IT comes as no surprise that North Sea oil is back in the headlines, not simply its falling price or the knock-on effects of the same, but a claim by Scottish Labour that somehow the Scottish Government had failed to respond because it found the situation “politically embarrassing”.
The allegation was made in a blog post on Scottish Labour’s official website, which quoted MSP Lewis Macdonald accusing the SNP Government of a “failure of duty” for not being able to keep track of the work of the task force which is looking after the oil and gas sector.
We agree with SNP MP Callum McCaig that the claim was “ludicrous”, even more so given Labour’s past efforts to keep control over oil and gas with Westminster.
McCaig refers us to an energy debate in the Commons on Monday, during which – as we can see from Hansard – he made upwards of a dozen contributions, and says Labour parliamentarians should be directing their attention at Chancellor George Osborne and the Treasury.
You will not find Ian Murray’s name appearing in that publication during the same debate. Now, we know he can feel a tad lonely as the only Scottish Labour MP at Westminster, but that is no excuse for the shadow Scottish secretary contributing nothing to the discussion, just as there’s no excuse for inaction when a central pillar of Scotland’s economy is in danger of collapsing.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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