I take your point finm that its not all about Salmond. And I understand strategic voting to get the referendum you want. A lot of us will be using similar tactics to ensure an EU referendum. But Salmond is the one talking terms. At least, he is the only one talking terms who people outside Scotland get to see. Who else have you got? I rather doubt that his ubiquity is down to propagandist media manipulation by Better Together, but its a fact none the less. We occasionally see Mary-Doll Nesbit but mostly its Salmond, his opinions, his views - his fiefdom, an outsider might be forgiven for thinking. Your comment on the "scurge of the Tory vote" kind of underlines my previous point that Scotland's default political setting may be determined more by tribal resentment than rational self-interest. And please don't fall into the trap yourself of assuming that everyone in England who questions the vague, half-formed, vision for independence promoted by Salmond and the SNP, which is high on belligerence and rhetoric but devoid of detail or even a willingness to discuss detail as that apparently constitutes an English intrusion into Scottish affairs, are automatically opposed to Scottish secession or at best are paid up members of the "bugger off" camp. Or that they support Better Together. That isn't true. I don't want you to bugger off, I want you to get on with it but in the most positive sense. And I don't support Better Together. I don't think we are better together and I'm fed up with their whimpering and wheedling and hand-wringing. The sky will not fall in if Scotland secedes - just as the sky won't fall in if the UK leaves the EU. Both represent tremendous opportunities which need proper discussion and level-headed, long-term planning, not scaremongering from craven politicians afraid of change to their cosy established order. I repeat, I'd love to see Scottish secession but I'd like to see some serious grown-up detail and some evidence of long-term generational planning, but I don't see any; and I'd like an end to Mr Salmond telling me Scotland's future is none of my business and I should keep my nose out. (It is that attitude which fuels the "bugger offs"). The question of whether or not to secede is a matter for the people of Scotland alone but the terms of separation are matters which are very much the business of every single person in the UK. It is not intrusive that we should want to discuss it and expect detailed coherent answers nor that the irreversible details of separating Scotland from the Union must be settled by consensus.
Excellent post Gimlet. This is close to the position held by Simon Jenkins who believes that a breakup of the Union would force the English into reevaluating their position in the world and stimulate a much needed revival of the political process. Up till this point I have been a Better Together supporter, not that I have a vote in this matter, but I am beginning to realise that every cloud may well have a silver lining.
Why should Scotland house English nuclear weapons, if you like them so much have them stored near you!
Submarines require deep water inlets. Where do you propose we put them, beach them in Morecambe Bay? We promise not to use them in the defence of Scotland if that makes you feel better, you can just have the jobs.
Exactly like Iceland then - and that went really, really well, didn't it? A few years ago Alec Salmond frequently referred to Iceland as an example Scotland could follow, if only it was independent. He seems to have gone strangely silent on that point recently. Even though it was one of his few truthful, accurate points.
Exactly not like Iceland which winged it in an industry (banking) in which it had scant expertise and committed widespread fraud and false accounting with to all intents and purposes state collusion, which isn't quite the same thing as light-touch regulation. I was thinking more along the lines of Singapore, Switzerland, New Zealand, Norway (which isn't low tax but is one of the world's richest countries per capita with one of the world's highest levels of employment, so its spending, though high compared to many western economies is readily affordable as a percentage of overall economic output). Which paragons of centralised utopian collectivism had you in mind: Cuba, North Korea, France?
I bought a freezer from Iceland, it were shit. I vote Gimlet and Finm for McPresident kings as they have taught me much this day. As for the subs I'll have them, I can weigh them in for scrap as I could do with the cash. Norway draws a lot of revenue from its oil fields but yet still has very high taxation and a very high cost of living. I paid nearly eight of your english poonds for a cup of crap coffee at the airport there! Just don't post pictures of you with masks on holding up severed heads as it'll all get messy if that happens.
there is actually a place next to invergarry called the well of seven heads which came about after a bit of clan rivalry. deffo a bit raj in those days.
So the upshot is embrace conservatism. Vote Tory. How easily you are swayed by cash and promises of fortunes. I make no apologies for my socialist tendencies and as a Scot I know that would never hold sway north of the border. As eloquently as you may put it, you do not understand how the tenets of socialist feeling is ingrained into Scottish culture. Not through choice or even recognized as socialism per se, but by the centuries old kinship and social struggles. Anti conservative feeling runs far deeper than Thatcher. It runs to the clearances and further. Its engrained in our psyche.
Precisely. It only takes a short visit by a non-Scot to realise that Scotland is still a very clannish society and if there's one thing and one thing only that can bring factional societies together its unity in the face of a common enemy, or perceived common enemy. Scotland collectively rejects small C centre-right conservatism not because it makes rational political or economic sense to do so but because it needs its bogeyman. I'm sorry if that sounds patronising, it isn't meant to, I just believe its the simple truth. Outside the Union and away from the psychological shadow cast by England, which lets face it is what most Scots find so bothersome, there will be no need to cling to ingrained political prejudice and debate might just open up. To a lesser extent the same might be true of England. But Scotland must not fall into the old trap of blaming someone else if its newly-minted country is not a bed of roses overnight. My doubt is that I don't think Salmond is capable of thinking outside that cultural straitjacket. His leadership suggests he is not.
Its not patronising at all. It is indeed the truth as I see it. If we have no-one else to fight we fight amongst ourselves. This is evidenced throughout our history on countless occasions. What the Scots dont understand is that we need Westminster to keep us from killing each other. It will split Scotland if they vote for independence as much as it splits NI.
i guess living up hear i can agree to an extent, when i first moved to argyll there was a lot prody and catholic bull (more rangers and celtic) as for the other places not atoll. listening to my cockney mate big into his football segregation and the derby enemy seem strong and v.real
