Actually, it’s not ‘Scotland’s oil’, it belongs to the entirety of the United Kingdom

Mary Thomas (Letters, 30 December) seems to think that “Scotland’s oil” funded “London’s massive transport projects and financed tax cuts for rich financiers”. Not so.

She ignores the fact that the greatest contributor to the UK’S balance sheet is the City of London, not the oil industry. Oil never has been the leading contributor to the Exchequer, despite it being a theme I have had to remonstrate with the SNP about directly. The City, the motor industry, the pharmaceutical industry and IT are bigger. Similarly, Winnie Ewing made a speech in Shetland during the days when the oil price was high saying. “Remember! It’s Scotland’s oil!” One of the audience stood up and pointed out to her, “But, Winnie. It’s no’ Scotland’s oil. It’s oor oil!” Around half the UK’S oil supplies come from the waters controlled by Shetland and Orkney which, in 2014, voted firmly to remain within the UK. Many of the oilfields in the North Sea are reaching a point at which extraction of the reserves is uneconomic, so arguments about the future of oil are fantasy. And in the 1970s and ’80s, Scotland was an integral part of the UK in a Cold War during which breaking apart Nato’s leading European bulwark against Communism would have been madness, which is why Gavin Mccrone’s report was not released. However, the SNP have never been noted for allowing the truth to get in the way of a good story, have they?

ANDREW HN GRAY

Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh

Might I point out to Mary Thomas that Gavin Mccrone’s 1974 forecast on Scottish oil was a forecast and nothing more.

As we are all aware, forecasts can be wildly out, as evidenced by the SNP’S White Paper on independence and the forecast on oil prices contained therein given by that well known EX-RBS oil economist Alex Salmond. Forty years on the reality is that the Mccrone report predictions were grossly overstated, as records show and which I pointed out in my letter of 29 December. Mary Thomas, like all SNP supporters, doesn’t want to let the facts get in the way of SNP spin in the obsessive drive for independence, regardless of the damage it would inflict on Scotland and its people.

DONALD LEWIS

Gifford, East Lothian