Both my wife and I are continually amazed at the number of Scots in charge of major Government departments.

We really think the SNP gained power in England long before they got there in Scotland.

The reason I mention this is because the conversation around the 40 seater dining table frequently turns to the world economy and oil in particular.

One such (around June 2005) went along the lines of how BP had just recieved a recent geological survey detailing a brand new oilfield to the North of Fair Isle just South of Shetland and how this was the largest field the company had ever seen, but that it would be a ‘right bugger’ to get the stuff out.

The full details of this report, as far as I’m currently aware, have never been made public and this field becomes more and more viable every day. Especially with crude costs skyrocketing, crude stocks, supposedly, dwindling, the Russian/Italian pipeline almost certainly coming on-stream and Bush juniors inability to quell the Middle East.

So, in the not to distant future, with a (hopefully) independent England and a wholly indepenent Scotland; who do you suppose the Americans will be supporting and where will the Auld Alliance (France & Scotland) rest if Putin is blackmailing Europe over oil supplies?

Do you really believe that England could lay claim to that field without a war?

Personally, I would prefer to keep the Union intact but it has gone too far for that and I am now a true supporter of Mr Salmond – I want Scottish independence and I wish Scotland the very best for their future. The Welsh are welcome to theirs as well. As long as I have mine.

England must surely be the only country in the world, purporting to be a democracy, where most of the key players in the government represent constituents that are not affected by most of the issues they concentrate on. Brown is focused on Education, Housing and Health and any decisions he makes on these issues are not relected upon his own voters. That is an appalling and undemocratic siuation for which the labour party will one day pay for dearly.

And finally. Oil. You are under the misaprehension, like so many Scots, that it is yours. It isn’t – not there is probably much left now!

Being a Scot that has lived in England for almost thirty years, I can see why the English have this fixation with the fantasy that they support the world economy with high house price inflation and a trillion pound debt.
But this reminds me of a fact related to me by my accountant a few years previously.
She informed me that the Westminster Government instructs a relatively small firm of accountants to carry out a calculation each year, the firms name currently eludes me (probably due to my anti-depressants), and that this firm comes back with the same analysis year on year.
That being…
" If the price of crude oil is lower than $19 a barrel for more than 4 months of a fiscal year then England is subsidising Scotland. If the price of crude oil exceeds $19 a barrel for more than 4 months in any fiscal year then Scotland is subsidising England. "
I leave it to you to calculate how each one of the past twenty or thirty years has resolved, but would just say that you (the English), need to wake up. Mr Salmon is playing an excellent game at the moment and there is a strong possibility that Scotland will vote for full independence in the not to near future.
And, the main driving force that will spur the proud Scot that way will be the common Englishmans insisting we cannot live without your charity.