Even more offshore wind from Trump

Calton would like to make it clear that, in his opinion, Donald Trump is an obnoxious tycoon who is far too used to getting his own way and throwing his teddies out the cot when he doesn't. That said, he did have some valid points to make in his rant to Alex Salmond over offshore windfarms. Why are we being taxed to provide contracts for overseas companies to build wind turbines? Do we really want to be surrounded by a ring of offshore windfarms? Has anyone actually done a study on the likely impact on our tourist industry? Calton was interested to note that the tens of thousands of jobs mentioned by Alex Salmond yesterday has become 'thousands' according to a Scottish Government spokesman and 'hundreds' according to Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables, Niall Stuart, lending credence to Calton's view that the First Minister's statistics were somewhat overblown.

A victory for common sense

Calton is pleased to see that sense has prevailed and the authorities have decided not to charge 'Big Man' Alan Pollock for ejecting a young man, who was verbally abusing the conductor, off a train.

Lots of offshore wind from Alex

Calton is a bit worried about where Alex Salmond's 'tens of thousands of jobs' to do with the offshore wind industry is going to come from. If a development of 350 turbines planned for the Moray Firth is only going to provide 280 long-term jobs, it looks like our coastline is going to disappear in a forest of offshore windfarms in order to meet Alex's figures. Either that or the First Minister is being somewhat disingenuous in not making it clear that the tens of thousands of jobs are only in the construction phase. Even then, the Moray Firth development is only expected to provide 1400 temporary construction jobs. Calton is not totally against offshore wind farms but is concerned that the Highlands is once again being fobbed off with another boom and bust industry rather than sustainable developments and improvements to infrastructure which would benefit locals in the long term.

The cost of island life

Coming originally from the west coast, and with relatives on the islands, Calton is all in favour of the Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) because living on an island is not cheap, even for a sea eagle. He therefore welcomes the announcement that it is to be extended to more islands and more ferry routes, however it seems that Transport Minister Keith Brown is giving with one hand and taking away with the other, since larger commercial vehicles are facing a 172% rise in fares from April 2012. Given that hauliers are already being hammered by the high cost of diesel, such a price hike will only end up being passed on to island consumers, who already pay a premium for the necessities of life. Pensioners and families are not paid extra pension or child benefit because they live on an island. Poverty is not just an urban phenomenon. If we don't want to see our islands depopulated we need to give them some support and continuing RET for HGVs seems a sensible way to do it. Hopefully Keith Brown can be persuaded to agree.

Poles apart - more's the pity

Two items on Radio Scotland caught Calton's attention today - one was the program Poles Apart on Polish immigrants in Inverness and the other was a report on youth unemployment in Newsdrive. Some think that the two issues are connected. The simplistic argument is that lots of Eastern Europeans have flooded into Scotland, taking all the jobs, and so our young people can't find work, hence the rise in youth unemployment. Calton thinks the issue is a lot more complex, one of the problems being that some of our young people are, quite frankly, unemployable. They aren't interested in menial work, they have no self-discipline, they have no qualifications and, as long as the state pays them dole money and their parents provide free board & lodging, they have no incentive to get a job. Maybe it's time to get tough on our able-bodied, unemployed youth because, if Poles can come over here and get jobs, so can they.

The Tories are revolting

Over 100 Tory MPs are revolting over subsidies for windfarms. They also want to make it easier for local people to object to them. Calton is not sure if their proposals also apply to Scotland but, if not, here's hoping for a similar revolt at Holyrood before the Highlands disappears under a mass of giant white turbines. At a time when consumers are faced with increasing energy bills and decreasing income in real terms, we cannot afford to be subsidising a form of energy generation which is ineffective and unreliable. There are grave doubts about whether it is even environmentally friendly, due to the need to increase traditional generating methods to cope with the troughs in wind generation. It's time for a rethink of our energy strategy.

Statistical spin

An academic has today claimed that the SNP are cherry-picking the statistics which they use to bolster their case for independence. (An example being John Swinney in his recent David Hume lecture citing figures from before the financial crash to claim that an independent Scotland's debt would be substantially lower than that of the UK now, as if the crash hadn't happened.) Calton is not surprised. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. Of course the SNP deny the claim. Well they would, wouldn't they! Lies, damned lies and statistics. We are going to see a lot more of all three before Autumn 2014.

Sack the lot of them

After the childish behaviour displayed by our elected representatives during First Minister's Questions today, Calton thinks we might be better scrapping Holyrood and putting the lot of them on the dole. The thought of that rabble running an independent Scotland is certainly not an attractive one. Yet again, Alex Salmond did not give proper answers to any questions relating to the actual issues raised by independence, such as defence and monetary union, and yet again, Ruth Davidson and Johann Lamont failed to pin him down. The Labour leader was the one who came closest when she said that the First Minister wanted 'independence at any cost'. Quite. Why let the facts get in the way of your ambitions? It took Ms Lamont a while to get to her punchline about Alex Salmond being the 'Fred Goodwin of Scottish politics' but the comparison is apt. Hopefully it will not also be prophetic, for Scotland's sake.

Information on the EU

For those who wish to know why Calton is not a fan of the EU, read this report by Stratfor.

Misinformation on the EU? Moi?

Regular readers of this blog will know that Calton is not a fan of the EU. It was therefore with no little concern that he discovered that the EU Commission is busily handing out free teaching resources to our teachers with the stated aim of reaching children before they  “form prejudices and are misinformed by other sources”. That would be "other sources" like this blog then. The EU Commission claim that the publications "offer a balanced introduction to the European Union" - readers can make up their own minds after watching the clips on this page. UKIP have taken the matter up with Nigel Gove, Minister for Education in Westminster. Calton would do likewise with Michael Russell, Cabinet Secretary for Education in Holyrood, were it not for a sneaking suspicion that schoolchildren are not the only ones who have been brainwashed by the EU.