Why aren't you up in Scotland groveling like the rest of the Eingrish pols? lmao
What would Longshanks say!
Scotland might just show the rest of us the way to reset social democracy
- Thread starter tay
- Start date
Why aren't you up in Scotland groveling like the rest of the Eingrish pols? lmao
What would Longshanks say!
I don't grovel to anybody, especially a bunch of workshy subsidy junkies whose feckless lifestyle is funded by my taxes, some of whom want Scottish independence just because Salmond's mob has promised them an even bigger and more bloated welfare state which will further pay for their laziness.
An independent Scotland will be nothing more than a little, cold, rocky, empty, miserable, Socialist hellhole full of workshy racists living on the edge of the EUSSR empire which will swallow Scotland completely and make it nothing more than a tiny, inconsequential EUSSR region as Britain heads for the EUSSR exit and becomes a true sovereign state once more. Britain will be richer by not having to pay for Scots' giro cheques and Greek olive groves.
By the way, when the Scots vote NO on Thursday to independence (and that option is still very much the bookies' favourite and they are very rarely wrong) I fully expect that it is you getting on your knees and making a grovelling apology to me and you will definitely promise not to make silly, pointless posts again in future.
Oh they'll vote no as I pointed out in an earlier post to Kreskin.
But it is so fun seeing the Brit leadership prancing about Scotland begging for a No vote. It is fun seeing the Anglash leadership and the Royals once again groveling.
"Charge of the Fright Brigade" is what the BBC called it this morning! lmao!
The Scots should do this every other year.
I can't see the problem in David Cameron telling the Scots they'll be better off remaining in the Union which has served them well and made their country rich for 300 years. He is, after all, Scotland's Prime Minister. And it is no different to what any other national leaders would so. When Quebec almost left Canada back in 1995 Canadian politicians went there making desperate pleas for them to stay in Canada. If Utah or South Dakota suddenly had an independence referendum you'd be sending Obama to beg them to stay in the Union.
Boo hoo hoo... Don't let me be the last Queen of Scotland... please.
lmao... what has become of the Crown.
And, of course, you believe everything you read on the front page of a British red top.
There is no evidence that the Royals are "begging" the Scots to stay. The Royals are not allowed to comment on such issues. They are constitutionally apolitical.
Charge of the Fright Brigade!
English Leadership crawling like worms all over Scotland begging for No votes. Lovely!
Coming Soon!
English Leadership crawling like worms all over Scotland begging for No votes. Lovely!
Coming Soon!
BRITISH leadership. Not English leadership. David Cameron is the British Prime Minister, not the English Prime Minister.
I should point out to you that, unlike Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, England does not have a parliament or assembly. When the Scots-dominated Labour Party dished out a parliament to Scotland and an assembly to Wales and Northern Ireland in 1999 they completely forgot about the biggest nation in the Union - England. So England doesn't have a parliament of her own and is instead ruled directly by the British Parliament (the only exception is London, which is the only one of England's regions which has its own devolved assembly).
One good thing that will come out of this Scottish referendum palaver (I'll be glad when it's over at the end of next week because I'm fed up of hearing Scots of opposing sides shouting and arguing with each other and effing and blinding to each other live on TV) is that England will finally get the long-overdue devolution that the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish got 15 years ago.
I fully expect that each of the nine English regions will finally get their own elected assemblies. One of those regions, London, already has its own elected assembly so I hope, once this referendum campaign is over, that the other eight will get their own assemblies and the UK will become a federalised nation.
I think it's shocking that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have had their own parliaments or assemblies for 15 years but the British Establishment has completely forgotten about England.
It would be nice if my region, the North West, had its own assembly or parliament.
Blackie you and your NW are nothing but serfs of the crown like the rest. You are entitled to nothing but gruel from the Queen's Stores.
Where will New English Islamic Caliphate be located?
Where will New English Islamic Caliphate be located?
Don't have a dog in the fight, so I just hope Scotland does what will make it prosper.
If you multiply Blacknuts by a million or so; I'd be gone for sure.:lol:
No Blacknuts need apply.
