Scotland in pole position...

The list of some of the more, shall we say, minor powers, exclusively reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 have long tickled my ulnar nerve... aka funny bone.

Amongst those ever so tangibly close powers, we have the following:

• Control of film classification 

• Weights and measures 

• Regulation of the professions

• Betting, gaming and lotteries 

• Health and safety

• Public lending right

• Judicial salaries

• Equal opportunities

• Control of weapons of mass destruction

• The ordnance survey 

• Time 

and finally the most bemusing of all reserved powers - Outer Space...

It is odd this belief in Westminster that we cannot be trusted with Outer Space. Are we universally incapable of drawing up a risk assessment with regard to Alien invasion? Would we forbid Richard Branson from blasting off into the bright blue yonder? A look at the other reserved powers suggests there's a fear that we'd go mad and reduce judges salaries to Job seekers Allowance and expenses? Would we classify 'Debbie Does Dollar' as PG? Would we start charging for lending library books? Aargh, the sheer complexity of it all.

Given our particular uselessness I was hard pushed to stifle a snort of derision this week, upon discovering the news that the Westminster had forgotten to include control of the continent of Antarctica among the big list entitled 'Whatever-You-Do-Don't-Let-Jock-Touch-This'. Aka The Scotland Act 1998

It simply beggars belief that the British government which until a mere 90 years ago held sway over almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area, simply forgot about everything below 60 degrees South, you know, the 660,000 square miles of cold icy bit at the bottom of the planet, South Pole, intrepid chaps going for short walks in the snow etcetera.

Naturally, the parliament of whores, are up in arms about this outrageous oversight. Venerable Lords are shrieking like petulant children blaming incompetent ministers of the previous Labour administration, yeah, that never gets old. They're demanding that this piece of geopolitically important tundra be returned to the control of Blighty so that it may be plundered and pillaged of whatever natural resources lie beneath its increasingly slushy surfaces. I'd advise the Scottish Government to ca canny over this particular frozen dilemma. I mean, what an ace card to hold...'you want us to take how much of your debt into an Independent Scotland?'

Just this morning, that delightful internet repository for all things dribbling and  Tory, Conservative Home addressed the issue. The author, JP Floru an interesting young chap from Belgium, a former Taxpayers Alliance bod and now Westminster Councillor and Head of Programmes at the Adam Smith Institute set out his views on the lost continent. This handsome young migrant who cites Reagan, Thatcher and err Boris Johnson as his inspirations, blithely ignores the dubious question of who owns what within the UK set up and sails an icebreaker through the Antarctic Treaty System. The Treaty (ATS) regulates all International relations with regard to Antarctica. Tintin junior sets forth a rallying call to defend the right of Blighty to kick Johnny Foreigners what happen to live closer to Antarctica, particularly Chile and the English bete noir, Argentina, out of the frozen tundra. Odd really given that the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat are housed in err Buenos Aires. 

Monsieur Floru appears to have little in the way of qualms about easing back on the boring old scientific experiments of the biologists, geologists, oceanographers, physicists, astronomers, glaciologists, and meteorologists who while their hours away playing tig with penguins and cracking seal jokes, but fair salivates at the prospect of getting at some of those "vast mineral deposits under its icy carpet and its continental shelf". In a passage that reeks of 19th century venture capitalism on viagara he roars:

"While I do not dispute that some parts should be kept for environmental reasons, keeping a continent which is 55 times the size of the UK is excessive. I can see no justification to restrict so vast a territory to the sole enjoyment of a handful of privileged scientists and about 50,000 tourists annually. Neither do I see how the whole of mankind is served by closing the door to Antarctic exploitation."

Hmmm mmm, them's some mighty good minerals under that there icy carpet just a waiting for exploitation.

Fortunately Article 7 of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic treaty (1991) prohibits, "Any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research."  Sadly Article 7 runs out in 2041, by which time rapacious mineral hungry whores will have probably spread enough largesse around to open up the legs of some of the more coy politicians around the world, and much like the virgin territories of Alaska, they'll soon be poking their diamond tipped hard-ons into the ground in search for more carbon based product. 
The latest thinking from the scientists who have been running about with test tubes wearing fur lined lab coats in Antarctica is that the hole in the Ozone layer, directly above them is due to close over in 2065. How stupid would humanity be, to have supposedly solved a problem by cutting back on the wholesale spewing out of chlorofluorocarbons, only to expose ourselves to more risk by opening 'the door to Antarctic exploitation'?

 

All of which brings me neatly back to those silly billies at Westminster and their remiss lapse in concentration in devolving control of all UK Antarctica rights to Auld Scotia. A progressive, caring, greener, fairer, more sharing Scotland, whether Independent or not, could quite simply declare that the section that we supposedly own/control is to have no mineral extraction on it for a thousand years or whenever Scotland wins the world cup, whichever comes first. That might firm the resolve of those poor overstressed Unionist politicians hungrily gobbling at the teat of big carbon energy companies...