Scotland's independence.

[Invictus_88]

Tsamikayu

Sometimes I feel annoyed because, since we are ultimately lead by whoever's Prime Minister, we can be lead into things we don't agree with. If Scotland (or Ireland, or Wales) doesn't agree with something England wants, we can't seem to do anything about it. We can't distance ourselves.

Except that the PM is elected by Britain rather than England, so it's never Scotland being drawn into something England wants, but something that Britain (ostensibly) wants. As is Blarite policy has ever had anything to do with what the electorate wants!

Further, if only England voted, and Scotland, NI and Wales were independent, then the tories would have won every election in the last fifty years.  

[Shadow of an Illusion]

Invictus_88

Lemmie

and_solo_said

Deo_Machina

Bribery?

Its how you get companies to move to an undesirable area. You give them money and tax benefits. Its how the regenerated Sheffield.

So Scotland is undesirable?

EDIT: For that matter, is Sheffield also undesirable?

Well, for businesses, yes they are. Though less so now with Sheffield though, I believe.

They are a long way from London/The South, and in areas of some poverty. Graduates tend to prefer working in the south too, and the further a place is from London the more incentives you have to offer to get graduate employees and management.

It's not impossible to do, of course, but from the perspective of industry it seems that these places are to a degree undesirable. I could reference here the fuss kicked up by Civil Service when various departments were moved from Central London to South Wales and the north.

A bonnie place to bank

Last I heard as many graduates moved from Scotland as too Scotland.  

[Tsamikayu]

Invictus_88

Tsamikayu

Sometimes I feel annoyed because, since we are ultimately lead by whoever's Prime Minister, we can be lead into things we don't agree with. If Scotland (or Ireland, or Wales) doesn't agree with something England wants, we can't seem to do anything about it. We can't distance ourselves.

Except that the PM is elected by Britain rather than England, so it's never Scotland being drawn into something England wants, but something that Britain (ostensibly) wants. As is Blarite policy has ever had anything to do with what the electorate wants!

Further, if only England voted, and Scotland, NI and Wales were independent, then the tories would have won every election in the last fifty years.

The tories would have won in England, or everywhere (if we were all independant)?  

[Invictus_88]

Tsamikayu

Invictus_88

Tsamikayu

Sometimes I feel annoyed because, since we are ultimately lead by whoever's Prime Minister, we can be lead into things we don't agree with. If Scotland (or Ireland, or Wales) doesn't agree with something England wants, we can't seem to do anything about it. We can't distance ourselves.

Except that the PM is elected by Britain rather than England, so it's never Scotland being drawn into something England wants, but something that Britain (ostensibly) wants. As is Blarite policy has ever had anything to do with what the electorate wants!

Further, if only England voted, and Scotland, NI and Wales were independent, then the tories would have won every election in the last fifty years.

The tories would have won in England, or everywhere (if we were all independant)?

If it weren't for those strange socialist types up in Scotland and out in Wales, the Tories would win every time.

So actually, you're getting your way, and we're getting your policy shoved down our necks.  

[Sir Chicken of England]

and_solo_said

No, it wouldn't last five minutes. Its too remote to attract business without major government...bribery, effectively.

Exactly. Scottland is better off part of the UK. They have no future alone.  

[ficklefiend]

Sir Chicken of England

and_solo_said

No, it wouldn't last five minutes. Its too remote to attract business without major government...bribery, effectively.

Exactly. Scottland is better off part of the UK. They have no future alone.

One t, watch it sonny jim.

I don't know enough about the economy and such to understand whether we could manage it or not (you do hear a lot of late night talkie tv peoples saying yes) but I think regardless, it would be less interesting to be seperate.  

[Boolean Julian]

and_solo_said

Deo_Machina

Bribery?

Its how you get companies to move to an undesirable area. You give them money and tax benefits. Its how the regenerated Sheffield.

That's not bribery, Owen.  

[Invictus_88]

ficklefiend

Sir Chicken of England

and_solo_said

No, it wouldn't last five minutes. Its too remote to attract business without major government...bribery, effectively.

Exactly. Scottland is better off part of the UK. They have no future alone.

One t, watch it sonny jim.

I don't know enough about the economy and such to understand whether we could manage it or not (you do hear a lot of late night talkie tv peoples saying yes) but I think regardless, it would be less interesting to be seperate.

Essentially, your country runs at a massive deficit and your generous social projects are bankrolled by English tax money.

To avoid a famine, you'd have to instantly boost your economy by something like 10% or £11.2billion, or...if you have all profit from the North Sea oil (very unlikely, possibly impossible), by about 5% or £6.2bn.[1]

To put those figures into perspective, the war in Afghanistan has cost £4bn between 2002 and 2006[2]. Or for another parallel, Iraq has cost the UK £3.1bn[3] since the start. Scotland would have to summon this profit seemingly ex nihilo if they are to avoid total social meltdown, famine and emergency aid.

