Great expectations

It's obviously good news that Statoil are to invest £billions in the Mariner North Sea oil field with hundreds of new jobs. Looks like the black gold will keep flowing a while yet, contrary to what Calton said a couple of days ago. The contradictory news stories of the past week do, however, demonstrate the unwisdom of relying on oil to gain us entry into the EU and support things like free tuition and free personal care for the elderly. It's just too volatile, not unlike another energy source currently popular with the Scottish Government, namely wind. Is Calton just being mischievous in seeing a link between slippery Salmond with his hot air and the forms of energy he and his party favour? Perhaps. Anyway you can't beat a roaring log fire at this time of year and Calton already has his stocking hanging up by the mantelpiece!

Calton's Christmas wish list

Here are the things Calton would like for Christmas, in no particular order:
1. A definitive answer on the position of an independent Scotland vis a vis the EU.
2. A moratorium on the building of windfarms on Scotland's mountains so that he can visit his relatives over the festive season without risk of being clattered on the back of the head by a turbine blade.
3. People to stop updating the words of the lovely old Christmas carols Calton has known since he was just out of the egg.
4. The US to enact some sort of gun control so that at least some good can come out of the terrible evil of Sandy Hook.
5. A woolly hat - because you can never have too many of them and asking for one will ensure that Calton gets at least one item from his wishlist!

Benyon wellies in to the EU

First the good news - no cut to the number of days Scottish fishing boats can put to sea next year, thanks to Richard 'Wellington' Benyon, UK Fisheries Minister. There's still a possibility of a cut in the cod quota, which would lead to more shameful discards, depending on talks with Norway, however there is now more optimism that a sensible outcome will be achieved in January. Here's hoping.

Now the bad news - Scottish oil revenue forecasts have halved in the last eighteen months. The black gold is in danger of running out, which would deal a hammer blow to the SNP's plans for Scotland to be an independent socialist utopia within Europe. First of all, the EU might not want us if we don't have as much oil as we thought we did. Secondly, the SNP's spending plans will send us into big deficit country without big oil revenues and, thirdly, their idea of stashing away some of the oil money into a fund, although very sensible, will exacerbate the deficit problem unless accompanied by a reduction in spending, something the left-leaning SNP are reluctant to do. Of course the SNP have reacted by disputing the figures. Well they would, wouldn't they!

Butt out Barack

So the US wants us to stay in the EU. So what? As UKIP's foreign affairs spokesman William Dartmouth MEP says  "It is not the job of the UK to make the work of US diplomats easier. It is our job to secure our own interests." Quite. Calton couldn't have put it better himself. There is no reason why leaving the EU should weaken the UK and there is no prospect of the EU becoming strong in the near future either with or without the UK. Quite the reverse. The Eurozone is not out of the woods yet by a long chalk. So the next time David Cameron has a cosy little chat with Barack Obama he should tell the President of the US to go sort out his gun laws and leave us to sort out our relationship with the EU.

Truly chilling

Calton has no idea what sort of Christian ethic council candidate Geoffrey Clark is going to promote given that Clark's views on compulsory abortion of disabled babies and euthanasia of over-80s run completely contrary to the teachings of Christ as Calton understands them. UKIP are quite right to suspend him from the party. If he wants to stimulate discussion of where NHS money is spent he would be better starting with the fact that much of it goes on treating the effects of alcohol, tobacco and obesity, not on Down's Syndrome people. His views remind Calton of the Nazi Party's extermination of mentally disabled people in the 1930s, carried out for the same reason - saving money. It is truly chilling to see them reappear in 21st century British politics.

Wanted - a Wellington

Nice to see Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon taking the side of our fishermen against further EU cuts in the cod quota. A cut of 25% in the number of days they can put to sea would be a disaster. Although stocks are not rising quite as fast as some would like, there is no need for continued action of such a drastic nature. Unfortunately, Benyon not only has the European Commission to deal with but also the European Parliament. This may yet turn out to be his Waterloo. Calton hopes he has a Wellington moment, for the sake of those who earn their living in wellies.

