Is the United Kingdom doomed?

First topic message reminder :

Exactly what I’ve been predicting for a long time. I said that if the Tories, so hated in Scotland that they have only one MP, came to power at Westminster again, the Scots would decide that they’d rather go it alone. Apparently, Scottish independence now has majority backing north of the border and in the UK as a whole, according to a new poll.

Research by ComRes for ‘The Independent on Sunday’ and ‘The Sunday Mirror’ found that support for the move had risen sharply over recent months. The results are a boost for First Minister Alex Salmond as his Scottish National Party prepares to hold its autumn conference in Inverness.

In the UK overall, 39% of those surveyed agreed that Scotland should be an independent country - an increase of six points since May. The number disagreeing with the statement had fallen four points to 38%.
In Scotland, the proportion supporting independence was up 11 points over the period at 49%. Some 37% disagreed - down by nine points.

The SNP, which won an unprecedented overall majority in May elections, has promised to hold a referendum on independence towards the end of its five-year term.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/majority-back-scottish-independence-193447501.html

The number of people wishing for a stronger/charismatic/not weird Leader for the Labour Party, are balanced by realists who understand that there's only one honest game in town. All the alternatives are worse.

" All the alternatives are worse"

Almost certainly true.

There's just a few million voters to convince and they're home and dry...

Phil Hornby wrote:" All the alternatives are worse"

 
Not really. Have you not heard of the new Platypus Independence Party (PIP).  We can pussyfoot round politics better than anyone. Our HQ is at Digereedoo Cage, London Zoo. Opposite the Libatory Chimp cage, and round the corner from the F-Labs Ape cage.
We can fulfil all our promises as we make none. We will however ensure that the Isle of Dogs becomes the new capital of the UK. But then we're barking mad anyway.
 
Nursey, could I have my tablets now.  

Getting back on subject......   
 
Despite still being ahead in the polls, it would appear that the Better Together campaign is becoming desperate when it has to resort to stupidity like this:-
 
Alistair Darling interview: “Salmond is behaving like Kim Jong-il”
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/alistair-darling-interview-salmond-behaving-kim-jong-il

That's the problem with this forum. TOO serious. Whatever your thoughts, undoubtedly interesting, what will be, will be.
With all the conflicting information coming from the different sides, despite everything said and done to convince them one way or the other, most ordinary Scotsmen/women will vote with their hearts, not with their brains. That's politics.

trevorw2539 wrote:-
That's the problem with this forum. TOO serious.

Maybe you’ve not been looking in the right places:-
 
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t319-favourite-tweets
 
You’ve already been to these threads:-
 
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t37-favourite-jokes
 
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t35-favourite-one-liners
 
I agree with you that most Scots will vote with their hearts, no doubt because the arguments and statistics for and against independence are both complicated and contradictory. However, I don’t agree that we are too serious about politics, it is serious. (Maybe you’re too serious about religion?) The UK currently has the cruellest, most right-wing and most ideologically-driven government in living memory, hell-bent on abolishing the welfare state and the NHS and privatising everything in sight. Now we have secret trials, where we don’t know who is in the dock and what they are charged with, and we won’t even be told the verdicts. That is serious, and if you don’t treat it as such we end up with the likes of Mugabe and Kim Jong-il.
 
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” (Plato)

The Star Chamber (Latin: Camera stellata) was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster from the late 15th century until 1641. It was made up of Privy Councillors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters. The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts would never convict them of their crimes.

Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy and courts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber

Ivan wrote:I don’t agree that we are too serious about politics, it is serious. (Maybe you’re too serious about religion?) The UK currently has the cruellest, most right-wing and most ideologically-driven government in living memory, hell-bent on abolishing the welfare state and the NHS and privatising everything in sight. Now we have secret trials, where we don’t know who is in the dock and what they are charged with, and we won’t even be told the verdicts. That is serious, and if you don’t treat it as such we end up with the likes of Mugabe and Kim Jong-il.
 
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” (Plato)

 
A rather loose distortion of part of The Republic. Socrates is saying in his discussion  that one of three factors that would make good men rule is the fear of being ruled by the bad.
 
