Scottish Independance? Still on track?

junder

Fratton Fred wrote: »

They moved a steel factory from Glasgow to corby in the 60s or 70s and moved all the workers with it. to accomodate them, they built new estates, schools etc, so effectively they picked up a chunk of the Gorbals and moved it to Northants.



In holyrood it is the largest party, not sure about Westminster though.

Engalnd never occupied Scotland, in fact it was a Scottish king who inherited the englsih throne in the early 17th century, so you could argue Scotland has actually occupied England.

Still, I'm sure Hollywood's version of history is more enjoyable:D

thats pretty much what happened alright, nobody over the age of 50 has a english accent in corby, my girlfriends parents are both scottish for example

Dannyboy83

djpbarry wrote: »

The majority of Scottish voters did not vote for the SNP in the last general election.

djpbarry wrote: »

They "cleaned up" with about one thirdof the vote (only a fraction more than Labour), meaning that the majority of Scots voted for someone other than the SNP, yes?

Confused are we?
Sorry I've to get back to work, try read the links.

These may help:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/vote2007/scottish_parliment/html/region_99999.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/vote2007/maps/scot_constituencies/html/scot_constituencies_map.stm

For the first time in over 50 years, the Labour Party are no longer the largest party in Scotland. Given the negative campaign the media have bombarded the SNP with and considering how many seats they were behind after the last election, this result is nothing short of sensational.

Alex Salmond should be smiling like the proverbial Cheshire cat, given this result and in his own constituency of Gordon where he came from third place in the previous election to take it. But Salmond is too shrewd for that. He knows there are still a lot of politics to go under the bridge before he is rightly installed as First Minister of Scotland.

The result also saw the bigger parties re-establish themselves and saw the virtual disappearance of the smaller parties. Both the SSP and Solidarity paid the price for their bitter fall out and didn’t gain a seat. The parliament has possibly lost its greatest speaker in Tommy Sheridan. Global warming has taken its toll on the Green vote as this has been cut back to 2 MSPs.

But this election has belonged to one party and one party only. They have constantly been one step ahead of the rest throughout the campaign.

Step forward the SNP.

May I remind you I'm not a Scot?
No matter how much you dislike it, Scottish people appear to want to their independence, if not in the immediate future, then in the short term future.

Fratton Fred

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Confused are we?
Sorry I've to get back to work, try read the links.

These may help:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/vote2007/scottish_parliment/html/region_99999.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/vote2007/maps/scot_constituencies/html/scot_constituencies_map.stm

May I remind you I'm not a Scot?
No matter how much you dislike it, Scottish people appear to want to their independence, if not in the immediate future, then in the short term future.

approximately 33% of scottish people appear to want their independance.

Lifted from wikipedia

The SNP holds 47 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament but failed to gain the support of Scottish Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives as a result of its pro-Scottish Independence policy, preventing them from forming a majority government. The party also hold 2 of 7 Scottish seats in the European Parliament, 7 of 59 Scottish seats in the UK Parliament, and 364 of 1,224 Councillors in local government, helping form 12 out of 32 local administrations.

I think that is probably the more telling number.

Hardly a clean up is it?

Dannyboy83

Fratton Fred wrote: »

approximately 33% of scottish people appear to want their independance.

Lifted from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence#Political_parties

Fifty of the seats in the Scottish Parliament are held by pro-independence members, nearly 40% of the total. This comprises 47 Scottish National Party members, two Green members and Margo MacDonald, an independent politician.

I think that is probably the more telling number.

Consider this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a1xjp8tsOmHE&refer=europe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/25/glasgoweast.byelections3


this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1146086/David-Milibands-deceit-Guantanamo-Bay-torture-claims.html

this:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/03/17/alex-salmond-builds-massive-lead-over-wendy-alexander-at-the-polls-86908-20353628/

this:
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Trident-39increases-threat-of-nuclear.4943971.jp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7960466.stm

this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/25/glasgoweast.snp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/26/gordonbrown.labour2

this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/18/uk-recession-imf

Hardly a clean up is it?

Clearly a large percentage of the population are against independance.
There is a bigger percentage of the population who are pro-independance.