:lol:
If you multiply Blacknuts by a million or so; I'd be gone for sure.:lol:
No Blacknuts need apply.
:lol:
James Laxer gets it.
In fact, the Scots are not replicating the earlier exercises in Quebec. Dressed in national garb, the people of Scotland are voting in the world’s first referendum on economic and political inequality.
Many Scots, indeed millions of people in other parts of the United Kingdom, would insist that the telescope ought to be turned around. It is London, they would argue, that effectively seceded from the U.K. during the Thatcher Revolution of the 1980s, leaving the rest of the country de-industrialized. Employment in shipbuilding, steel and other basic manufacturing sectors was decimated in Scotland during the Thatcher years. Once “the workshop of the world”, Britain has become an enormous net importer of manufactured goods, leaving the financial sector to keep the country solvent.
Effectively, London is now a City State, whose wealthier residents often have very little to do with the rest of Britain. They work in the City, educate their children in London and the Home Counties, and play in the south of England or abroad. When I spent a month there in the spring, Londoners to whom I spoke wrote off the Scottish referendum with a yawn. “Most of my friends don’t give a toss,” one man who works in the City told me. The Scots ought to consider themselves fortunate to be linked to the great economic engine of London, according to many who dwell in the metropolis.
more
Scottish referendum: World’s first vote on economic inequality - The Globe and Mail
The Westminster politicians of all stripes manifestly do not.
David Cameron can’t help the No campaign – he’s less popular in Scotland than Windows 8 | Comment is free | The Guardian
The fact that the Yes side is gaining much traction despite, or perhaps to spite, the dire predictions of economic luminaries like Mark Carney and Paul Krugman, to international financial institutions like Credit Suisse should worry these kinds of people, but for different reasons. The power of economism is typically such that any progressive movement or policy initiative will fizzle to nothing the minute someone suggests that it could harm the economy. Scotland by and large has lost its fear of this threat. This is the first step in creating an environment where bold and progressive initiatives can be tried. It is without doubt supremely risky, but utterly necessary if the Scottish (and the rest of us) are really serious about creating a better future.
In this light, I agree with Will Hutton that the Yes votes potentially winning traction should be read as a failure of Britain's national government to ensure the well-being of all UK citizens, especially those most distant from London.
#Indyref didn't happen by accident, and wouldn't be happening if the central government, beholden to US military adventurism and economism hadn't failed on such an epic level.
We have 10 days to find a settlement to save the union | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer
In fact, the Scots are not replicating the earlier exercises in Quebec. Dressed in national garb, the people of Scotland are voting in the world’s first referendum on economic and political inequality.
Many Scots, indeed millions of people in other parts of the United Kingdom, would insist that the telescope ought to be turned around. It is London, they would argue, that effectively seceded from the U.K. during the Thatcher Revolution of the 1980s, leaving the rest of the country de-industrialized. Employment in shipbuilding, steel and other basic manufacturing sectors was decimated in Scotland during the Thatcher years. Once “the workshop of the world”, Britain has become an enormous net importer of manufactured goods, leaving the financial sector to keep the country solvent.
Effectively, London is now a City State, whose wealthier residents often have very little to do with the rest of Britain. They work in the City, educate their children in London and the Home Counties, and play in the south of England or abroad. When I spent a month there in the spring, Londoners to whom I spoke wrote off the Scottish referendum with a yawn. “Most of my friends don’t give a toss,” one man who works in the City told me. The Scots ought to consider themselves fortunate to be linked to the great economic engine of London, according to many who dwell in the metropolis.
more
Scottish referendum: World’s first vote on economic inequality - The Globe and Mail
The Westminster politicians of all stripes manifestly do not.