I'm not going to stop you demanding your independence, but you do so at your own risk, and I hope you will have to face the consequenses. The remaining UK countries should not be expected to pay for the results of an ill-concieved Scottish independence.  

[Sir Chicken of England]

ficklefiend

Sir Chicken of England

and_solo_said

No, it wouldn't last five minutes. Its too remote to attract business without major government...bribery, effectively.

Exactly. Scottland is better off part of the UK. They have no future alone.

One t, watch it sonny jim.

I don't know enough about the economy and such to understand whether we could manage it or not (you do hear a lot of late night talkie tv peoples saying yes) but I think regardless, it would be less interesting to be seperate.

Whether it is iteresting or not doesn't matter. I'm saying Scotland doesn't have the resources as well as many other governmental requirements. Besides, the rest of the UK wouldn't let it seperate.  

[Boolean Julian]

Sir Chicken of England

ficklefiend

Sir Chicken of England

and_solo_said

No, it wouldn't last five minutes. Its too remote to attract business without major government...bribery, effectively.

Exactly. Scottland is better off part of the UK. They have no future alone.

One t, watch it sonny jim.

I don't know enough about the economy and such to understand whether we could manage it or not (you do hear a lot of late night talkie tv peoples saying yes) but I think regardless, it would be less interesting to be seperate.

Whether it is iteresting or not doesn't matter. I'm saying Scotland doesn't have the resources as well as many other governmental requirements. Besides, the rest of the UK wouldn't let it seperate.

I'm not sure about the last bit. If the Scottish government wanted separation, and there was a referendum showing the majority of the Scottish public wanted it, I don't think it would be possible for England to prevent seperation. That would be imperalism.  

[Shadow of an Illusion]

Invictus_88

ficklefiend

Sir Chicken of England

and_solo_said

No, it wouldn't last five minutes. Its too remote to attract business without major government...bribery, effectively.

Exactly. Scottland is better off part of the UK. They have no future alone.

One t, watch it sonny jim.

I don't know enough about the economy and such to understand whether we could manage it or not (you do hear a lot of late night talkie tv peoples saying yes) but I think regardless, it would be less interesting to be seperate.

Essentially, your country runs at a massive deficit and your generous social projects are bankrolled by English tax money.

To avoid a famine, you'd have to instantly boost your economy by something like 10% or £11.2billion, or...if you have all profit from the North Sea oil (very unlikely, possibly impossible), by about 5% or £6.2bn.[1]

To put those figures into perspective, the war in Afghanistan has cost £4bn between 2002 and 2006[2]. Or for another parallel, Iraq has cost the UK £3.1bn[3] since the start. Scotland would have to summon this profit seemingly ex nihilo if they are to avoid total social meltdown, famine and emergency aid.

I'm not going to stop you demanding your independence, but you do so at your own risk, and I hope you will have to face the consequenses. The remaining UK countries should not be expected to pay for the results of an ill-concieved Scottish independence.

While our social projects have money syphoned off for London projects.
Goes both ways.
Did you mean to link to something about the SOCA? I can't see any relation to what you're writing about.
Anyway, oil was sooo last century.

I don't agree with you. I'm pretty sure Scotland could stand on it's own.
I quite like having the queen on our stamps and ficklefiend is right, it is more interesting.

At the moment I think there's more English folk wanting to seperate than Scottish folk. At least they're being pretty vocal about it. I'm not sure if it's just about Gorden Brown being Scottish. (If so, Blair was born in Scotland, spent a significant portion of his childhood in Scotland and went to school in Scotland.)  

[Invictus_88]

ice_illusion

Invictus_88

ficklefiend

Sir Chicken of England

and_solo_said

No, it wouldn't last five minutes. Its too remote to attract business without major government...bribery, effectively.

Exactly. Scottland is better off part of the UK. They have no future alone.

One t, watch it sonny jim.

I don't know enough about the economy and such to understand whether we could manage it or not (you do hear a lot of late night talkie tv peoples saying yes) but I think regardless, it would be less interesting to be seperate.

Essentially, your country runs at a massive deficit and your generous social projects are bankrolled by English tax money.

To avoid a famine, you'd have to instantly boost your economy by something like 10% or £11.2billion, or...if you have all profit from the North Sea oil (very unlikely, possibly impossible), by about 5% or £6.2bn.[1]

To put those figures into perspective, the war in Afghanistan has cost £4bn between 2002 and 2006[2]. Or for another parallel, Iraq has cost the UK £3.1bn[3] since the start. Scotland would have to summon this profit seemingly ex nihilo if they are to avoid total social meltdown, famine and emergency aid.

