‘It’s Scotland’s oil,’ cried the slogan of the SNP in the 1970s when the party first began a serious drive for Scottish independence. Not according to the current Labour government at Westminster, it isn’t. The oil doesn’t belong to Britain, either, but to the Earth – and that is where it will stay if Ed Miliband has his way.

The bizarre thing is that even Miliband himself seems to accept that Britain will need oil and gas well into the future

Just how devastating current energy policy could end up being for Keir Starmer’s government north of the border is highlighted by a report by the Jobs Foundation, which warns that Aberdeen is facing an economic ‘cliff edge’ as Energy Profits Levy and the refusal to grant licences to develop new fields kills off an industry which made the city wealthy in the 1970s and 1980s. According to a scenario computed by the Robert Gordon University Energy Transition Institute the workforce could fall from 115,000 today to 57,000 by the 2030s –........

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