WHILE SCOTS PENSIONERS FREEZE SAYS MACASKILL
Reacting today (Monday) to the outcome of the application process for ScotWind leasing by Crown Estate Scotland, the ALBA Party Depute Leader and MP for East Lothian Kenny MacAskill MP said:
“This offshore wind giveaway is selling the family silver cheap while Scots families face crippling energy bills this April. Those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it. It looks like the Scottish Government have surrendered vast chunks of the North Sea wind resource for a relative pittance just as Westminster gave away Scotland’s oil in the 1970s.
“Instead of a one off payment of under £700 million there should be annual payments. Instead of Scottish resources being just handed over to international investment companies there should be a public stake in every single field.
“One has to question the basic competence of Crown Estate Scotland. They think they have auctioned away 10-12 GW of power. Informed industry estimates are the real capacity from this round alone is double that.
“Offshore wind is fast becoming the most lucrative major power source on the planet. Scotland has one quarter of the resource of Europe. It will be cold comfort to Scottish pensioners shivering in their homes facing vast fuel bills to know that the Scottish Government have given away so much of the green power of the future for so little in return.”
Seems like Thatcher really was an inspiration to Sturgeon – although not in the way she claimed.
It’s despicable. Whether done by incompetence or obeying her masters, Sturgeon has become a Benedict Arnold. I can only hope that history shows her up for what she is. Nae wonder Scotland is called too poor to be independent when you give away its assets. Raging!
We didnae see this coming oh wait anyone “wae hof a heed” did
Given there are 2 crown estates in Scotland, is that the original one which England still has control over or the new one that was set up a couple of years back?
To listen to what passes for a “Scottish media” including Sturgeons fanzine the National newspaper, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is a fantastic deal and a great day for Scotland.
Thatcher sold off part of our family silverware with North sea oil/gas, and now Sturgeon has followed in her footsteps selling off what’s left of it for a one off payment when it would have been better to have an annual payment, what’s even more galling is that there’s nowhere left in Scotland to manufacture wind turbines (BiFABs gone I think) anyhow I doubt Sturgeon would’ve had the brains to tell the foreign power companies that part of the deal would include that the wind turbines be built in Scotland.
How much more damage, irreversible, or not, will Sturgeon do to Scotland before we can either get her out or the wretch of a woman slithers off to her next post which I hope is far from Scotland. The Iraq invasion aside I see many similarities between Tony Blair and Nicola Sturgeon, and that can’t be good for Scotland.
Incidentally this article by Dougie Chapman (I’m surprised as you is a belter if not depressing) I hadn’t realised just how far behind the Republic of Ireland Scotland has fallen.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fpolitics%2F19851877.scotland-must-look-east-north-west-grow-nation%2F
It gives me no pleasure, whatsoever, to point-out the simple political fact that:The Republic of Ireland is an independent sovereign state. No meaningful comparison, therefore, can be made between Scotland, a mature English colony, and Ireland, a wholly independent, sovereign entity that took its freedom from English subjugation by force-of-arms.
Very well Said ROS..
FRom Brian Fujisan
Sturgeon looking to the future – her own personal financial future.
A one off payment. What incompetence. What a disaster.
This makes for painful reading.
Robin McAlpine points out in detail how the Scottish government has sold out Scots and Scotland with todays fire sale of our coastline for a pittance. The SNP under Sturgeon are doing untold damage to Scotland.
https://robinmcalpine.org/scotland-gives-away-its-energy-future/
For information:
I noticed the other day, a massive stockpile of wind-turbine fins/blades presently sitting on the bank at the King George V Dock in Glasgow (Govan/Shieldhall). In the past I’ve seen these ‘singular items’ being transported by road under police escort during the wee hours. The large number of units sitting in dry-dock here suggests that all of these individual fins/blades have been sailed up the Clyde from who knows where. It appears the production and delivery of these fins/blades has been planned well in advance… the only thing that would have prevented earlier delivery would of been the three continental cruise ships that were marooned here when the previous travel restrictions kicked in.
I’m pretty sure those three cruise ships moored at Glasgow were infected with Covid, Inverclyde already rejected them mooring at Greenock. I think they enede up at Shieldhall KIng George V docks.
Too right Cactus in your observations about who is providing the kit for the wind and hydro industry.
The £3bn SeaGreen wind project off the coast of Angus has a requirement fro 114 jackets on which the turbines will sit. They are huge steel structures and if you think of oil rigs you get the idea of what they look like. Guess where they are being procured from. Not Ardersier, Nigg, Kishorn or Burnt Island. No thirty from a yard in Dubai and the other eight four from yards in China. Well done SSE and if you wonder who is towing these huge structures half way round the planet, or who is manufacturing the electrical mechanical kit, then you’d do well to guess that it ain’t bonnie Jockland.
And ditto the new project to extend the Great Glen hydro pumped storage capacity. And by extend capacity, the project will double the ENTIRE UK pump storage capacity! And who pray tell have SSE recently issued tender to to price for the civil contract and the electrical mechanical contracts. Would one be correct to conclude that out of the seven tendering contractors not one is Scottish or even British. Well done SSE again for keeping all works away from the hapless servile donkey land that that is Scotland.
Its a great policy take the resources of Scotland, impoverish the people, and importantly deny them of the skills to compete and deliver in a technical world. Modern day coolies to use a pejorative phrase from the days of Empire – that’s the way to keep Jock.
At least with the oil Scotland built the rigs. But our masters have learned since then. How to break the Jocks – it’s easy as we can see. That is unless and until we do something about it.