Originally Posted by
Balinkay
Think I first heard it here:
yes, that's it.
just imagine, the UK could have had a fund like that if the Tories hadn't squandered it.
criminal, isn't it?
(I used to think the tories sold it to their cronies - looking at these articles I was wrong, they just wasted it on short-term stuff)
nice to hear btw that most of their (Norwegian) electricity is produced from hydro.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16976267.heseltine-thatcher-blew-uks-north-sea-oil-windfall/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19871411
https://www.thenational.scot/news/15629769.how-westminster-plundered-the-north-sea-and-sold-out-generations-of-scots/
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/thatcher-and-north-sea-oil-%E2%80%93-failure-invest-britain%E2%80%99s-future
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/britain-gained-300billion-tax-north-6390332
snippets:
"The increasing oil revenue to the UK in the 1980s drove up the sterling exchange rate, making much of British industry uncompetitive. Unemployment increased as a result, exceeding three million people out of work in 1984, and some of the extra tax revenue from oil paid unemployment benefits.
The oil revenues allowed the top rate of income tax to be reduced from 60p to 40p by 1988 and much of the extra income ended up creating a boom in house prices.
There were politicians, even within Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party, who felt the funds would have been better used to modernise British industry and improve the transport infrastructure.
The previous Labour government had mooted the idea of setting up an oil fund, but this idea got tangled up with infighting within the party and it never happened.
An oil fund was established by the Norwegian government in 1990 and as of 2015 it holds £549billion invested in 1.3 per cent of the entire global equity market, including 2.5 per cent of Europe’s listed companies. By comparison, there had been no effective political planning to handle the windfall of North Sea oil in the UK other than short-term economic and political expediency."
Last edited by redebreck; 14th November 2019 at 01:18 AM.
There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief
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