With that I leave this discussion and move on to Religion. I am an agnostic, by the way. Given that religion is said by many to be the cause of most wars, death and destruction, perhaps it is more serious than politics.
And you think that everything should be open to the public gaze. Let's hope secrets revealed in some trials don't lead to the death of your family members. Let's have open trials with no secrets. Let's see little children in the dock rather than behind screens, victims of crimes names splashed across the papers, rape victims being exposed to the general public. Hooray for freedom.

trevorw2539 wrote:That's the problem with this forum. TOO serious.

There's a mild whiff of 'anal vortex' about it at times.

Beware the tightening sphincter.   

How can the UK possibly be doomed when we are blessed with contributors with abilities to provide such graphic commentary which goes to the class of the bottom - as opposed to the bottom of the class....    

trevor2539 wrote:-
With that I leave this discussion and move on to Religion.

If that's your way of trying to shut down the discussion (which, admittedly, has gone off thread), I’m afraid it won’t work. You make some contentious remarks and then don’t expect a response!

And you think that everything should be open to the public gaze. Let's hope secrets revealed in some trials don't lead to the death of your family members. Let's have open trials with no secrets. Let's see little children in the dock rather than behind screens, victims of crimes names splashed across the papers, rape victims being exposed to the general public. Hooray for freedom.

That’s a classic strawman argument, completely misrepresenting what I said. Of course I don’t want children in the dock (do you mean witness box?) rather than behind screens, or rape victims being named. Nowhere have I said that everything should be public.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act has, occasionally, been misused by the police, and if you trust this awful government, or any future one, to hold entirely secret trials “in our best interests”, you must be naïve. When your friends and neighbours start disappearing, you might wake up and realise this is another stage in the descent into fascism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10876499/Secret-terror-trial-is-assault-on-British-justice.html#source=refresh

The principle of open justice can be traced back to the Magna Carta of 1215. The irony is that justice secretary Chris Grayling thinks we should celebrate the 800th anniversary of its signing next year, while doing what he can to undermine what remains of it. However, if the Scots vote for independence in September, they can tell Grayling and the rest of the Tory scum what they can do with their secret courts and all their other vile policies.

In the meantime, kindly refrain from putting words into my mouth.

Of course I expected a response from you having been in 'conflict' with you before.
 
I acknowledge my error in not putting a question mark after everything, or at the end of the sentence.
 
The Magna Carta was signed in a completely different age than we have today. Principles may remain the same, practicalities don't. Judgements in open courts of the Magna Carta period would not reach much farther than the local area. Today evidence is worldwide within seconds of it being revealed. Evidence revealed in certain cases - terrorist - can have repercussions far and wide.
I agree that the open justice system is abused and should be limited to State security. But who is to judge when State Security is being threatened?
 
And of course the Tories 'vile practises' are your opinion from the far left. I agree with you on a few things, but by no means all.
 
As to the Scots - we will see. If they do vote for independence good luck to them. In my opinion they'll certainly need it in a few years time.
 
Still, that's only my opinion.  PIP forever. Ooops I forgot, it's not funny. 

trevor2539. I hope at least you appreciate your updated avatar. That's a recent photo of my Labour Party tulips!  

Ivan wrote:trevor2539. I hope at least you appreciate your updated avatar. That's a recent photo of my Labour Party tulips!  

Thanks, though I would have thought, from your point of view, a Digitalis would have been more appropriate for me.  

Hi Trevor, you are funny sometimes, no, delete that, you are funny all the time, and make sense with it. Seeing Ivan says you are a religious man, then go with god my friend, you will need all the help you can get. I have voted Labour all my life, but refuse to wear rose tinted glasses, I can still see the good, the bad and the ugly, not many can on this forum.  

It's an ill-wind which is worth two in the bush...       

Or 'are two winds in the bedroom are worse than one in a rosebed'.   

It's the way they tells 'em!   

Getting back on subject…..   
 