I'm not going to stop you demanding your independence, but you do so at your own risk, and I hope you will have to face the consequenses. The remaining UK countries should not be expected to pay for the results of an ill-concieved Scottish independence.

While our social projects have money syphoned off for London projects.
Goes both ways.
Did you mean to link to something about the SOCA? I can't see any relation to what you're writing about.
Anyway, oil was sooo last century.

I don't agree with you. I'm pretty sure Scotland could stand on it's own.
I quite like having the queen on our stamps and ficklefiend is right, it is more interesting.

At the moment I think there's more English folk wanting to seperate than Scottish folk. At least they're being pretty vocal about it. I'm not sure if it's just about Gorden Brown being Scottish. (If so, Blair was born in Scotland, spent a significant portion of his childhood in Scotland and went to school in Scotland.)

(SOCA, damn. The link is the same but the site has changed the article attached to it. I'll try to relocate it for you. Edit: Found an equivalent, all the [1] links are now updated.)

How does the money go both ways in any real sense? It doubtless does, but England pays more in tax than it gains in support, the south pays massively more than it gains in support, and Scotland drains a lot more in support than it pays in tax. This being the case, in an instance of separation, Scotland would really feel the bite of isolation and England would be far richer. It would be as if for one year at least, our economic growth exceeded even that of China, and with negligible extra expenditure.

Oil, far from being last century, is becoming the 'golden commodity' of the age, and that situation will only grow greater as world supplies deplete and governments refuse to support widespread renewable energy enterprises.

I break in the Union is, in my view, bad for everyone. Everyone. However we've no right to stop Scotland leaving if it wishes, we only have an obligation to make sure they know what they'd be letting themselves in for.

It seems as if my point still stands. How would anyone benefit from Scottish independence, except perhaps the English?  

[Shadow of an Illusion]

Invictus_88

ice_illusion

Invictus_88

Essentially, your country runs at a massive deficit and your generous social projects are bankrolled by English tax money.

To avoid a famine, you'd have to instantly boost your economy by something like 10% or £11.2billion, or...if you have all profit from the North Sea oil (very unlikely, possibly impossible), by about 5% or £6.2bn.[1]

To put those figures into perspective, the war in Afghanistan has cost £4bn between 2002 and 2006[2]. Or for another parallel, Iraq has cost the UK £3.1bn[3] since the start. Scotland would have to summon this profit seemingly ex nihilo if they are to avoid total social meltdown, famine and emergency aid.

I'm not going to stop you demanding your independence, but you do so at your own risk, and I hope you will have to face the consequenses. The remaining UK countries should not be expected to pay for the results of an ill-concieved Scottish independence.

While our social projects have money syphoned off for London projects.
Goes both ways.
Did you mean to link to something about the SOCA? I can't see any relation to what you're writing about.
Anyway, oil was sooo last century.

I don't agree with you. I'm pretty sure Scotland could stand on it's own.
I quite like having the queen on our stamps and ficklefiend is right, it is more interesting.

At the moment I think there's more English folk wanting to seperate than Scottish folk. At least they're being pretty vocal about it. I'm not sure if it's just about Gorden Brown being Scottish. (If so, Blair was born in Scotland, spent a significant portion of his childhood in Scotland and went to school in Scotland.)

(SOCA, damn. The link is the same but the site has changed the article attached to it. I'll try to relocate it for you. Edit: Found an equivalent, all the [1] links are now updated.)

How does the money go both ways in any real sense? It doubtless does, but England pays more in tax than it gains in support, the south pays massively more than it gains in support, and Scotland drains a lot more in support than it pays in tax. This being the case, in an instance of separation, Scotland would really feel the bite of isolation and England would be far richer. It would be as if for one year at least, our economic growth exceeded even that of China, and with negligible extra expenditure.

Oil, far from being last century, is becoming the 'golden commodity' of the age, and that situation will only grow greater as world supplies deplete and governments refuse to support widespread renewable energy enterprises.

I break in the Union is, in my view, bad for everyone. Everyone. However we've no right to stop Scotland leaving if it wishes, we only have an obligation to make sure they know what they'd be letting themselves in for.

It seems as if my point still stands. How would anyone benefit from Scottish independence, except perhaps the English?

The South has a very high population density. You need a bit of land to support that many people. You need more than money to survive. We have to import enough food from overseas already.

