IT looked like the near catastrophe which was the Elgin blowout was set to slip below the Scottish news media radar once more, until Sheriff Annella Cowan in Aberdeen fined oil company Total £1.125 million. Still not a lot when you consider Total’s wealth. Predictably, Total pleaded guilty to breaching Health and Safety Regulations. It was the only way to ensure that little of what had been going on in Elgin reached the public domain. And they got a discount of quarter of a million pounds on their fine as a bonus for confessing.

Total and the HSE have played a magnificent game of media management since the oil company lost control of their G4 well in March 2012, which is a long time ago, as Sheriff Cowan noted.

Throughout the aftermath, Total have relied on disinformation, a largely supine Health and Safety Executive and a news media with no track record of investigative journalism on the North Sea oilfields. A largely disorganised offshore workforce, led in the main by donkeys, have remained silent – fearful of speaking out in an industry where no-one has confidence that they can’t be summarily dismissed.

The Health and Safety Executive’s report on their two-year investigation went directly to the Procurator Fiscal, denying those in the industry who stand to lose their lives when safety fails much of the information on how control of the well was lost. So much for that main plank of the post-Piper Alpha safety regime – learning the lessons. And for what? So this trial could be buried under an avalanche of Christmas glitter and memories of the tragic Glasgow bin lorry disaster story?

And, again predictably, even this trial didn’t expose how between them Total and the HSE have ushered us back to the pre-Piper Alpha days. The trial was really just a confused conversation between three people who didn’t have any insight into, or understanding of, what went on on Elgin, either historically or on the day that the wind direction averted a disaster. At least the sheriff admitted that she had little idea of the mechanics of what we were supposed to be examining in court. And if there was any understanding of, or differences of opinion about, what went on on Elgin, by the Procurator Fiscal and Total’s advocate, it wasn’t obvious at the trial. Total will be picking up the bill for the prosecution as well. It’s only fair.

Previously, Health and Safety Executive chair Judith Hakitt’s spokesperson described the Elgin blowout as having “the potential for a major fire and explosion resulting in serious injury or loss of life”. You wouldn’t have guessed that this was the incident scrutinised in Aberdeen.

So to recap: Total stood accused of contravening health and safety regulations on their Elgin complex. They pled guilty. The G4 well blew out. 219 men were airlifted from Elgin in two hours in the face of an 8,000 cubic meters-an-hour gas “leak”. The gas was kept from a naked flame in the flare stack 100m away and from the helicopter jet engines by that last resort safety barrier – the wind. At the trial the naked flame never got a mention. Nor did the helicopter evacuation. Nor did the Greenpeace photo of a massive gas cloud surrounding the platform. Nor did eyewitness accounts from rigs four miles away of the platform complex appearing and disappearing as the gas cloud formed and dissipated.

It is hard to see what sort of outcome from the trial could possibly convince anyone that the UK North Sea safety regime has not reverted to its pre-Piper Alpha condition, and that another major loss of life is not growing more likely by the day.

Oil price anarchy resulting in a $36 a barrel price only makes another catastrophe more likely.

Neil Rothnie
Glasgow

Labour’s choice: Back the SNP or face oblivion


I APPRECIATED the support of Labour for Independence during the referendum campaign and had considerable respect for many of their more prominent activists who bravely took a position that made them very unpopular with the Labour hierarchy. But they are now disappearing.

Is this in shame? 

Labour has scraped a few barrels in the past few years in an attempt to derail the SNP, but their latest efforts on the Forth Road Bridge is without parallel. I cannot remember a campaign quite so dishonest and quite so damaging – to the Labour Party. 

The dance of death they entered into with the Tory establishment and its anti-Scottish media during the referendum campaign is continuing and so consumed are Labour with a hatred of the SNP that they are completely blinded to the fact they are killing themselves off. It takes a special kind of incomprehension of political reality to keep doing the things that sunk you, expecting the same things will save you. 

Paradoxically, were Labour in Scotland to join the SNP instead in attacking the Tories it would probably pull some of the support back from the nationalists. But I suspect that opportunity is now past. 

Labour actually betrayed Scotland in the Referendum campaign. 

Unlike the Tory tradition, the Labour Party in Scotland is not constitutionally a Unionist organisation.

Had the Labour Party in Scotland adopted a pragmatic and neutral position on the question of independence and made it plain that its supporters were perfectly entitled to argue for and vote Yes, we would have had a different result. 

And the Labour Party would have survived to play a constructive part in an independent Scottish parliament. 

The only prospect they now face is oblivion. The sooner the better.

Dave McEwan Hill Sandbank, Dunoon

HAVING read the letter from Keith Howell (The National, December 22) I feel I know him a little better and I’m glad he’s shared some of his Unionist perspectives.

 As someone who spent many years living and working away from Scotland, I understand his attachment to the UK and the positive values it stood for, and that used to be a fit for people’s aspirations and allegiance. 

However, these days are past now and the demographics tell us that independence and higher taxes are coming down the road. For folks like Keith with lot of anxieties about this, I’m sure I’m not alone in offering to help him allay his fears about living through political change. 

Keith’s right when he says there’s lots of common ground and scope for working together among the proactive citizenry. We all want smart management of public money and other resources resulting in good outcomes from our public services and I applaud his views about holding those in positions of power to account. I look forward to reading more of his letters.

Anne Thomson Falkirk

MY eyes were drawn to a telling paragraph (Calls for drug reform rejected, The National, December 22) namely: “A spokesman for the [Scottish] Government said: ‘The classification of drugs is reserved to Westminster – however should we gain responsibility for the issue, we have no plans to support the legalisation or decriminalisation of drugs. The medicinal use of drugs is a separate issue.’ 

How small minded, conservative with a small “c” and short sighted. And “Westminsterthink”.

The war against drugs initiated by disgraced former US president Richard (Trick Dicky) Nixon circa 40 years ago, and adopted by the UN, is a well documented and exorbitant failure. So much so, that an increasing number of the USA’s own states have rebelled against the federal government and legalised cannabis for medicinal, and in some cases recreational, use. The benefits of so doing appear to be palpable and substantial in terms of increased tax revenues, and crime and punishment, health etc cost-savings. Countries such as Spain, Portugal, Uruguay and now Canada have also changed tack.

Coincidentally, an article in the previous day’s issue of The National: (Time bomb faces public finances if not future proofed) concluded: [It] requires a substantial increase in tax revenues and/or a reduction in general [Scottish] Government expenditure.’

I rest my case.

Archie McArthur Edinburgh


Letters to The National, December 24, Part 1: Minimum wage? Try £4.67 an hour in your hand ...