Windfall Tax? Yes please

It seems the masterplan for digging Gordon Brown out of the very deep hole he has found himself in is to levy a Windfall Tax on the huge profits made by oil companies.

Every 3 months we hear about enormous profits from energy companies in the UK with their excuses for the increased energy costs being that they have rising costs of their own.

So a windfall tax is perfect. If oil/energy companies are unnecessarily raising the price of power then we will reclaim some of the money through a tax on super-profits. If their price increases are indeed necessary then there will be no profits which we can tax. (UPDATE: Indeed, with today's news of 3-month profits for BP of £3.4bn, it seems it is the former.)

Everyone wins right? Well, yes, everyone does win, and no more so than the SNP.

We've heard for decades the Nationalist claims that It's Scotland's Oil, that the commodity is valuable enough to help finance an independent Scotland and if we built up a North Sea Fund we'd be amongst the richest independent countries in the World.

Well, what more evidence do we need now? The UK Government is feeling the squeeze financially so who do they turn to? Why, those oil companies that are positively bathed in money thanks to Scotland's oil.

Yes, not content with taxing petrol at the pumps to the tune of 70% and taking 30% of the profits made by BP and Shell through Corporation Tax, the Government are going to milk this cash cow for even more money simply because they can.

If you believe Scotland should share its wealth with the rest of the UK then I can perfectly respect that point of view. But let's no longer have the false claim that Scotland could not sustain itself in the medium term on oil revenue.

With a Windfall Tax, Gordon Brown will be disproving the lie.