My opinion is that the financial crisis has sidelined their ambitions for a few years, but that it is temporary.

luckyfrank

Either way i think when the tories get back into power during the next gen election we'll see a huge spike in support for independence

Labour imo saved slowed the inevitable death of the union its defunct and serves no real purpose anymore

I ask you this if the UK never came into existence dont you all think the history of these isle's would have being a lot less bloody ?

magick

luckyfrank wrote: »

I ask you this if the UK never came into existence dont you all think the history of these isle's would have being a lot less bloody ?

I agree with this, personally the UK was only formed for England to watch its back, so that the French/Spainish etc..... wouldnt get a foothold and invade England, in a way the UK smaller states were like the satellite states of the USSR

Fratton Fred

So England and inevitably the rest of the British isles would have been invaded by the Spanish. Explain how that would have been less bloody?

luckyfrank

Fratton Fred wrote: »

So England and inevitably the rest of the British isles would have been invaded by the Spanish. Explain how that would have been less bloody?

The spanish were **** at invading a bunch of old faries they were

The irish never wanted to harm anyone if they were left alone they would not have allowed there territory to used for an attack on the english as it was they did because they were occupied

Dannyboy83

Fratton Fred wrote: »

So England and inevitably the rest of the British isles would have been invaded by the Spanish. Explain how that would have been less bloody?

My father...was Gordon Brown...and a PM.

And one night, one night he goes and invades Iraq and Afghanistan, puts nuclear weapons and power stations up North, bankrupts the British Economy and lets the Tories back in the door. Mommy makes Scotland independent to defend herself. He doesn't like this. Not. One. Bit.

Riddle101

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

My father...was Gordon Brown...and a PM.

And one night, one night he goes and invades Iraq and Afghanistan, puts nuclear weapons and power stations up North, bankrupts the British Economy and lets the Tories back in the door. Mommy makes Scotland independent to defend herself. He doesn't like this. Not. One. Bit.

Why So Serious?

Wasn't it Tony Blair that invaded Iraq and Afghanistan? surely Brown is just playing the referee to all that

A Dub in Glasgo

A lot of the guys I work with seem to be very patriotic Scottish and vote Labour. When I tell them that they are voting for a party that are Unionist and being Scottish means nothing internationally, they go all sheepish and say 'Ah but'....

Fratton Fred

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

My father...was Gordon Brown...and a PM.

And one night, one night he goes and invades Iraq and Afghanistan, puts nuclear weapons and power stations up North, bankrupts the British Economy and lets the Tories back in the door. Mommy makes Scotland independent to defend herself. He doesn't like this. Not. One. Bit.

There's no need to throw your toys out of your pram, no one is saying there isn't a growing independance movement in Scotland, but as myself and djbarry have pointed out, the majority of voters did not vote for pro independance parties. The Scots are not occupied, they never were, in fact they did quite a lot of colonising and occupying themselves. Scotland did very nicely out of the union but now the union doesn't mean much so there is no real need to keep it together. If the English were given the choice it would probably break up sooner rather than later, but no one is brave enough to ask them.

Dannyboy83

Freddie, its a joke bro, no toy throwing here.



RBS Boss's house got smashed up today apparently

The Edinburgh home of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin has been attacked by vandals.

Windows were smashed and a Mercedes S600 car parked in the driveway was vandalised.

A group angry at bank executives' pay contacted a newspaper claiming to be behind the early morning attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7962825.stm

Fratton Fred

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Freddie, its a joke bro, no toy throwing here.



RBS Boss's house got smashed up today apparently

Probably the same mob that will be in the Docklands next week for the G20 meeting.

Dannyboy83

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Probably the same mob that will be in the Docklands next week for the G20 meeting.

I don't blame them, Gordon Brown has nearly bankrupted the UK.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7526.html

The bailed out RBS alone has liabilities of £2 trillion, and a asset gap of at least £600 billion, therefore in a worse case scenario would require a huge amount of loans and guarantees far beyond the pin-pricks to date seen in the £90 billion to Northern Rock and £40 billion of Bradford and Bingley. The Bank of England is the lender of last resort so as to prevent bank runs, however what happens when the BoE is required to lend £5 trillion as a last resort? The answer is currency collapse followed by hyper inflation.

