here for the Daily Record's rolling news page on North Sea Oil and the unfolding crisis

Cambridge Greens targeting Lib Dem vote? letter to Cambridge News

I disagree with Dr Rupert Read, lead party MEP candidate, on the subject of wind activity and the impact of human activities on climate.

What I round equally interesting, however, is Dr REad's reference to the "pro-nuclear, pro-fracking, pro-coal consensus of of Labour, Conservative and UKIP."

One party is conspicuously absent from Dr Read's tirade. If the Green Party plans to target Lib Dem voters in the 2015 general election as well as in the European ones, does that mean the city's next MP will be from the Labour, Conservative or UKIP party?

Gerry Dorrian

Click for Cambridge News homepage

NOTE: I usually change the names of people I'm responding to when putting my letters to the Cambridge News up here, but haven't done so with Dr Richard Read because as an MEP candidate he is a public figure.

Blackout

Pace Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, Channel 4’s Blackout is the best found-footage film I’ve seen, and all the more scary because of its feasibility.

The last blackouts to affect Great Britain were in 1972, during the Miners’ Strike. They were only in the evenings, but memories were still strong enough to see Edward Heath’s government voted out when he called an election over the strikes in 1974.

In Blackout the outage lasts for a week, literally 24/7, and by day 2 social order is breaking down. For me the central character is a DIY enthusiast who borders on what in the US would be called a "prepper", an individual who stocks food and supplies in case of an emergency entailing social breakdown. What our man seems to have overlooked is a stock of what across the Pond would be common sense: in such a breakdown you don’t just need supplies, you need the wherewithal to protect them.

In his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, horrormeister Stephen King concludes that horror films – and Blackout was very chilling – reflect the preoccupations of society at that time. Thus Them and the Godzilla movies reflected fears around nuclear warfare, while The Exorcist and The Omen came out at times of anxieties caused by youth uprisings.

I think King’s take on Blackout would be that it reflects, pretty obviously, fears about the fragility of our social fabric. However, King would also look at other meanings of the title: information blackout, say, as in the dearth of knowledge we have about how many people are actually in our country and how our money is really being spent at home and abroad; and blackout of consciousness, whereby our unelected establishment chooses not to be mindful of the abuses perpetrated by its favoured communities.

Watch Blackout – and be scared.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

REsources

Watch Blackout on 4oD

Go to the Channel 4 homepage for Blackout

Scottish Power: you have just lost our business

Dear Scottish Power,

You have just lost my family’s business. I was phoning your office on an unrelated matter when I was told that, despite our energy usage being lower than average, you were raising our monthly direct debit from under £100 to over £150.

After some discussion, our daughter waded in with her usual measure of common sense and called round energy companies, eventually getting us a deal of just under £90, capped for two years, with n-power. You wanted us to pay even more for capping our bill.

What makes you raise your prices so steeply? Are you dead-set on corporate suicide? Or have you been listening too intently to climate-change ideologues who tell you that less people equals less pollution, and have assumed the role of reducing the number of vulnerable people over the coming months?

Whichever it is, Scottish Power, know this: you have lost our business.

OrdinaryG