David Cameron can’t help the No campaign – he’s less popular in Scotland than Windows 8 | Comment is free | The Guardian
The fact that the Yes side is gaining much traction despite, or perhaps to spite, the dire predictions of economic luminaries like Mark Carney and Paul Krugman, to international financial institutions like Credit Suisse should worry these kinds of people, but for different reasons. The power of economism is typically such that any progressive movement or policy initiative will fizzle to nothing the minute someone suggests that it could harm the economy. Scotland by and large has lost its fear of this threat. This is the first step in creating an environment where bold and progressive initiatives can be tried. It is without doubt supremely risky, but utterly necessary if the Scottish (and the rest of us) are really serious about creating a better future.
In this light, I agree with Will Hutton that the Yes votes potentially winning traction should be read as a failure of Britain's national government to ensure the well-being of all UK citizens, especially those most distant from London.
#Indyref didn't happen by accident, and wouldn't be happening if the central government, beholden to US military adventurism and economism hadn't failed on such an epic level.
We have 10 days to find a settlement to save the union | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer
"In this light, I agree with Will Huttonthat the Yes votes potentially winning traction should be read as a failure of Britain's national government to ensure the well-being of all UK citizens, especially those most distant from London."
There ya go.
There ya go.
Jim from Edinburgh emailed the BBC: "Alex Salmond (the leader of the SNP nationalists and the YES campaign) continually asserts that if you vote yes in the referendum you will always get the Government you vote for. In 2011, the SNP received 44.7% of the votes cast which gave them 53% of the seats. The turnout was 50.4% of the electorate, so just 22.5% of the voters in Scotland voted SNP and got a majority SNP Government. That does not seem to me to be getting the Government you vote for."
Now it's getting nasty! Riled Darling slams 'mad' and 'despicable' Salmond for trying to win votes by 'throwing stones' at the English as tempers fly in Mumsnet debate
Alistair Darling today accused his nationalist rival Alex Salmond (pictured left today) of being 'despicable', 'mad' and focused on 'throwing stones' at the English. The former Chancellor's blistering attacks came during an online question and answer session with Scottish mothers on the popular site Mumsnet. Mr Darling (pictured right campaigning in Edinburgh today) said the Scottish First Minister's plan to use the pound without a formal currency deal with Westminster was 'mad' and would cost tens of thousands of jobs. The row erupted as David Cameron today pleaded with Scottish voters not to use the independence referendum to give the 'effing Tories' a kicking. In an extraordinary intervention, the Prime Minister appeared close to tears during a speech in Edinburgh in which he acknowledged the unpopularity of the Conservatives in Scotland but warned the result of next week's vote will stand for 100 years.
Angry Darling slams 'mad' and 'despicable' Salmond winning votes by 'throwing stones' at the English in bitter Mumsnet clash | Mail Online
**********************
Double blow for Salmond as Scottish giant Standard Life reveals plan to move to England - and BP rubbishes SNP's North Sea oil claims
Standard Life revealed today that it was putting in place plans to move parts of its business to England to protect itself against independence. It came as oil giant BP warned against voting 'Yes'.
Double blow for Alex Salmond as businesses come out against independence | Mail Online
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'The NHS did everything for my baby Jennifer': Gordon Brown close to tears as he invokes memory of his late daughter to 'nail the SNP lie' about privatisation
Mr Brown's voice cracked as he spoke about his late baby daughter
Jennifer, the former PM's first child, died from a brain haemorrhage in 2002
SNP claims only way to save Scottish NHS from privatisation is a Yes vote
Mr Brown said the SNP were the only danger to the NHS, not Westminster
By Tom McTague, Deputy Political Editor for MailOnline
10 September 2014
Daily Mail
Former prime minister Gordon Brown last night invoked the memory of his late baby daughter to ‘nail the SNP lie’ that Scotland's health service is at risk of privatisation.
Mr Brown was close to tears as he made the personal plea, accusing Alex Salmond of misleading people over the issue, which he described as a ‘Trojan horse’ in the independence referendum debate.
The SNP has repeatedly argued that the only way to save the health service from privatisation in Scotland is a Yes vote.
