There's nae Oil, ye cannae cope, yer doomed.

Following the Tartan Overlords less than tub thumping speech at the weekend, where he deliberately refused to walk on water, heal the lame and cure blindness, the Scottish media are set to turn their whinge levels up to eleven and go on the offensive of belittling Scotland and those of us who choose to live here, but want a better country. 

The cries of doom, gloom and the end of the world are already sharing newspaper space with some neddish English footballer and the conundrum of where he'll find his next wodge. Apocalypse noo seems to be the phrase du jour.


Chief among the whingetastic this morning is an article by Brian Currie, formerly of the esteemed Evening Times and now political editor at the Herald, which has as expected, a cringe laden response from three of the finest Unionist Stooges in Scottish politics.

Messrs Gray, Rumbles and Brownlee, take great umbrage at Salmond's comments about Scotland having a 'pocket money parliament'. They decry him as a 'spoilt child' so ner ner ner ner ner, as their level of debate goes. 

Mr Rumbles of Sunderland Poly and Sandhurst College, goes a little further and accuses Salmond of "bombast about his dream of a separate country." Mr Rumbles, the very epitome of a bad weather Geordie, might have been better served making a comment about a little commented or explored story concerning his own Aberdeenshire constituency and emanating from a seat of learning a mere hop, skip and a jump from his Durham primary school.

Professor Jon Gluyas a renowned global expert on CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) & Geo-Energy of Durham University has calculated that oil recovery using carbon dioxide could yield an extra three billion barrels from the North Sea over the next 20 years - enough for all UK power, heat and transportation for two years.


Prof Gluyas report commissioned by DONG energy and Ikon Science Ltd states, "My figures are at the low end of expectations but they show that developing this technology could lead to a huge rejuvenation of the North Sea." The amusingly titled DONG energy are the Danish state owned leading energy company. With revenuue in the region of some £7 billion, they are leading lights in windfarm, biomass, hydro and geothermal power. Oh they also own and operate oil licenses in their small section of the North Sea...

So how did the Scottish media react to this press release sent out by Prof Gluyas and his team at Durham University?

Well a quick online search reveals the story was picked up by an impressive TEN media outlets. Chief among them the mighty Aberdeen Evening Express whose reporter Charlotte Jordan, who normally covers important stories like Dog Bites Horse,
managed to squeeze out an impressive 77 words about Prof Gluyas 'suggestion'. What's that I hear you say, what about the Scotsman, the Herald, BBC Scotland and the plethora of London media titles who become Scottish by adding the misnomer Scottish to their mast, how many of them reported this rather important story? Not a fuc*ing one of them, that's how many.

The other nine titles who picked the story up a mere five days ago are mostly engineering titles oh apart from The Northern Echo who trumpeted, 'Report Aims To Secure Our Energy Supplies For 50 Years'. Similarly nebusiness.co.uk played up the fact that Teeside can expect to exploit this North Sea Oil and Gas boom...


So coming after an exceptional summer of fresh oil discoveries in Scotland's sector of the North Sea, here we have further proof that if we were ever to believe the oft repeated mantra from our Unionist dependence junkie politicians that the our Oil is running out, that all not need be doom and gloom. We need only to start pumping carbon into the oil wells, to displace the previously difficult to get at oil...Don't expect to read about it in our slathering Union loving press, after all we wouldn't want the Jocks to get uppity again...

======================UPDATE===26==FEBRUARY===2012=================

Click photo below to enlarge and read.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be...

BBC Scotland's online front page seem to find itself in a right fankle this morning.

First of all they lead with the rather wooly Scots 'tend to blame Labour' for cuts.

Which somehow over the course of the morning morphed into the more definite Labour 'more to blame'.

 

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at this wibbling, as the task of convincing the electorate that Labour has nothing to do with the cuts is as big a task as persuading Tommy Sheridan that although honesty may be the best policy, dishonesty, by a process of elimination, is not the second best policy...


