Oil oversight
However, he fails to mention a few other relevant factors.
First, the Scottish Government had planned to even out the effect of fluctuating oil prices by using a “smoothing out” oil fund.
It was hardly the fault of the SNP that the referendum happened to be followed by a temporary period of low oil prices.
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Hide AdSecondly, the relevant Westminster government departments grossly underestimated the available oil reserves in the 1970s, perhaps deliberately, in order to thwart the then rising tide of Scottish nationalism.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Finally, Mr Wilson fails to explain how such countries as Switzerland and Austria manage very well without any oil at all.
However large or small Scottish oil revenues would have been, they would still have represented a bonus unavailable to numerous other highly successful small countries.
What is required now is a period of fair and reasonable debate about Scotland’s future, not a continual tide of one-sided prejudice.
(Dr) John Slee
Hopetoun Terrace
Gullane, East Lothian