Emotional: Gordon Brown spoke from the heart as he launched a passionate defence of the NHS
Now it's getting nasty! Riled Darling slams 'mad' and 'despicable' Salmond for trying to win votes by 'throwing stones' at the English as tempers fly in Mumsnet debate
Alistair Darling today accused his nationalist rival Alex Salmond (pictured left today) of being 'despicable', 'mad' and focused on 'throwing stones' at the English. The former Chancellor's blistering attacks came during an online question and answer session with Scottish mothers on the popular site Mumsnet. Mr Darling (pictured right campaigning in Edinburgh today) said the Scottish First Minister's plan to use the pound without a formal currency deal with Westminster was 'mad' and would cost tens of thousands of jobs. The row erupted as David Cameron today pleaded with Scottish voters not to use the independence referendum to give the 'effing Tories' a kicking. In an extraordinary intervention, the Prime Minister appeared close to tears during a speech in Edinburgh in which he acknowledged the unpopularity of the Conservatives in Scotland but warned the result of next week's vote will stand for 100 years.
Angry Darling slams 'mad' and 'despicable' Salmond winning votes by 'throwing stones' at the English in bitter Mumsnet clash | Mail Online
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Double blow for Salmond as Scottish giant Standard Life reveals plan to move to England - and BP rubbishes SNP's North Sea oil claims
Standard Life revealed today that it was putting in place plans to move parts of its business to England to protect itself against independence. It came as oil giant BP warned against voting 'Yes'.
Double blow for Alex Salmond as businesses come out against independence | Mail Online
*****************************************
'The NHS did everything for my baby Jennifer': Gordon Brown close to tears as he invokes memory of his late daughter to 'nail the SNP lie' about privatisation
Mr Brown's voice cracked as he spoke about his late baby daughter
Jennifer, the former PM's first child, died from a brain haemorrhage in 2002
SNP claims only way to save Scottish NHS from privatisation is a Yes vote
Mr Brown said the SNP were the only danger to the NHS, not Westminster
By Tom McTague, Deputy Political Editor for MailOnline
10 September 2014
Daily Mail
Former prime minister Gordon Brown last night invoked the memory of his late baby daughter to ‘nail the SNP lie’ that Scotland's health service is at risk of privatisation.
Mr Brown was close to tears as he made the personal plea, accusing Alex Salmond of misleading people over the issue, which he described as a ‘Trojan horse’ in the independence referendum debate.
The SNP has repeatedly argued that the only way to save the health service from privatisation in Scotland is a Yes vote.
Emotional: Gordon Brown spoke from the heart as he launched a passionate defence of the NHS
Two opposing views from the Daily Mail:
Why Scotland should stay in the Union....
DAILY MAIL COMMENT: At last, an optimistic vision for the Union
By Daily Mail Comment
10 September 2014
Daily Mail
David Cameron may claim this offers Scotland ‘the best of both worlds’ if they vote No. But it could promise the worst of every world, with the rest of us forced to pick up the bills for Mr Salmond
With breathtaking legerdemain, Alex Salmond likens the Scottish people to black South Africans emerging from the apartheid era – presumably casting himself in the role of Nelson Mandela.
How preposterous. In the old South Africa, the majority population were the victims of a cruelly oppressive regime that denied them the vote and cut them off from the nation’s life.
In contrast, Scots have been embraced for more than 300 years as full and revered partners in the United Kingdom.
Indeed, in many areas – literature, the arts, philosophy, commerce, invention, discovery, theology, the military, politics – Scots have been dominant in our island story, while each nation of the Union would have been diminished without the others.
Scotland has given us kings, queens and prime ministers, great scientists and generals – and explorers and administrators who helped found the world’s largest and most benign empire.
An oppressed people? Today, they receive more public money per head than the rest of Britain.
But in one thing, the disingenuous Mr Salmond is right. His opponents in the No camp are indeed in ‘total panic’.
How have we come to this, with the comfortable lead for the Union cause whittled away to nothing – and only eight days before a vote whose significance to 60million people can’t be exaggerated?
Part of the answer, as this paper has argued for weeks, has been the constant negativity of Better Together.
