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

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.

I'm flattered that anyone should think I know anything about Scottish politics, Redflag, and I hope Ivan may have something sensible to say. My impression is that Alex Salmond is a very shrewd and charismatic leader, but has embarked upon the path of INDEPENDENCE rather in the same way that a couple may decide "let's have a baby" without thinking through the implications. Sure, he's a fine debater, but it became evident that he is flying by the seat of his pants, with no detailed master-plan or anything like it. It's an attempt to squeeze a better deal out of Westminster, and why shouldn't he try? But whatever the outcome when the music stops, it will only be what London has chosen to concede.

I love Scotland and the Scots, but they are sufficiently volatile and headstrong to make an emotional - and bad- decision.

If the vote is to be 'no' , my guess is that it will be a pretty close squeak...

I can’t claim to be well versed in Scottish politics, but I do agree with oftenwrong that plans for independence haven’t been well thought through by Salmond and the SNP. I know they argue that the pound belongs to them just as much as the English, but if the principal aim of your party is to break away from the rest of the United Kingdom, wouldn’t you want your own new currency for a new nation?

And wouldn’t you want your own new head of state? After all, if you don’t want to be under the authority of a government in London, why continue with a hereditary monarchy which is based there? If it’s undemocratic to fall under the power of a party which has only one MP in your country, why accept an unelected head of state?  

I can’t see how Scotland could keep the pound and become truly independent. Decisions made by the Bank of England and the Treasury in London determine the value of the currency. Salmond should either be offering the Scots a new currency or he should have negotiated from Brussels a cast-iron guarantee that an independent Scotland would be fast-tracked into the eurozone.

Thank you both Ivan & OW, I think you have both said my theory is sort of spot on as far as Salmond is concerned it did worry me the desperation from the SNP gov't to get Scots to vote yes yet wanted a Currency Union with the UK but wanted a divorce the UK maybe what they were trying to do was have their cake and eat it.

It will be of complete indifference to everyone that Pease Pottage Conservative Club sent a delegation to Edinburgh yesterday to make their views known.

An account of the trip may well appear shortly in the appropriate location...

I wonder if the esteemed burgesses of Pease Pottage will receive as warm a welcome as that accorded to Nigel Farago - requiring as he did a Police Escort to facilitate his departure.

Anyone from Peas Pottage will get the "Bums Rush" here in Scotland, Cameron is due here for dinner with the CBI but doubt if the media will announce it because there would be people around to tell Cameron Exactly Where to Go if he was really unlucky he may be given a "Glasgow Kiss".

I fancied a day in Edinburgh yesterday and took a trip on the 8am from Kings Cross ( book early and don't buy a walk-up ticket - they are £416 return from London!).

Most of the folk on the train were American and I heard mainly English accents wherever I went - from the Pasty Shop on Waverley Station to the ice-cream kiosk in Princes Street Gardens and in between.

Have all the Scots left...?

If there is a Yes vote I will be another one that will leave PH, and there could be hordes following me because I think that Salmond is Cameron Mark II.

We may have to throw out the Italians first...! 

bobby wrote:If there is  yes vote, what makes you think we want another load of foreigners in England. You would be welcome as if my memory serves, I believe you are English already.

Your spot on bobby I was born in Newcastle upon tyne and lived there until I was around 13 years when my Mum married a Scotsman which was my first foray into Scotland, I later went to London on the account there was no work here in Scotland, where I met and married my partner who was Scottish and have been here too many years to count. I still have close family living in Newcastle and other parts of England plus all of my ancestors since 1837 come from that area (traced my family tree a few years ago).

"Oh, ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road,
and I'll get to Scotland afore ye.

But after the Salmonella referendum all the rules will have changed, and all bets are off.

Understand that.

bobby wrote:If there is  yes vote, what makes you think we want another load of foreigners in England. You would be welcome as if my memory serves, I believe you are English already.

Perhaps you could use a very large herd of rich English resident in 'Wales'? They are mostly well past their best, but fairly rich.

bobby wrote:A very good mate of mine who retired 18 months ago has recently moved to North Wales, purely because he can get much more property for his pound.

Imperialism lives!

What an unfortunate photo!  


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwMPUbcCMAA1-8J.jpg

Depends how you look at it, I suppose

IVAN Your picture is spot on and so is the wording, the majority of Scots know that the SNP are using "Braveheart" movie to get people to vote yes but they will be in for a very nasty shock if Scotland votes yes.

