The noble world of
Bobby Charlton is
becoming a distant memory
The Cafe 3
John MacLeod
The philosopher
who seemed a genuinely
nice guy
Humeisms
Sayings of the great man
A guide
to the new
Scottish Parliament
The final score
A last look at the seats
Losers
When the parliament reassembles tomorrow, 28 former MSPs who stood but failed to gain election will be absent:
Labour
Bill Butler
Cathie Craigie
Karen Gillon
Charlie Gordon
Andy Kerr
Marilyn Livingstone
Frank McAveety
Tom McCabe
Pauline McNeil
Des McNulty
Mary Mulligan
Irene Oldfather
Cathy Peattie
Karen Whitefield
David Whitton
Lib Dem
Robert Brown
Ross Finnie
Mike Pringle
Jeremy Purvis
Mike Rumbles
Iain Smith
Margaret Smith
Jim Tolson
SNP
Anne McLaughlin
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Bill Wilson
Conservative
Derek Brownlee
Independent
Hugh O’Donnell
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Our rational partnership
is no longer with the
United Kingdom
Christopher Harvie: The aftermath (2)
II
Ignorance won’t inhibit the pundits from now on, as the slightly manic glance of David Cameron indicated, announcing his intention to fight for ‘our Britain’. More refreshing was the line of Kelvin McKenzie, one-time editor of the Sun. ‘White Van Mac’ just wants us to sod off and get someone else to subsidise us.
No problem. The critical issues are economic: bluntly demonstrated in George Osborne’s budget. An oil industry levy which could paralyse North Sea development; a continuing centralisation of power policy, favouring nuclear; a limp wrist shown the racketeers of the City; and – oh yes! – truly massive subsidies.
If aid to UK regions is reckoned out, for every £100 the average region gets, we get £116. But £ 170 goes to the rebuilding of Olympian London. To the City, having robbed our banks, a quick bit of mergers-and-acquisitions howsyourfather (further lovely bonuses!) will collar the rest of Jockland capitalism. The place’s function? When not parking the nukes, strictly for rest and recreation, old son.
III
But go back to the material basis of the Union. ‘I supply what every man wants,’ said Matthew Boulton, partner of James Watt: ‘power!’. This meant the finance and trades of Birmingham backing the steam engine. But in the present our rational partnership isn’t within the UK, with its nuclear and great power pretensions, but with Norway and Germany with their supply of and need for clean power. German industry needs us because our sea energy resources are, in comparison with theirs, limitless.
The necessary technologies – turbines, pumps, subsea electrics – many being spin-offs from North Sea oil – are still in development, but can be radically and quickly improved. The focus of these industries is – remarkably – on all our coasts. Their development requires capital and technology and transport which – given our deindustrialised state – have to be obtained by alliance with Europe, but the sooner the will to service these is signalled, the more rapidly development clusters will form. The Norwegians, whose growing merchant navy needed its own sympathetic government, for this reason parted from Sweden in 1905. Devolution or federalism weren’t enough to cope with the economic imperative; the co-operation of confident sovereign states was. We are in a similar situation.
IV
We have to be selective. We have to reassess pretentious, useless, carbon-burning white elephants: the baggage of ex-imperial Britain. We have drastically to decrease our oil-dependence before Peak Oil and the $200 barrel kick in. Instead we must concentrate our investment and skills on cumulative sea energy programmes. We will find our allies in Europe and – as the North East passage opens up – in the far east. The faster we plan, the greater the chance we have of capturing the future.