Of course there is force behind the warnings that a separatist Scotland would face enormous risks to its economy and social fabric, with not only its currency but its membership of the EU, border arrangements, defences, pensions and finances in the gravest doubt.
But the warnings have been delivered in a patronising, bullying tone that might have been calculated to offend a justly proud nation.
Meanwhile, the No campaign’s sheer complacency has been astonishing.
Unforgivably, almost no serious planning seems to have been done, while much of the talking has been left to discredited, uninspiring Labour politicians, many of whom can’t stand each other.
What does it tell us about Westminster, when even the lightweight Mr Salmond can run rings round his opponents?
Indeed, Britain’s entire political class – most of all the egregious Ed Miliband, with his insulting assurance that Scotland needn’t worry, because Labour will win in 2015 – should hang its head in shame.
But this is not the time for recriminations. The pressing question is how the No campaign should be conducted in the little time remaining. There, the first advice must surely be: calm down!
Nothing could be more reckless than the attempts to draw up, in days, a back-of-the-envelope programme of ‘devo-max’, with vast implications for a constitution that has evolved over centuries.
David Cameron may claim this offers Scotland ‘the best of both worlds’ if they vote No. But it could promise the worst of every world, with the rest of us forced to pick up the bills for Mr Salmond.
But in one thing, the disingenuous Mr Salmond is right. His opponents in the No camp are indeed in ‘total panic’
As for the three leaders’ dash to Scotland today, doesn’t this play into the nationalists’ hands – reinforcing the message that English politicians only care about Scots when votes are at stake?
Far more encouraging is the note struck by Mr Cameron in his heartfelt article for the Mail today. At last, the threatening tone has gone, replaced by a moving evocation of our shared glories and an optimistic vision of how the whole UK is greater than the sum of its parts.
England and Scotland need each other, as we have in three centuries of war and peace. The world is more civilised because of the Union. And we can still achieve so much more together than apart.
Read more: DAILY MAIL COMMENT: At last, an optimistic vision for the Union | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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And why the English, Welsh and Northern Irish should tell the Scots to clear off, good riddance and get them to tell us where to send the bill for more than 300 years of subsidy....
Why don't we tell the Scots to shove off! In a personal view (with which the Mail disagrees) SIMON HEFFER says what we fear many English people think
By Simon Heffer
10 September 2014
Daily Mail
Alex Salmond's offensive comparison of Scots voting for independence to the ending of apartheid and blacks being given the vote in South Africa took the rank dishonesty of the nationalists’ campaign to a new low yesterday.
Mandela went to prison for his beliefs, something that doesn’t appear to have happened to any Scottish Nationalists.
And, far from being victims of a cruel and unjust system, they have been encouraged to participate in the political process, and to live in a Union replete with opportunities — unlike millions in South Africa who were excluded from politics and advancement simply because they were the wrong race.
Alex Salmond's offensive comparison of Scots voting for independence to the ending of apartheid and blacks being given the vote in South Africa took the nationalists’ campaign to a new low yesterday
It was equally offensive to see Mr Salmond embracing immigrants from Eastern Europe and telling them that their intention to vote ‘Yes’ would be the culmination of their own long walk to freedom.
They chose to come to Scotland not because independence promises an extra layer of liberty, but because of the hard won, wide-ranging freedoms already available throughout the UK, and bestowed upon the Scots as they are bestowed upon every other Briton.
Enough, frankly, is enough. We have long tolerated Mr Salmond’s mendacity, and his twisted loathing of the English, largely because many felt he would be the loser of this fight and should be indulged.
So when he dropped hints that the NHS would be privatised if there wasn’t a ‘Yes’ vote, or made up the rules about Scotland’s continuing membership of the EU as he went along, or exaggerated the wealth from Scottish oil revenues, we felt slightly patronising towards the old rogue, assuring ourselves of his inevitable humiliation in the September 18 vote.
Now that humiliation appears less certain, and the arrogant dishonesty is so overwhelming, it is time to tell him what some of us really think.