The oil thing was meant to be lighthearted, but there is a huge potential market for renewables. The Scottish Exec does seem more open to widespread renewable energy enterprises than the UK as a whole.
Scotland already uses much more renewable/alternative energy than England. That's not really England's fault, we have more resources potentially available than most (maybe even all?) European countries in respect to wind, wave and tidal. Hydro isn't half bad either but that's pretty much at capacity. 12% of Scotlands energy is hydro, this week much more since half our power stations are out. We might only just be managing on half the electricity but that still means we export a lot of energy to England (and apperently the nation grid doesn't work the other way, which seems weird to me but that's what the Scotsman paper is saying).


And I didn't say your point didn't stand (if your point is that Scotland and England should stay Britain), I agree.


After thought: When was breaking up ever about economy anyway? It's about doing things the way that works for us, running a country to Scottish values, independance and a bit of history and anarchy.  

[Invictus_88]

ice_illusion

Invictus_88

ice_illusion

Invictus_88

Essentially, your country runs at a massive deficit and your generous social projects are bankrolled by English tax money.

To avoid a famine, you'd have to instantly boost your economy by something like 10% or £11.2billion, or...if you have all profit from the North Sea oil (very unlikely, possibly impossible), by about 5% or £6.2bn.[1]

To put those figures into perspective, the war in Afghanistan has cost £4bn between 2002 and 2006[2]. Or for another parallel, Iraq has cost the UK £3.1bn[3] since the start. Scotland would have to summon this profit seemingly ex nihilo if they are to avoid total social meltdown, famine and emergency aid.

I'm not going to stop you demanding your independence, but you do so at your own risk, and I hope you will have to face the consequenses. The remaining UK countries should not be expected to pay for the results of an ill-concieved Scottish independence.

While our social projects have money syphoned off for London projects.
Goes both ways.
Did you mean to link to something about the SOCA? I can't see any relation to what you're writing about.
Anyway, oil was sooo last century.

I don't agree with you. I'm pretty sure Scotland could stand on it's own.
I quite like having the queen on our stamps and ficklefiend is right, it is more interesting.

At the moment I think there's more English folk wanting to seperate than Scottish folk. At least they're being pretty vocal about it. I'm not sure if it's just about Gorden Brown being Scottish. (If so, Blair was born in Scotland, spent a significant portion of his childhood in Scotland and went to school in Scotland.)

(SOCA, damn. The link is the same but the site has changed the article attached to it. I'll try to relocate it for you. Edit: Found an equivalent, all the [1] links are now updated.)

How does the money go both ways in any real sense? It doubtless does, but England pays more in tax than it gains in support, the south pays massively more than it gains in support, and Scotland drains a lot more in support than it pays in tax. This being the case, in an instance of separation, Scotland would really feel the bite of isolation and England would be far richer. It would be as if for one year at least, our economic growth exceeded even that of China, and with negligible extra expenditure.

Oil, far from being last century, is becoming the 'golden commodity' of the age, and that situation will only grow greater as world supplies deplete and governments refuse to support widespread renewable energy enterprises.

I break in the Union is, in my view, bad for everyone. Everyone. However we've no right to stop Scotland leaving if it wishes, we only have an obligation to make sure they know what they'd be letting themselves in for.

It seems as if my point still stands. How would anyone benefit from Scottish independence, except perhaps the English?

The South has a very high population density. You need a bit of land to support that many people. You need more than money to survive. We have to import enough food from overseas already.

The oil thing was meant to be lighthearted, but there is a huge potential market for renewables. The Scottish Exec does seem more open to widespread renewable energy enterprises than the UK as a whole.
Scotland already uses much more renewable/alternative energy than England. That's not really England's fault, we have more resources potentially available than most (maybe even all?) European countries in respect to wind, wave and tidal. Hydro isn't half bad either but that's pretty much at capacity. 12% of Scotlands energy is hydro, this week much more since half our power stations are out. We might only just be managing on half the electricity but that still means we export a lot of energy to England (and apperently the nation grid doesn't work the other way, which seems weird to me but that's what the Scotsman paper is saying).


And I didn't say your point didn't stand (if your point is that Scotland and England should stay Britain), I agree.


After thought: When was breaking up ever about economy anyway? It's about doing things the way that works for us, running a country to Scottish values, independance and a bit of history and anarchy.

I think then really we agree.

Westminster should have less power, but the UK should remain united.

I think it would be best resolved by ceding more power to local government though, than by this fad for Welsh and Scottish parliaments.

Unfortunately, those ill-conceived projects have been so expensive that people are unlikely to see sense and change their mind.  

[SiX sHaDes oF hElL]

I think Scottish people have a very strong sense of their identity (Welsh people too), which English people don't have as much. They talk about independence, but I don't think it's practical. Their main income is from whisky.
However, Ireland is separate and is actually doing really well now. So if Scotland went to the EU, maybe they would too?