Economics of Independence Oil and Gas Scotland's Economy

Osborne and Cameron confirm Scotland better off outside the UK

At Tuesday’s The Times CEO summit during a Q&A George Osborne said: “As Finance Minister over the last 6 years, quite often I’m asked why can’t we be more like Singapore or Switzerland. These are much smaller countries, there are many fewer people living in them. 4 million people live in Norway, 65 million people live in this country, and they have same amount of oil as us”. – He then sniggers.

David Cameron said exactly the same on June 12th’s Andrew Marr Show also stating Norway’s population as 4 million when it is in fact 5 million.

This revelation will stun Scots who were told in 2014 that they needed the UK’s larger population because we had oil.  Are Cameron and Osborne admitting that they were wrong or just that they lied?  They also said oil prices are volatile which means it can’t stay down forever so presumably they believe they will rise again? Hopefully just as Scotland becomes an independent EU member.  To that end its worth noting a Pinsent Masons report earlier in the year found that 96 per cent of senior oil executives believe that Scotland’s oil industry will recover to ‘peak’ price levels of profitability seen in the first half of 2014 ($110-$115), the majority expecting this to happen within the term of the next Scottish parliament.

Apologies for the poor quality of the Osborne bit, but it really is essential watching and we have added Cameron’s clip on the end.

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Thanks to Annemarie Gillan for the Osborne video.

You may also like these two quick videos

Boris Johnson: A pound spent in London is of more value than a pound spent in Scotland.

Ken Clarke: The illusion of English Money

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About the author

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is the Founder and Chief Executive of Business for Scotland. Before becoming CEO of Business for Scotland Gordon ran a business strategy and social media, sales & marketing consultancy.

With a degree in business, marketing and economics, Gordon has worked as an economic development planning professional, and in marketing roles specialising in pricing modelling and promotional evaluation for global companies (including P&G).

Gordon benefits (not suffers) from dyslexia, and is a proponent of the emerging New Economics School. Gordon contributes articles to Business for Scotland, The National and Believe in Scotland.

5 Comments

  • No one here is surprised to hear that, the UK union sham is built on lies and deceit so that the bigger country known as England/fake name Britain can fleece Scotland for all its resources and claim them as their own, then chuck some pocket change in return back at Scotland, whilst robbing us blind in the process. Time folk in Scotland started waking and seeing the utter deception of this UK union for what it really is. No one here is being anti English we are just stating the barefaced facts of the situation.

  • Tell us something we don’t know,Scotland is not,and never will be in the Westminster Family of Nations,indeed,many of the Parliamentarians, duly consider Scotland as only,”North Britain”.

  • One other thing Cameron on the Andrew Marr show said we have 60 million. Trouble is thats just England and Wales. He should have said 65 million. Talking about Oil and not even mentioning the owners.

  • Since Brexit, I’m actually beginning to wonder if it’s the only event that could ever have been triggered, that will be used as a smokescreen to cover the mess these two have made.

    No wonder Gideon sniggers, he’s about to get off scotfree, not standing as PM, but nobly hanging around to say he had built the strongest economy, growth etc., but sadly Brexit is so expensive.

    If the economy was so strong, we wouldn’t be in slo mo freefall. HS2, Hinckley hitting the buffers. Tax rises on the way.

    It’s seriously criminal negligence. Brexit has simply given a name to the financial nightmare that was always on its way.

    We simply have to get out.

  • Really, none of us here in Scotland is remotely surprised by this. We were deliberately lied to and misled throughout the whole referendum campaign, because UK government do not want to acknowledge that in fact Scotland contributes far more than its fair share to the UK economy as a whole, just looking at oil and whisky, never mind anything else.

    As were we lied to by the Brexit campaign, let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good story…

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