First, this referendum has been a democratic disgrace from the outset. Not only were innumerable expatriate Scots in the rest of the Kingdom not allowed a vote on the Union that has benefited them all so practically, but the English — who subsidise Scotland to the tune of £17.6 billion a year according to the most recent Treasury figures — were not allowed a say either, as if the Union were about Scotland alone.
The sight of English politicians — and Scottish Unionist ones — bending over backwards to encourage the Scots to stay in the UK is as pitiful as it is outrageous. And it has inevitably proven counter-productive.
The Scots absurdly misrepresent us as oppressors and leeches who have taken ‘their’ oil money since the 1970s, when the opposite is largely true.
Scotland has boomed under the Union, Scots have thrived in the land of opportunity that is England, and much of the North Sea’s oil was extracted only because of English investment.
So why the need for further bribes? Couldn’t a perfectly sober, rational case be made about the massive mutual benefits for both parties — and shouldn’t our politicians, now in a demeaning state of 11th-hour panic, have been making it from the moment the devolved assembly opened in 1999?
They should — but their failure to do so emboldened grasping SNP politicians to push for independence. It says much for the stupidity and complacency of our political class that none appeared to have seen this coming.
I don’t know whether Scotland will vote to become independent. I’m pretty sure that if it doesn’t the ‘No’ campaign’s victory will be narrow, another plebiscite will be held within five or ten years, and there will be further self-serving mischief, strife and instability until the separatists get their way. We could have a situation similar to that in Canada and the "Neverendum" for Quebec independence.
Instead of telling Mr Salmond where to get off after his grotesque misrepresentation of life under the Union, our politicians have responded with the pathetic stunt of cancelling Prime Minister’s Questions today so they can campaign in Scotland for the Union.
Worse, we have had the spectacle of Ed Miliband gurning in front of TV cameras and demanding that English town halls fly the Saltire to show their love for Scotland — I trust most English town halls won’t waste ratepayers’ money on a flag they would never normally fly from one decade to the next.
But I suspect that this supine response to Salmond’s lies will be the final straw for most English, Welsh and Northern Irish voters.
The English, especially, will wonder why our leaders feel the need to suck up to a nation that sponged off our largesse consistently over the past 307 years, yet is still not satisfied.
Hard-pressed English taxpayers today see Scottish families enjoying free tuition in higher education (worth £9,000 a year), widespread exemptions from prescription charges and state-funded care for the elderly, and wonder why they don’t get the same benefits, even though they contribute to Scotland’s.
We have long tolerated Mr Salmond’s mendacity, and his twisted loathing of the English, largely because many felt he would be the loser of this fight and should be indulged
And only two years ago, the British taxpayer had to bail out two Scottish banks on the verge of collapse.
The tragedy is that Scotland’s enterprise and energy, underpinned by a ferocious Protestant work ethic and an education system far superior to England’s, enabled the Scots to be hugely successful in British life — another fact that makes a mockery of Mr Salmond’s whingeing victimhood.
Scotland provided Britain’s monarchs (our Queen is of Stuart descent) and numerous prime ministers — Gladstone, Rosebery, Campbell-Bannerman, Balfour, Bonar Law, Ramsay MacDonald, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Blair and Brown were all either Scottish or of Scots heritage.
The list of great Scots is endless: the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell, the discoverer of penicillin Alexander Fleming, the inventor of television John Logie Baird, inventor of the steam engine James Watt, historian Thomas Carlyle, philosopher David Hume and economist Adam Smith are just the tip of the iceberg of Scots talent.
Countless unsung Scottish pioneers built large stretches of the Empire, notably Canada, New Zealand and southern Africa, and Scotsmen made a disproportionately large sacrifice in two world wars.
Yet now England and Scotland are not merely two different nations, but two different cultures. The old Scotland was washed away by the tide of post-1945 welfarism even more than England was.
The difference was that England threw off socialism in 1979 and, under Margaret Thatcher, engaged in radical economic reforms.
Those were never accepted by post-industrial Scotland, whose people in too many cases preferred to live off the efforts of others, and came to regard Mrs Thatcher as a symbol of foreign oppression and themselves as her tragic victims.