Who is currently responsible for the Railway line in Scotland? Who would be responsible if independence is voted for?
What happens to the defense establishments, personnel and equipment in Scotland if independence is voted for?
All they seem to have been arguing about is the Pound..

The proposal seems to be a Scotland totally dependent upon smoked salmon, whisky and Harris tweed for income.  Nobody thinks North Sea Oil will last for ever, but don't any educated Scots remember the Darién fiasco?

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

Whatever Scotland decides, the old order is dead and buried

From an article by Owen Jones:-

Most Brits voted against Thatcherism, but the Scots – like the northern English – voted more passionately against, and yet suffered some of the worst consequences. Middle-income skilled jobs were stripped from the economy, often in favour of service sector jobs with lower pay, fewer rights and less security. The mass sell-off of council housing left many working class communities bereft of affordable homes for their children. The slashing of taxes on the rich in favour of indirect taxes, the crippling of trade unions, mass privatisation and the relentless promotion of the City, all ensured that inequality levels exploded.

What appeals to me is the traditions shared by Scottish, English and Welsh people as they confronted, fought and defeated the powerful. Our common enemies remain economy-trashing financiers and poverty-paying bosses, whether they speak in an Edinburgh lilt or with the Queen’s English.

To most Scots, living under a Tory-led government seems absurd, like being forced to live under a hostile foreign occupying force. On the ballot paper, yes seems to read “never live under a Tory government ever again”. Even if it is a close no, Scotland will be gone within a decade unless there is dramatic change: only the over-65s firmly oppose independence. The old order is dead, whatever happens. A new federal constitutional order – with sweeping devolution to the English regions and Wales, and to Scotland if it remains – must be built.

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/07/scotland-decides-union-tories

Underneath that article by Owen Jones, there are a number of reader comments from one ‘Frank Thomas’. Here are some extracts from his posts:-

"The Thatcherites have destroyed the UK. If Scotland votes Yes it will show the bankruptcy of the policy of governing the UK for the benefit of the City of London and the homeowners in the South East living it up on their housing equity, at the expense of a proper industrial and economic strategy which works for the whole country.

Scottish independence would be the logical outcome of Thatcherism. You cannot both believe in the idea of country at the same time as rejecting the idea of society, that there is a common bond, that we should all share in the national wealth.

It's an article of faith amongst right-wingers that we could not continue to subsidise nationalised firms or heavy industry, but I've never understood the economic argument. Throwing millions of productive workers on the dole, simply to destroy the political power of the unions, seemed like a vindictive act, revenge for the miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974. In economic terms, we then had millions of families paying nothing into the economy and only taking sums out.

Once you start importing coal from Poland to undercut British miners, or outsourcing shipbuilding contracts to South Korea to undercut your compatriots on the Clyde or the Tyne, you've given up on the idea of nation. You might think that makes sense and is the most pragmatic way of doing business in the modern world. Fine if you do, but then you can't be surprised if people say that the idea of national unity, and of the ties that bound the UK together, are no longer pragmatic in the modern world."

Is the United Kingdom doomed?

Well, yes, apparently. The Jocks have apparently decided to stew in their own juice.

And after four years of Tory Rule, who can blame them?

Thanks OW I am glad someone understands why some Scots will vote yes in the referendum, but I do not think that is a good enough reason to vote yes plus I do not want to leave my family & friends to the nastiness of the Tories & just maybe Ukip (what a bad thought that is) At the moment I am watching and listening to Ed Miliband talking to a packed room somewhere in Glasgow he is trying to get the "Don't Know's" to vote No so we can keep the Union together.

I used to rather like Salmond. I now feel he has become somewhat pompous and - not to put too fine a point on it - he needs a quick kick in the goolies.

He will become even more insufferable should he get his 'yes' vote. I have a feeling that , in time, the Scots would regret their decision to feed his ego and that of his schoolgirl sidekick...

Certainly little evidence there of the stuff from which National Heroes are made. Only naked opportunism, and we can get all anybody might want of that from Westminster.

The Scots may well be 'swapping their fiddle for a gew gaw' as my grandma said, if they vote 'yes'

Granny is almost always right.

Except Salmond's, if, as I suspect, she imbued in him a sense of petty nationalism based upon fanciful stories of English domination and desire to cruelly subjugate the Scots.

Either that, or he was frightened by a rogue haggis...

astradt1 wrote:Who is currently responsible for the Railway line in Scotland? Who would be responsible if independence is voted for?
What happens to the defense establishments, personnel  and equipment in Scotland if independence is voted for?
All they seem to have been arguing about is the Pound..

