By JimMennie

As Aberdeen South goes to the polls today, Tories are still attempting to pitch themselves as the saviours of North Sea jobs.

Their candidate and national figures claim they alone will “get Britain drilling” and reverse decline. The reality is starker.

The long-term drop in oil and gas employment has been driven primarily by global markets, a maturing North Sea basin with smaller, costlier fields, and the inevitable energy transition — factors no Westminster government fully controls.

Their own record of squandering billions in public money makes these promises ring hollow for voters who have lived through the industry’s challenges.

Under previous Conservative governments, hundreds of new North Sea licences were issued. Yet jobs supported by the sector more than halved — from around 441,000 in 2013 to 214,000 by 2023. That is nearly 450 jobs lost every week on their watch, despite the licences and a legal push for “maximising economic recovery.”

Global oil prices, shifting world demand, cheaper producers elsewhere, and the structural decline of a 50-year-old basin explain far more than any single licensing decision.

The billions wasted elsewhere under Conservative stewardship could have been directed toward real support for Aberdeen’s workers and supply chain.

Take the COVID PPE scandal: NAO reports show £2.9 billion spent on 3.6 billion unsuitable items, plus at least £1 billion in unfit equipment from the VIP fast-track lane for connected suppliers.

While frontline energy workers and communities faced uncertainty, unusable stock sat in warehouses.

NHS Test and Trace consumed a £37 billion allocation with “unimaginable” costs and little measurable impact on controlling the pandemic, per the Public Accounts Committee.

Heavy reliance on expensive consultants delivered poor value. That money represented resources that might otherwise have funded skills retraining, port infrastructure, or a managed transition for Aberdeen’s energy workforce.

HS2’s ballooning costs and scrapped northern sections wasted further billions on a project offering minimal benefit to Scotland.

The Rwanda scheme burned through £700 million for almost no deportations.

Even the “Boris Bridge” feasibility study — nearly £900,000 thrown at an idea experts called unfeasible — showed misplaced priorities far from Aberdeen’s real needs.

These are not abstract Westminster failures. Scots pay UK taxes that funded them, and inefficiencies at UK level affect the overall fiscal picture, including support available through the block grant.

In Aberdeen South, where oil and gas has defined the economy for generations, the contrast is sharp: a party that talks tough on protecting jobs while presiding over systemic waste and failing to deliver a credible long-term plan for the basin’s decline.

Global markets set the price of oil and gas. Licensing policy can influence activity at the margins but cannot reverse geological reality or worldwide shifts toward cheaper renewables and lower demand.

Promising to “save” the industry ignores this.

Voters in Aberdeen South have seen jobs erode steadily. They deserve honest discussion about a just transition — supporting existing skills into renewables, decommissioning, and new energy technologies — not recycled claims from a record marked by crony contracts and ineffective mega-spending.

Today’s by-election is a chance to judge on evidence, not slogans.

The Conservative approach at Westminster delivered billions in documented waste alongside an industry already in structural decline.

Aberdeen South workers and families need policies grounded in reality, not nostalgia for an era that global forces have already moved beyond.