The IPSOS mori poll that the beeb are trumpeting uses the rather loaded "From the following who do you think is responsible for the spending cuts that are soon to be announced?" They then go on to list the previous Labour Government, the current coalition, and then, no doubt with an eye on equal opportunities, the present SNP government. A quick perusal of their findings reveals that the blame fairly and squarely lies on err almost anyone but Labour.  According to the poll 47% of men and 58% of women blame the coalition and the SNP for the coming cuts.  How can anyone in their right mind blame either the Tories/Lib Dems or the SNP for the massive debt we've all supposedly been saddled with, when Labour have been in charge of the chuffing purse strings for the past 13 years?



All this talk of debt and our by now resigned acceptance that cuts are inevitable  got me thinking about it at a local level and how this will impact on poor wee Dumfries and Galloway.


We've got a declining population of 148,600 of which less than 58% are of working age. We've got 32,000 under 19 and a whopping 43,000 folk of pensionable age. We've got high pockets of unemployment with multiple generations of families never having worked. Wages and household income levels are among the lowest in Scotland and the UK coming in at 92% of the Scottish average. Our affordable housing is so strained with the number of people from outside the region choosing to retire here that our young cannot afford to live in the place they grew up in and are now abandoning the place at a rapid rate of knots.

Those fortunate enough to be in jobs are mostly employed with the council, some 8,000 at last count. NHS D&G contributes to a fair whack of weekly incomes. A few SME's apart the rest of our employers can be found in the Agriculture and tourism markets...all of which brings me to question our sustainability and how D&G can cope with the cuts that Labour have brought about the need for?

Dumfries and Galloway council has a budget of £348 million. According to John Swinney we have inherited a PPP/PFI commitment of some £20 million per year, which varies year on year, but runs all the way until 2041-42. This money has been spent on new schools, school refurbishments, the sports centre and the Eco Deco plant operated by Shanks who recently sold their PFI subordinated debts on to Laing Investments. Cf passim 

On top of that, we have the recent news from Professor David Bell of Stirling University that Scotland's councils are in debt to the tune of £9 BILLION. D&G's share of this is a mere £160.4m. Thankfully, this doesn't compare to the whopping £1.200 million that Edinburgh owes or the eye watering £1.426 million that Glasgow owes to the men in the pin stripe suits. As Prof Bell says, "Councils can generate revenue via council tax, business rates, the sale of land and charges for services like care, parking and sports facilities". So let's look at these: 

(1)The council tax has been frozen by the Scottish Government, in an attempt to make councils more efficient. Without doubt this has helped families make their money go a little further. Councils have gobbled down the £70 million sweetener yet come back in Oliver Twist demanding more!
(2) Business rates. With retail disappearing from our town centres and Dumfries being named as Scotland's top 'clone town' attracting large retailers and their juicy business rates has never been more difficult. The Scottish Government in an effort to encourage small business decreed that those with properties under a rateable value of £10,000 now get them for free...
(3) Land sales. Given the recession started with the heavy mortgaging and ludicrous pricing of commercial property to such an extent that the bottom has well and truly bottomed out, what chances does D&G have of selling off any left over land it might have previously used to dig itself out of a hole with?


(4) Charges for care, parking and sport. Well care charges are a convoluted and despairing arena which I'm not venturing into. Car parks, Dumfries has universal free parking around the town centre, don't fancy staying for half an hour in Bank street, park on the sands and you're allowed three hours free. Sports, we're already charged more than enough for the shoddy facilities.

So given the fact that Gideon Osbourne is likely to aim at a figure between 17- 20% in cuts to the Scottish Government and these costs will be handed on to local authorities throughout Scotland, I hereby nominate Dumfries and Galloway as the first Scottish council likely to be bankrupt in the next four years. 

Oh for your information, for the last decade or so, we've had a Labour MP, a Labour MSP and a predominantly Labour council. I tend to blame them.

Perhaps we're all heading to debtors jail...