The same questions most Scots have astradt1 but can not get the answer too from Salmond, the reason the NO campaign are going on about the £ is all three parties have told Salmond there will be currency union and yet Salmond keeps saying they will once we vote for Independence, even if the UK did give Scotland a currency union we would not be Independent because all our finances would be controlled by a foreign country. To be honest Salmond thinks he can walk into No10 and blackmail the gov't by saying if we do not get a currencey union he will not pay any of the debt, stupid A**E then nobody in this world would do business with Scotland after that or if they did we would get charged Wonga rates for borrowing money.

There is a lot of unanswered questions and Salmond will not can not answer that is one of the things that has brought me to the conclusion to vote NO, the other is one is in his white paper of 650 pages published last November has no increase in taxes for the higher paid but does have a cut of 3p in the Corporation tax for the big businesses that avoid and evade tax at every turn. Which in my eyes they are using the Tory trickle down economics which you and I and all on this forum know it does not work as the Tories have done this already, that is why Salmond is known as the Tartan Tory.

Phil Hornby wrote:I used to rather like Salmond. I now feel he has become somewhat pompous and  - not to put too fine a point on it - he needs a quick kick in the goolies.

He will become even more insufferable should he get his 'yes' vote. I have a feeling that , in time, the Scots would regret their decision to feed his ego and that of his schoolgirl sidekick...

I have regretted it since 2011 when the SNP came to power, I did not vote for an SNP gov't in Scotland but that is the way the vote went which means Scottish Labour MUST lift there game here in Scotland or this referendum question will keep cropping up. PH all Salmond and his hench MPs are is Tartan Tories the only tax he is going to deliver to Scots is a cut of 3p in Corporation tax for big businesses.

Kick Salmond rushes and friends out then at the elections.

 

Doomed ? Of course not. Look what arrived at the Pease Pottage Conservative Club today...

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                   From the Presidential Castle of Baron Salmond, Lord of the Isles ,
                                       Father of the Nation and General Know-all

( don’t let this letter head out too early, or people will get the right idea…)

Dear Mr Cameron
It has come to my attention that you and your Westminster friends have been peddling all manner of scare stories ahead of the Referendum Vote.
I wish to protest in my most puffed-up and arrogant manner about the suggestions that much of the vital business community of Scotland is opposed to a vote for independence. For example, I have it on very good authority that Angus McOffal – master butcher of Killiekrankie, proprietor of the General Stores and Holiday Lets ( no English)- has every intention of remaining north of the border under my rule ( subject to a regular order of a pound of venison and sawdust sausages from my good lady, the impending Baroness Boredstiff of Alastaircampelltown).
Furthermore, despite Treasury rumours, we have plenty of cash in the vaults to sustain this proud nation for several hours after the yoke of London rule has been removed from us.  None other than Mr Hamish Futterjee Singh of the Nationwide Building Society,  Drumnadrochit has assured me that he keeps up to £250 in the office till which can be accessed at a moment’s notice ( subject to receipt of identity, permission from Head Office in Bristol and four days’ notice of intended withdrawal) and that he carries upon his person a further substantial sum provided he hasn’t spent it on his lunchtime sandwich by the time I arrive.
I could doubtless go on and highlight many other shining examples of the ability of we Scots to sustain ourselves in isolation, but so far none of my staff have come up with anything, and strangely, many have asked for today off, in order to move to Carlisle. So let’s hear no more of your collection of well-argued and coherent arguments to spoil my dreams of political glory, which I have nurtured since I was a wee bairn and considered by the School Psychologist to be the boy most likely to have unattainable delusions of grandeur.

Yours ever ( well, until 2016 anyway),

A. Salmond

PS If it should all go wrong next week, how about that job for me you mentioned when we met at the Annual dissemblers’ Convention in Milton Keynes in 2007…?)


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From the well known army comedy Phil.
"we're doomed och aye we're doomed laddie"

Polarisation of opinion was always going to be the result of any referendum to which the answer is either Yes or No, but the division of Scots into one of two camps is starting to look ominous as choosing-day approaches. There are already hints of intimidating behaviour, which might well become civil commotion next Thursday and Friday.

Many countries, e.g. Turkey, shut all the pubs on a polling-day, and our friends in the North might do worse than follow that custom.

You have hit the nail on the head OW, it worries me that we will end up with a civil war no matter what the answer Scotland gives on the 18th September to be honest something like Northern Ireland.

Civil war if they shut the pubs, that is for sure.