Peter wrote:
It looks more like politics of envy, with “shooting and deerstalking” being traditional English landed gentry hobbies
I think there is an element of that. Posh toffs owning their playgrounds and shooting up the countryside riding around in blacked out Range Rovers. (Bit like Central London) 
The landowners always make the case that without them the countryside will go to rack and ruin, government cannot look after it properly. Might have been the case in the seventies, but not now.I also agree that the landowners in general appear do a good job and develop their estates, however, the state could manage the land and keep the revenue. It depends where you think the truth lies.
Privatisation of the railways is proving very problematic and there were calls pre election to take it back into govt hands.
Utilities we do now know are problematic, particularly when the Spanish/French own it all.
There is a case for land management to be brought back in but I do not know the full detail of how beneficial; that would be.
One thing for sure, business rates/water rates can cripple any enterprise and owners need to be on their A game when the invoice arrives on the door mat. Been there, done all that.
Off_Field wrote:
If an entire airfield gets hit for business rates by the square meter that becomes pretty onerous.
You become a Charitable Status 
The Scottish Highlands have been overgrazed for centuries. From the air, there has recently been a large reduction in deer, and (on the Monadhliath area) mountain hare. I see that as good.
Burning has kept trees from regenerating. Trees help return nutrients to the surface.
On an Aberdeen University Botany excursion in 1962 we visited what had been a grouse moor, but had been abandoned during WW2, and had yet to be recovered. It had reverted to woodland.
Shooting estates should be run for profit, and pay towards the services they receive from local authorities.
I’ve spent many October holidays in Grand Junction, Colorado, and the input to the local economy from hunters was obvious.
I never noticed anything in Inverness during my 36 years there.
Maoraigh, I’m struggling to follow your logic a bit, deer favour woodland so more woodland would likely see more deer.
Moorland supports a lot of wildlife and ground nesting birds, particularly the hen harriers have been doing well on grouse moors.
What services to shooting estates (I’m also a bit confused about the term shooting estate. Do you mean farming estates that also offer shooting direct to the public? or those that lease out sporting rights?) receive from the local authorities? Again all the shooting I’ve done in scotland has been on private land where there appeared to be no assistance from the local authorities (perhaps quite a bit from the eu CAP though).
Just looking it up Colorado has over 23 million acres of public access land and hunting is permitted on a large amount of it. I think it’s great that state revenue generated for public land use from hunting tags is put into the economy and supporting the fish and wildlife initiatives and managing the environment sensibly.
I’m guessing Inverness doesn’t have any public access land that allows people to pay them for a tag to go stalking on.
RobertL18C wrote:
Note the Danes didn’t get any North Sea oil,
I must’ve been dreaming rather than working on various occasions in the last 10-15 years then…
Am I the only person here who finds the Scottish nationalist movement‘s adoption of a European national socialist logo not merely offensive, but overtly and provocatively so?
In the 1940s Europe saw:
and now we have:
It is not unusual for SNP-supporting thugs in small Scottish towns to chase and abuse old “English” residents in the streets. To the extent that all nationalist movements create, foster and feed upon xenophobia, I suppose one might as well complain that night follows day. Indeed, the people who are thus abused know that it is pointless – and unsafe – to complain to the authorities.
A serious question or two about Scotland (married to a Scot so have to be careful).
1) Why does Ms Sturgeon not stand for any election by the Scottish people, just the SNP?
2) Why does she, and presumably the SNP, continually and vociferously talk about gaining independence (from the UK) and then wish to cede that independence to the EU?
I just ask to be more enlightened about the seeming contradictions please.
@skydriller absolutely correct, have now informed myself and Denmark peak production was around 0.4MM/bpd but is now a net importer at around 0.15MM/bpd. Perhaps I should have said a fraction of Scotland’s North Sea oil production.
No dog in this fight, and I regard all nationalist movements as a step towards the dark ages and away from the Enlightenment, but the contrast between Denmark and Scotland is striking.
Would Scotland as an independent member of the EU be more like Denmark or Hungary? assuming an SNP government? Would it be fair to say more like Denmark?
@RobertL18C FYI Denmark is still a natural gas exporter. Its welfare system was arguably built on O&G money.
A serious question or two about Scotland (married to a Scot so have to be careful).
1) Why does Ms Sturgeon not stand for any election by the Scottish people, just the SNP?
2) Why does she, and presumably the SNP, continually and vociferously talk about gaining independence (from the UK) and then wish to cede that independence to the EU?
I just ask to be more enlightened about the seeming contradictions please.
1) I don’t know how she became First Minister
..those are not directly elected, right?
2) It’s a matter of policy I guess. The SNP would presumably prefer progressive policies, which would be easier to do without interference from London. And the SNP seems sensible enough to understand that an independent Scotland could not go alone, so they want to remain part of the framework of the UK, in keeping with the referendum result 2016 (62% of Scots voted Remain IIRC).
In these times, no country in Europe bar Russia and maybe Germany is large and prosperous enough to stand by itself. This will be painfully clear to the UK after December 31, 2020. And for Germany, leaving the EU would be disastrous too. The Scots will be well advised to seek immediate EU membership, should they become independent…