That gulf is wider today than ever, and it won’t be bridged by a few patronising Englishmen flying Saltires or engaging in a rampantly insincere group hug with the Scottish people. Our two countries now have little in common, with Scotland now exhibiting the most appalling mentality of dependence.
I am of a generation of English who grew up considering ourselves British, and seeing no great difference between the English and the Scots, for whom we had great affection and admiration. But that has changed over the past two decades with growing hostility towards the English dripping out of Scotland.
Enough, I say again, is enough. As an Englishman, I feel my country has done all it can for Scotland and the Scots, sharing our country and wealth in the most open-handed way, while being branded as exploiters in return by a people for whom a vindictive ingratitude now seems to be a way of life.
As far as I’m concerned, the Scots are welcome to believe the untruths, distortions and downright lies Mr Salmond and his pals have decided to tell about the Union so they can get their hands on complete power.
If they really do feel the English are so toxic for them, there is nothing left to say except: clear off, good riddance and tell us where to send the bill for more than 300 years of subsidy.
Read more: Why don't we tell the Scots to shove off! Asks SIMON HEFFER | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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This will be exactly like Quebec in 1995. The NO side will narrowly win and then the separatists will do all they can to get another referendum five years or ten years from now. A "Neverendum."
Erm what about the English?
9 September 2014
Nick Cohen
The Spectator
Scottish football fans
One way or another, English nationalism, a beast the Union kept in its cage, will prowl the land after the Scottish vote. If the Scots leave, of course, then nothing will stand in its way. The residual United Kingdom will be a Greater England in all but name. If the ‘no’ campaign scrapes a victory, however, national feeling will if anything be more intense.
Among the many reasons I cannot abide nationalist posturing is that victimhood always accompanies it. No one on these islands has cut a more ridiculous figure than the Scottish politicians and intellectuals, who cast themselves as the leaders of an oppressed people, groaning under the yoke of English colonialism. All nationalisms are built on invented histories –propaganda and lies to use plain language. Scottish nationalism’s greatest propaganda success has been to turn Scots, those eager and rapacious participants in empire, from the colonists into the colonised.
After a ‘no’ vote it will be the turn of the English to play the victim. The Scottish parliament already controls most of domestic policy – education, health, social work, housing, agriculture, planning and criminal justice. Yet Scottish MPs can still decide English education, health, social work, housing, agriculture, planning and criminal justice policy. The Welsh Parliament has lesser but still significant powers as does the Northern Ireland Assembly.
To date, Westminster has avoided answering Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian question
‘For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate … at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?’
But I cannot see how it can be postponed for much longer. Panicking politicians are attempting to head off Scottish independence by offering the Scottish parliament the power to control and set Scottish income tax. Scotland will have Home Rule in all but name. There will be no justification then for allowing Scots to vote on English matters.
The British have a consoling national myth that we do not need written constitutions like those over-rational foreigners, but survive and indeed prosper by muddling through. I suspect that the days of muddling are over. (It has hardly been a great success, after all.) If they are not, if politicians continue to duck the West Lothian question, and Labour in particular has an interest in allowing Welsh and Scottish MPs to retain their current powers, it will be the turn of the English to feel that they are suffering under colonial rule. They will be subject to taxation without representation, and the decrees of a parliament, whose composition no one will be able to excuse or even explain. The longer English grievance festers, the more septic it will become.
I shouldn’t have to add that I find the left-wingers who are cheering on nationalism asinine, almost criminally so. They have put the prospect of giving a bloody nose to the ‘establishment’ before any worthwhile social democratic principle. Do they want a future where an 18-year-old from Dundee has to move abroad to take a job in Birmingham and vice versa? Do they not see that the old multinational British state, for all its flaws and crimes, at least limited blood-and-soil nationalism, because it could include people of all backgrounds and ethnicities?
Apparently not. One way or another, Britishness is going. I hope it is not replaced by brutishness.