If the UK actually does go bankrupt, its gonna be very bad news for us too
http://www.cso.ie/statistics/botmaintrpartners.htm

Hookey

luckyfrank wrote: »

The spanish were **** at invading a bunch of old faries they were

The Spanish were some of the toughest soldiers in Europe for a long time. Take a look at the history of the Spanish Netherlands and the the Thirty Years War. The failure of the Armada was definitely against the run of play.

luckyfrank wrote: »

The irish never wanted to harm anyone if they were left alone they would not have allowed there territory to used for an attack on the english as it was they did because they were occupied

I'm assuming you're saying this with your tongue firmly in your cheek? Are you honestly saying that an unoccupied independent Ireland wouldn't have played the power politics game or (given its geographical location) the Empire game? I think that's a desperately naive viewpoint, especially when you throw in the religion issue. We'll never know for sure of course, but you only have to look at Scotland for an example of how things would have probably worked; alliances with catholic Spain and or France, and probably attempts at Empire/Colonisation like the Scots tried. Look at it this way, if Ireland didn't play those games, they would have been the only nation on western European seaboard not to, which seems unlikely.

djpbarry

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Confused are we?

Not at all. The majority of Scottish voters do not vote for the SNP. Right? I’m not sure why you’re throwing links all over the place?

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Fifty of the seats in the Scottish Parliament are held by pro-independence members, nearly 40% of the total.
…
Clearly a large percentage of the population are against independance.
There is a bigger percentage of the population who are pro-independance.

Hang on there now. Pro-independence MP’s are in the minority in the Scottish parliament and from this you deduce that a larger percentage of the Scottish population are pro-independence than are against independence? How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion?

luckyfrank wrote: »

The spanish were **** at invading a bunch of old faries they were

Were they indeed? You might explain how Spanish came to be the 3rd most spoken language in the world?

Bog Butter

Hookey wrote: »

I'm assuming you're saying this with your tongue firmly in your cheek? Are you honestly saying that an unoccupied independent Ireland wouldn't have played the power politics game or (given its geographical location) the Empire game?

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.php?id=3009

Donald Harman Akenson. If the Irish Ran the World: Montserrat, 1630-1730:

His thesis suggests that despite the fact that the Irish experienced English imperial oppression, when given the chance, they behaved no better as slave holders than their English neighbors. "Do unto others as they have done unto you!"

Dannyboy83

Intureesting artikul on Scutlond
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/17/europe/scots.php

Fratton Fred

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Intureesting artikul on Scutlond
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/17/europe/scots.php

That is good, i like that, especially this quote

"The real sleeping giant is not Scottish nationalism, but the English version," the Scottish writer Irvine Welsh said in The Financial Times last year. "Many people south of the border have reclaimed Englishness, as opposed to Britishness, as their post-imperial cultural identity. They may come to the point where they say to the sulking kid brother, 'We bought you a place of your own, so why are you always crashing on our couch?"

When Andy Murray came out with his "Anyone but England", I can just imagine his manager groaning and kissing goodbye to the cash cow that is the local support in England. My mates wife is passionate about tennis and was really excited that there was a new "Tim Henman" coming through, until he came out with that stupid comment. She can't stand him now and is firmly in the "Anyone but Murray" camp. It makes no difference that he is Scottish, he could be Welsh or Irish for that matter.

big b

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That is good, i like that, especially this quote



When Andy Murray came out with his "Anyone but England", I can just imagine his manager groaning and kissing goodbye to the cash cow that is the local support in England. My mates wife is passionate about tennis and was really excited that there was a new "Tim Henman" coming through, until he came out with that stupid comment. She can't stand him now and is firmly in the "Anyone but Murray" camp. It makes no difference that he is Scottish, he could be Welsh or Irish for that matter.

Not many would take the ramblings of Irvine Welsh too seriously though, outwith his occassionally rather witty novels.

I spent long enough living & working in Scotland to know that the feeling there is "aye, give us our independence now that you've had the best of the oil years" & many similar grievances. In fairness, it's hard to see only coincidence in the biggest cash cow ever starting to dry up and the English suddenly developing a taste for break-up of the union.
Another common theme being "they've had the oil, and now so many have sold their 2 bed flats in London & bought a big house up here that it's not a bargain anymore - we can't offer them anything now, so they tell us to f*ck off if we want to"
By the way - for every English tennis fan Murray lost, he probably gained another one in Scotland! People with no interest in the sport flocked towards him. In truth though, sporting rivalries & slagging are generally good natured.