Except for viewers in Scotland...or what is the point of BBC Scotland?

Stand by for an important announcement. 

This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news. There is no news today.

Well apart from our dispatches from the Delhi Commonwealth games where England are doing remarkably well what with having to cope with Johnny Foreigner and his brutish attitudes to food, cleanliness and poverty.

Sitting here at the old babbage machine, I can conjur up live images from Delhi a mere 4800 miles away, or 23 hours and 30 minutes by direct flight from Glasgow. I can watch England's triumphs and other home nation 'epic fails' online, on HD, 3D, Super HD, Super 3D, Super super HD television, listen on the radio or download it onto my phone. I can hear expert analysis from Olympic greats and home grown not so greats. I can gaze in awe at the Rolex wristwatch that Mark Foster is doing his best to get in every shot. The interactive red button means I can watch a plethora of hitherto forgotten and ignored sports. Where else would I have discovered that Lauren Smith had won a bronze medal for Scotland in the solo err synchronised swimming event?


Cast your minds back to the incredibly expensive BBC coverage of the World Cup in South Africa, where the corporation more or less moved Table mountain to give themselves the vista they wanted. A ONE MILLION POUND state-of-the-art studio revolving atop a Cape Town hosptial roof, meant that Messrs Lineker, Shearer and Hanson not once needed to crane their necks to enjoy the view. I suspect, although they were working, that many of the other 292 BBC employees who were wined, dined and supplied with their national team stab jackets at our expense in South Africa are similarly employed in Delhi, bringing us these great images...

Therefore it comes as a bit of a blow to discover that the BBC have declined the opportunity to become the host broadcaster for the 2014 Commonwealth Games to be held in not so exotic Glasgow. This might come as no surprise to some viewers in Scotland who have become used to a shoddy, part-time, negative stereotype enforcing quango which demands our license fee on force of criminalisation and reflects little of life as we observe and understand it in Scotland.

But hey the Beeb have got money to throw at other events they cover. They employ some 751 staff specifically for covering large events, World Cups, Olympics, Wimbledon, Glastonbury and the err Commonwealth Game. When accused of milking their monolpoly, you know things like helicopters to Glastonbury for Mister Yentob and his busy executive friends, the Beeb always trumpet, " We cover all the major events our audiences expect to see and hear." and this old chestnut, "We always keep value for money in mind."

So why have the BBC declined to be the host broadcaster for the XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Surely it's not a problem of distance. Last I checked Manchester, which hosted the Games in 2002 was a mere 171 miles from Glasgow. It can't be a question of finance, as there are barrel loads of dosh being spent on London hosting the Olympic Games in 2012. In Roger Mosey, the Beeb have a director of London 2012 who is, "overseeing all preparations including not just sport but the Cultural Olympiad, Olympic news, and information services and everything that will bring the story of London Games to audiences at home and abroad." Roger is as excited as a pooch with a new bum, he's trumpeting how the BBC at London 2012 will be broadcasting of Super Hi Vision, which will only have limited availability in a few cinemas and the homes of Beeb executives, but hey ho...

So what excuses can we expect to hear from BBC Scotland head honcho Kenny MacQuarrie as to why the supposedly best digital studio in Europe won't be showing off it's bells and whistles in four years time? Will Kenny march into his boss Mark Byford's London office smack him about the jowly chops and tell him in Gaelic, that the BBC in Scotland will be standing up to their obligations and become the host broadcaster. 

Or as is more likely will Kenny chill out in his 'open space' and think about the impending joys of retirement and hope that his successor might provide the vision and creative leadership necessary to deliver what approximates to a normal independent media for Scotland. You know, the sort of organisation that perhaps takes pride in a global event taking place in its own city, that affords it the opportunity to show that they can handle the responsibility of being creative, innovative and using their resources efficiently...like any other independent countries state broadcaster...

I dare say Lord Reith and his comedy eyebrows are birling six feet below at the pathetic mess the BBC has become.