Here is the EBC news on the 20th October 2015. The main news: Newly independent Scotland has completed the super conducting link with Norway and the power companies in Scotland are warning that England will have to pay more for her power in line with the market price in Europe or face power shortages. The Government Minister, Etonian, Lord Chomondley-Smythe, has said that England will not be blackmailed into paying higher costs for electricity and called the action of the Scottish producers disgusting and was what he thought the social compact, agreed at separation, was supposed to prevent happening. His Tory Shadow, James Purnell, agreed that the Scots were behaving badly over this issue after years of English subsidy of Scotland but blamed the UKIP Government for England’s inability to be self sufficient in electrical power. The Libdems spokesperson said the pointed the finger at all Governments since 2008 for their failure to invest in ‘green power’.
Scottish Prime Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said that as the price of electricity was a commercial consideration she would forward Chomondley- Symythe’s complaint to the relevant CEO’s in Scotland but it was not in the remit of her Government to intervene in any other way or undercut the EU commercial market. Our energy correspondent takes up the story.
In 2008 the SE of England had a small taste of what would happen if Scotland reduced its power transfer to the North of England and Northern Ireland. The effect of the Longannet power plant tripping saw trains stopped at London Bridge, fires in the Oxford Police Computer Centre and nuclear plants in England tripping and going off line as they struggled to maintain base load.
The failure of previous governments, starting with the last New Labour government, to address the real problems in providing base load for England by investment in new coal, gas and nuclear plants due to concerns over ‘green or climate issues’ currently means England relies for 40% of its electricity demands on imports from Scotland and France. One broker in future Electrical Power sales I talked to said, “....the Scottish action was long in coming, as in effect the Scots’ power companies had been subsidising the English economy, especially in the SE. The proposed bulk prices are in line with those charged by France and still lower than the EU mean.”
The impact on the SE, especially, means that not only could we be facing power outages but reduced fresh water supplies as currently 30% of the SE’s fresh water now is dependent on desalination plants powered by electricity. The failure of the current UKIP / BNP Government to agree a deal with Scotland for the export of water only highlights the problems for water supply mounting up for the SE of England.
Fantasy?
Maybe we need to review current Westminster Policy on power and water supply for England and Wales and think carefully about New Labour and the Conservatives’ current highly negative and obstructive approach to the SNP and Scotland. The ‘who subsidises who’ argument is not scaring the Scots because independent research from the McCrone Report forward indicates Scotland puts more into the Westminster pot than it gets back and has done for over 30 years. A KPMG study indicates that the English economy’s reliance on the financial markets is holding the Scottish economy back given the Government’s bias towards the SE or will we just sleep walk into the future with heads in the sand saying, “...it will never happen?”
I’ll be voting SNP in 2010 and 2011 because Labour is no longer a socialist party as presented in 2009. This is what I see current Westminster inaction blundering us towards – ironic, eh?