Continuing the sea theme, it would be good if, in all the recent talk of Scotland's oil riches, we take time to remember the cost paid by the North Sea safety boat crew member who died in the storm last week, and others like him, along with their families and friends. In a week which has seen the worst storm in living memory batter Scotland's east coast, Calton is reminded of words from another century by William Whiting:

"Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave.

Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep:

Oh hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea."

The penny is dropping

Nice to see that the penny has finally dropped regarding Scotland's currency post-independence in quarters other than Calton's eyrie. Sadly, Bute House is not one of them. Our First Minister still clings to the idea that we can keep Sterling if independent and share the Bank of England with England. One would have thought that the name of the bank would give Alex a clue as to where its loyalties lie but no, in his hubris he thinks he will be able to tell it what to do. What utter nonsense. Yet another SNP policy built on the shifting sands of assertion rather than the rock of reality.

The poverty trap

Calton is not convinced that poverty is the cause of poorer health. Rather, poverty and poor health are both symptoms of a deeper malaise - low self-esteem and hopelessness. If you don't have any self-esteem you will find it very hard to get a job and work your way out of poverty. Ditto if you feel hopeless and you believe that there are no opportunities. It's easier in those circumstances to rely on the state for handouts and drink/drugs/food to dull the pain of a miserable life. If we really want to lift people out of a life of poverty and ill-health we need to give them something to hope for and something to work for. An incentive to better themselves. The message that they have a choice, that it doesn't have to be this way. That hard work and effort pay. Somehow that message has got lost in this country, unlike the USA. Our welfare system has turned people into benefit dependent victims totally lacking in initiative instead of giving them a leg-up. The last Labour Government created a false economy where businesses didn't need to pay a decent wage because the government topped it up with working tax credit. Now we are in a situation where many workers are not paid anything like a living wage and so, for many, work doesn't pay. That has to change. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to repair the damage of the Labour years.

SNP assertion on EU membership proved false

SNP MEP Alyn Smith was just plain wrong when he said there is "nobody wanting us to leave" [the EU] "not least in Scotland" in Brian's Big Debate today, because Calton wants us to leave the EU and he is resident in Scotland. Yet another meaningless SNP assertion. Have they actually asked any of the 27 member states whether or not they want an independent Scotland to stay in the EU? Do they really think that continued access to Scotland's fish will be enough to outweigh the Spanish Government's concerns over Catalan and Basque separatism? If the rest of the EU decide that they do want us it will only be because they recognise a good deal when they see one and we will be the losers. It seems that both the First Minister and his Deputy are so keen to remain part of the EU that they will gladly trade anything in exchange for continued membership. How pathetic is that? They'd rather beggar this country than change their policy on Europe. Calton calls that sad.

A year in posts

Today is the 1st anniversary of this blog. It has been quite an eventful year, with issues such as independence, the state of the EU and same-sex marriage dominating the political headlines. All of these issues and more have been covered by Calton over the course of the last 12 months and it is interesting to see which posts have attracted the most attention. By far and away the most popular in terms of hits has been It's raining, for reasons which remain inexplicable to Calton. Aye right Willie! has also been popular, which is more than can be said for the Libdems generally. Posts on the Biased Broadcasting Corporation got a lot of hits with the latest post being picked up by other BBC-monitoring websites, showing that Calton is not alone in his concerns about Auntie.

One of Calton's favourite blogs is Archbishop Cranmer and Calton's post in support of His Grace proved popular, dealing, as it did, with issues of free speech and the threats thereto. As a blogger, free speech is something very dear to Calton's heart because, without it, this blog would cease to exist. Doubtless some SNP supporters would think that a good thing. Calton did not set out to write an anti-SNP blog, however the heads of Scotland's current ruling party have got so inflated recently that it is hard to resist the temptation to stick a talon in and pop them. It is also impossible to let their deluded assertions go unchallenged because the stakes are too high.

Last, but not least, on the year's roundup, posts on the Farepak scandal received a fair number of hits, showing that it is still a live issue 6 years later, more's the pity. If you have a burning issue you'd like to see covered, feel free to email Calton (his address can be found under 'profile') and he will give it his consideration. Comments on posts are always welcome, provided they are civil. (Cybernats take note.)