Scotland faces up to life after oil

Scotland faces up to life after oil

When the UK was preparing to bring the first barrels of North Sea oil ashore almost 50 years ago, Gavin McCrone was quietly drawing up what would turn out to be an incendiary warning for government ministers. The Ayr-born civil servant, who served as chief economic adviser to successive secretaries of state for Scotland for more than 20 years, thought they had failed to appreciate the sheer scale of the tax revenues that would be available from this newfound industry that was starting off the coast of Aberdeen.

But it was his warning onScottish independence in the confidential briefing paper that would resonate down the years. Scotland would enjoy a budget surplus "to a quite embarrassing degree“ if an oil-fuelled independence movement was to win control of the country, McCrone wrote in 1974. Its currency "would become the hardest in Europe“ and a safe haven to rival the Swiss franc for "deposed monarchs and African leaders“.

The briefing paper, just one of dozens regularly prepared for ministers and never intended for public view, would achieve quasi-mythical status after it was made public by a freedom of information request in 2005. Nationalists believed the Westminster government kept the McCrone report's findings secret from