The battle for Berwick upon Tweed is about oil

Some in the SNP are trying to entice Berwick-upon-Tweed to head back to Scotland. It appears the town has changed hands between the kingdoms of Scotland and England about 14 times.

The attraction, to the town, is the vast amount of English tax payer's money that is splurged around Scotland at the moment.

The attraction, to the SNP, is the large area of sea bed that Scotland could lay claim to and the oil and gas that goes with it.

Since England has no political representation there is nobody to look after England's interests here. Our government is dominated by Scots and the SNP government in Edinburgh represents Scotland's interests.

Does anyone actually believe Mr Brown looks out for England's interests ?

If we are not careful the Scots will steal a vast amount of English wealth - beyond the Barnett tribute that has to be paid every year. This is what happens when there is no English political conciousness, but every other part of the UK is grabbing what it can.

Update: So where is Nick Clegg when his party in Scotland is try to rob the English blind ? I guess Nick Clegg would rather hand it all over to the EU anyway - as the French wanted ...

Brown and Darling could force Shell and BP to leave the UK

There is a lot of emotional nonsense being spoken about Shell's profits today.

People like Unite and the AA ( for goodness sake) are trying to link petrol prices at garages to oil company profits. This of course not true. Even refining in general is less profitable - note BP selling Coryton recently to Petroplus.

Gordon Brown damaged the long term future of the North Sea oil industry as chancellor when he raised taxes and made clear that there was no longer going to be stability from the government. The problem is that areas like the North Sea require long term and high investment - you don't make it if you think the likes of Gordon Brown are just going to steal it when it suites them. Shell and BP have already made substantial moves to pull back from of the North Sea.

Now there's at least £8Billion missing from government revenues and making a popular so called windfall tax will look tempting to Darling. But remember its peoples pension schemes that own Shell and BP. So he's really stealing from peoples pensions when he does this ( not that you can expect left wing organisations like the BBC to explain this as the report from a garage forecourt having interviewed angry voters - I have no idea if they've done that this time, but I think they will ).

And there is a further risk Shell and BP may move. Shell completely to the Netherlands ( it is already registered there and its technical operations based there - the Dutch have for a long time got the better deal out of Shell ), BP to the US.

Then HMG will no longer benefit from taxing the profits that these companies make over seas. Less British people will work for these companies and out skills base will decline further.

But just because a decision is pig headily stupid in the medium to long term doesn't mean that Alistair Darling won't get permission from his master Gordon Brown to do it to keep them in their government jobs for a few more years.

Update: See this quote from Sunday 3 Feb Telegraph

"Shell is withdrawing from the North Sea operations because oil and gas reserves are in decline. On Thursday the company said it was planning a big increase in capital expenditure this year, using money from disposals to invest in more productive oil and gas fields around the world."

MiaS would argue that it is also because of uncertainty about operating in the UK created by Gordon Brown.

Shameless Brown - now its marriage

There can be no mistaking the cynical strategy of Gordon Brown towards the Conservative party.

Today we hear that the tax system should support married couples. This is an area the Conservatives have identified, and persuaded at some risk to themselves due to the media's rapid "back to basics" jibe.

On the positive side - since good will come of such measures - it is good to see them being considered.

But the negative and shameless nature of the Labour party is now on show in full view.

In general there are no principles that a New Labour minister holds that he/she wouldn't trade in for a few more years use of the ministerial car. ( There have been a few exceptions here like Robin Cook, but they are too few to bother about).

Gordon's cynical calculation is that if he removes all the policy ideas of the Conservative party then he can then bully the public into voting for him on the basis of his rantathons on the economy etc...

This is a man who only believes in his own importance.

Update - Apparently Shameless was IDS's response to this news - see a column by Janet Daley in Monday's Telegraph.