Barack Obama says he wants the UK to remain “united”. Whether this will help to swing voters behind the No campaign, or be regarded as unwanted foreign meddling, remains to be seen. Obama also said it was "hard to imagine" how Britain would benefit from being outside of the European Union.
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/obama-comes-out-against-scottish-independence

QUOTE: <>

Not at all difficult for some to imagine. Plenty of Tory supporters would welcome a return to Victorian values, including child-labour, the Work House for the work-shy, and a disgracefully belated acceptance of Enoch Powell as saviour.

oftenwrong wrote:QUOTE: <>

Not at all difficult for some to imagine.  Plenty of Tory supporters would welcome a return to Victorian values, including child-labour, the Work House for the work-shy, and a disgracefully belated acceptance of Enoch Powell as saviour.

Mere speculation. And I would speculate that most Tories among the rank and file just seek a prosperous UK, no profligate spending on the unnecessary - yes, like the hi-speed link. Debt is a fact of life, excessive debt is the bane of life. The one to whom you are in debt partly controls your life. No debt and you can use all your money your way. In debt and you have to pay, with interest, part of your income, like it or not. No party has the complete answer. We shall see next year what the public really think.

Work shy work houses. I speculate that most tax payers would go along with that.

Child labour? Ridiculous. The fact that school leaving is now 16, and Higher education is government policy, ensures that will not return.

A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.

Oh d... I was leaving this thread wasn't I.

trevor2539. Once Gove has achieved his ambition of fragmenting and privatising the state education system, the next logical move will be to charge pupils to go to school (which right-wing bigot David Starkey has long advocated). What then for your kids if you can't or won't pay? You cannot say that any practice "will not return"; as Tony Benn reminded us, each generation has to fight the same battles all over again.
 
It might be a good idea if you did move to another thread. This one is supposed to be about whether independence for Scotland is a good or bad thing. If it goes off topic again it will be locked.

If that's your way of trying to shut down the discussion (which, admittedly, has gone off thread), I’m afraid it won’t work.   

I'm orf.

No, it's my way of trying to keep threads on track, which we're expected to do by the site owners, Forumotion.com. I've no wish to shut down any discussions, just to move them to more appropriate places!  
 
 

trevorw2539 wrote:With all the conflicting information coming from the different sides, despite everything said and done to convince them one way or the other, most ordinary Scotsmen/women will vote with their hearts, not with their brains. That's politics.

 
I think that OW has got Salmond spot on trevorw2539 in his previous post, I have just spent the last week in a hospital here in Glasgow and it is worse than the NHS in England & Wales. Here in Scotland our NHS comes under the  Scottish gov't safe keeping (and that the biggest laugh yet) Salmond has got a cheek to talk about the state of Englands NHS.
 
The lack of good doctors and nurses is atrocious here in Scotland, and if Salmond cannot provide Scots with a good NHS while we are still within the Union of the UK what will things be like if Scots vote to leave the UK.   I had to get my family to bring in my own sheets from home as the cheap so-called cotton sheets the hospital gave me I would have been better lying on RAZOR BLADES.
 
To let you know I am no snob I prefer to sleep on flanette sheets which are not expensive but did help me to be comfortable while I had to stay in hospital. I will be letting the people of Scotland know exactly what state their NHS is in via TWITTER in the hope that they will vote NO on September 18th 2014. 

I'm hoping they vote NO, too.
I know it's not up to me, but I'd be really sad to see the end of the union

IMHO, the outcome of the Scottish referendum could have a greater long-term effect upon British politics than any "earthquake" from elsewhere.

There was a programme on Scottish TV last week OW and it said that Scameron would have to go to see the Queen to let her know that he had lost the United Kingdom as  Scotland (God Forbid) Scots had voted Yes to Independence.  Then he would be the man remembered for losing Scotland to the Nationalists. 

Scottish referendum: shared values matter more than where the border lies

Extracts from an article by Polly Toynbee:-

Absurd London unionists have warned that Scotland may lose the royal family. Goodness knows why the Scots want the royals, but if she can be Queen of Tuvalu she can probably continue as laird of Balmoral and Windsor. Other tintacks thrown in the road have been as unconvincing. The pound? Yes, of course a deal would have to be struck. Who knows, Scotland might join the euro some day or create its own currency: it has a positive balance of trade, while the rest of Britain doesn’t. The same goes for nonsense about pensions and the uncertain oil estimates.