Having waited this long, it makes sense for the Scots to wait a little longer before pushing for full independence. It would be a very different country today if the SNP of the 70's had gained power, but todays world is very different.The SNP surely paid dearly for being seen as Scottish Tories!

Fratton Fred

The man in the street couldn't care less about oil, what really pissed people off was the assaults on english people in Scotland for wearing England football shirts and the scots constant slagging off of the English.

After a while people in England started thinking hang on, what exactly do we get from this union thingy?

big b

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The man in the street couldn't care less about oil, what really pissed people off was the assaults on english people in Scotland for wearing England football shirts and the scots constant slagging off of the English.

After a while people in England started thinking hang on, what exactly do we get from this union thingy?

Well, they got to be assaulted for being English without needing their passports!:D

Seriously though, attacks like that are repugnant. Although I'm sure a Scotsman or two living in England may have suffered a similar fate over the years????
Regarding the slagging, tiresome as it may be, if there are going to be countless jokes about tight Scots, thick Paddys,Paki corner shop owners,any number of racial stereotypes, there's a large degree of hypocrisy if they can't take a bit back in return. But yeah, break up the union cos Andy Murray wore a Columbia shirt!:rolleyes:

The man in the street may not care about oil, but he knows where a hell of a lot of money came from, the last 35 years or so. The many who made a direct living out of it more so.The governments much more so again. You'd have a hard job convincing a lot of people that the North Sea passing "peak oil" & the sudden interest in "granting Scotland independence" aren't inexorably linked.

Fratton Fred

big b wrote: »

Well, they got to be assaulted for being English without needing their passports!:D

Seriously though, attacks like that are repugnant. Although I'm sure a Scotsman or two living in England may have suffered a similar fate over the years????
Regarding the slagging, tiresome as it may be, if there are going to be countless jokes about tight Scots, thick Paddys,Paki corner shop owners,any number of racial stereotypes, there's a large degree of hypocrisy if they can't take a bit back in return. But yeah, break up the union cos Andy Murray wore a Columbia shirt!:rolleyes:

The man in the street may not care about oil, but he knows where a hell of a lot of money came from, the last 35 years or so. The many who made a direct living out of it more so.The governments much more so again. You'd have a hard job convincing a lot of people that the North Sea passing "peak oil" & the sudden interest in "granting Scotland independence" aren't inexorably linked.

North Sea oil may have passed its peak, but we still have rockall to explore yet

Riddle101

djpbarry wrote: »

Not at all. The majority of Scottish voters do not vote for the SNP. Right? I’m not sure why you’re throwing links all over the place?
Hang on there now. Pro-independence MP’s are in the minority in the Scottish parliament and from this you deduce that a larger percentage of the Scottish population are pro-independence than are against independence? How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion?
Were they indeed? You might explain how Spanish came to be the 3rd most spoken language in the world?

Because the Spanish liked to to invade countries that were far weaker then them, I.E South America and Mexico as well as Cuba and any other countrie. But compared to the other powers such as Britain, Germany and France, Spain were nothing. I mean you just have to look at the Spanish Armada to see what they were like

Dannyboy83

Fratton Fred wrote: »

North Sea oil may have passed its peak, but we still have rockall to explore yet

Not if the Russians get there first:D
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7967973.stm

Hookey

Riddle101 wrote: »

Because the Spanish liked to to invade countries that were far weaker then them, I.E South America and Mexico as well as Cuba and any other countrie. But compared to the other powers such as Britain, Germany and France, Spain were nothing. I mean you just have to look at the Spanish Armada to see what they were like

LOL. You could make the same argument about the Brits and the French! And you'd still be wrong. The Spanish didn't just fight their technological inferiors, for at least a century they were Europe's superpower and there was pretty much no-one (on land) who could stand against them; they occupied all of modern Holland and Belgium, most of Italy and bits of Germany. As I said in an earlier post, the Armada was a disaster for them, but at the time no-one, including most of the English, expected the Armada to fail. Spain were much less powerful by the time of the Napoleonic wars, but 200 years earlier they were easily no. 1, and even in the 1700s they were still a force to be reckoned with.

Dannyboy83

More Bad news:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6000797.ece