Erm what about the English? » Spectator Blogs
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318 comments
9 September 2014
Alex Massie
The Spectator
Once upon a time, a long while ago, I lived in Dublin. It was a time when everything seemed possible and not just because I was younger then. The country was stirring too. When I arrived it was still the case that a visa to work in the United States was just about the most valuable possession any young Irishman or woman could own; within a fistful of years that was no longer the case. Ireland was changing. These were the years in which the Celtic Tiger was born. They were happy years of surprising possibility.
Years later I lived in the United States and my perspective changed. Scottish independence seemed, viewed from there, about as useful or meaningful as independence for Texas. Not impossible or even necessarily undesirable but somehow missing the point nonetheless. But that was later. When I lived in Ireland, Dublin’s example seemed, well, exemplary. If the Irish could do it, why couldn’t we? More to the point, why shouldn’t we?
So, like many other Scots who will vote No next week, I don’t think independence a daft notion or some kind of fatuous affectation. I think there is a reasonable case for it (even if this is not the case that, during this long campaign, has often been the case that has actually been made). Could we do it? Why, yes we could. But should we?
Of course the detail matters. It matters even if you accept that the Scottish government’s prospectus for life after independence is only one of many possible futures none of which can be decided until independence is achieved. There are many voters – well, perhaps one in five – who would vote for independence even if it promised an impoverished future. Similarly there are many voters – perhaps one in five – who would reject independence even if they believed it offered a more prosperous future.
Still, if we’re to vote on independence it should be done on the basis of a moderately honest prospectus. No such prospectus has been offered by the Scottish government. A lot of people are voting on the basis of a deeply cynical and meretricious set of promises that simply cannot, not even when assisted by great dollops of wishful thinking, be delivered. It is not possible to spend more, borrow less and tax the same.
That, however, is what the SNP propose. Lower borrowing rates, 3% annual increases in public spending and no changes to the overall level of taxation. It is incredible. It supposes that voters must be glaikit and easily gulled ninnies who can be persuaded to swallow anything, no matter how fanciful it must be. A nonsense wrapped in a distortion inside a whopping great lie.
It’s quite possible that the realities of life in an independent Scotland might push the country’s centre-of-political-gravity to the right.
Quite possible, then, that an independent Scotland would be more likely to produce more of my kind of politics than some of the politics imagined by the keenest advocates for independence. That still strikes me as a thin and selfish reason to vote for independence.
But, sure, many of the details could be worked out and it’s certainly possible that after an initial period of some difficulty Scotland would emerge as a decently prosperous and contented country. It needn’t be a disaster and it probably wouldn’t be. Nevertheless, the growing pains would be acute and I think it best to recognise this. There will be short and even perhaps medium-term pain but the long-term prize will be worth it.
That’s not what’s being sold, however. Far from it.
There are other difficulties. The dishonesty of suggesting – or allowing it to be understood – that there’s no functional difference between sterlingisation and a monetary union with whatever remains of the UK is, in the end, breathtaking. Yes, Scotland can “use the pound” but how it’s used is a question of some importance.
I know politicians can never say they don’t know the answer to something but there are times and places when pretending you have all the answers is worse than admitting the obvious truth that you don’t. This is one of those times; one of those places.
But, look, in the end this is still process stuff. Very important process stuff but still only process stuff. I happen to think it provides ample reason to vote No but it’s not why I’m voting No.
I’m voting No because the campaign has surprised me. It’s made me think about my country and, more than that, what it means to be a part of that country. I’ll vote No even though I think Scotland would do fine as an independent country.
Read the rest of this long article: Why I am voting No » Spectator Blogs
Here's the latest poll
NO: 47.6%
YES: 42.4%
UNDECIDED: 10%
(Survation)
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Quebec should have had the rest of Canada vote on the issue, her *** would still be stinging from when the door hit her.
I'm thinking that the UK would want to keep Scotland, Scotland is leaving because of current UK policies of the foreign kind. Perhaps this is their 'Arab spring' so it should be encouraged rather than suppressed but then suppression of rights is standard for England first at home then abroad, it is a failed method when you are looking for positive long term goals.