Few things illustrate better how small-minded the modern Tory Party has become than its petty response to the Scotland question from those such as Boris Johnson, sabotaging the devo-max offer. Nasty, too, was the article by an ‘Economist’ editor in ‘The Sunday Times’ calling the Scots whingers who deserve “the tap turned off” if they vote yes, or to “shut up” if they vote no.

Could Scotland hack it alone? The answer is yes, though it might hurt. Among the most compelling yes voices is the group Common Weal. It paints a vision of escape from the dark world of Cameron’s atomised, state-shredding, welfare-destroying society. But the second question is whether the yes voters who have written off Westminster politics are right, and the answer is no. Social democrats are better together, confronting a common enemy – the forces of social injustice and social neglect – and convincing voters that more equality is better for all. Cameron’s party has not won an election for 22 years; it’s no time to give up on a British social democratic future.

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/19/scottish-referendum-values-border-tories-election-scots-british-social-democratic

Ivan I hope Polly Toynbee knows that if we are backed by the pound she may have to bail out the banks in Scotland if they got up to the same shenanigans as they did in 2008, what Scots do not seem to see is do they really think Davy boy would play fair with Scotland if we vote yes. After all the cuts he has given right across the UK I know I would not trust DC as far as I could throw him and that is not far.

I am hoping Scots vote NO on the 18th September I have family and friends in England, plus I can not trust Salmond I just can't put my finger on it I think with Salmond its all in the title he would have he would be First President of Scotland. He also strikes me as Scameron Mark11.

It probably hasn't been universally recognised yet that most English workers who expect to receive a company pension on retirement would at the moment receive payment from an Insurer based in Scotland.

That should focus the attention of a lot of people who think the Scots are entitled to do as they think fit, without interference.

Salmond and Darling re-match tonight on BBC1 in Scotland and BBC2 elsewhere. NHS likely to be a topic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28921754

My door will be locked phone off the hook from 8.30pm OW, I am hoping that Darling wipes the floor with Salmond again this time as he did the last Independence debate.

I do not know if the people in the UK know what Salmond wants the Westminister gov't to do if Scots vote yes, he wants to keep the £ but also wants the BoE to be the bank of last resort, which would mean if the Scottish banks decided to do what they did in 2008 the BoE would bail us out as an Independent country. At the moment the polls stand as follows ; yes is 43% NO 54%.

Irrespective of the actual result from a Scottish referendum, the question having been raised will now be continuously asked - on both sides of the border - until there is a definitive answer to all the details coming under serious discussion for the first time in three hundred years.

The toothpaste cannot be put back into the tube, and the UK (and/or "rest of UK") world is henceforth transformed.

The point is OW Salmond will not answer questions the People of Scotland need answered so they can make a decision based on what they know as fact, but Salmond just says vote yes and he will negoiate with the Westminister gov't.

Does he really think that Davy boy will be feeling bountifull towards the Scots after he will have to go and tell the Queen under his gov't he has lost part of the UK, plus it will not look that great on his CV in fact it could finish his political career.

If the Tory Party had still been a truly British party, rather than just a southern England shire party, the momentum for Scottish independence could have been contained more easily. Yes, there is devolution, but being under the authority of a Westminster party which has only one MP in Scotland seems undemocratic and is a powerful argument for leaving the union.

On the other hand, the idea of an independent Scotland keeping the same currency as what would be left of the UK seems daft, as it would subject the Scots to decisions made by the Treasury in London. As Gordon Brown explained, that would in effect make Scotland a UK colony.

I’m glad I don’t live in Scotland and need to make a decision on how to vote on this one.  

I too am glad not to live in Scotland, but only for reasons of climate. It's a fascinating Country, with genuinely friendly people, and a refreshingly honest belief in the worth of the individual.

If the Scots choose independence, they should of course have it, with my blessing - but needn't expect any favours from this side of the equation.

IVAN & OW I would like both of your opinions on what I think is the reason behind Salmonds wanting a Currency Union with the UK. I think Salmonds deperation is he knows what he has been promising the people of Scotland will be impossible to keep, so if he gets a Currency Union with the UK and us Scots start complaining that he is not keeping the promises he made before the 18th September he will be able to put the blame on Westminister just like the Tories have done to the Labour party.

Would be gratefull for your opinion on my theory from both of you Thanks.