Norm_uk

If it's going to be like that the 40million plus English might say the gas and oil belongs to them...and hey presto we're back to the 18th Century.

The whole question if taken serious has the potential to start a war. Why bother with this now in the 21st Century...making the UK no better than some middle eastern backwater - weakening our national security and damaging the international reputation of Scot and non-Scot alike.

The Union is a great idea put in place by the most dreadful people a long time ago. Today we are looking for ways to undo it rather than strengthen it...that just seems dumb to me. Ideally I'd like to see a Federal Republic of Britain or something like that with a figurehead and powerless elected monarchy (for tourism hehe) and proportional representation in a national parliament which covers England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the smaller Islands.

N.

shiva

it was a good idea but some 300yrs of cack has proven enough for the irish, welsh and scots and now the english are pissed about money..............


why the hell do you think there are so many scots and decendants of scots who are expats same same for the other lesser kingdoms.


i do love it though when the english tell us scots, the welsh and the irish how we sould feel about the union and how we should shape it from here on...............democracy is apparently all well and good until you decided that you want home rule......same old same old

littlejimmy

Why do people bleat so much about Freedom of Speech? I don't notice any police stopping people from all this broad-brush slagging off of immigrants and whinging about being a silent minority (give me a break). I don't see the likes of the Mail, Express and Sun getting closed down - in fact they get more rabid by the day. All that is happening is that other people with different views are arguing with them and they don't like it when they are challenged.

Presumably the people arguing against them are also entitled to freedom of speech, or does it only work one way?

bimcnorth

What an odd thread..it reeks of tribalism, nostalgia and fear

Norm_uk

Oh so we should practice the eye for an eye mentality instead. "They did this to us 500 years ago so we have the right to have their money as compensation? What a fantastic idea to heal old wounds and move on - let's piss off the ethnic majority of the Isles...the ones with all the money and power!

I suppose the idea of people not being responsible for the actions of their ancestors doesn't mean much to you does it? Also the average Englishman did nothing to the average Scotsman - the blame lies squarely on the racist and inbred monarchist government and it's quest for more control over it's subjects.

Do we have to pay black people money too for the abhorant shit that happened to them? (If so I imagine many Scots would be paying out heavily along with the English).

Would it come as a surprise if I told most of my British blood is Republican Irish (Cork to be precise...) and that I am entitled to Irish Citizenship? I'll likely retire there unless the Union becomes a proper Republic that doesn't practice division and apartheid on it's "subjects".

Also, please don't lump the Irish with the Scots...

As I said before I'd rather see a rebooted and fair attempt at Union (Maybe EU style) than lots of sad little countries you can walk across in a couple of days.

N.

shiva

at no point have i said we want reparations or an unfair share of money. I in fact want neither.
In 97 the scots clearly showed Democratically that they wanted some form of self determination and at some point in the next 2 years we will have a chance to vote again on where that goes next. Should we vote for independance then what would you want to do......stop a democratic process, start a war over the remaining oil, tell scotland that it cant have its independance???? pray tell

as for sad little countires you can walk across in days, thats just a silly remark the world is full of plenty of small countries who function perfectly well, they may not be global economic forces but so what.

All I'm saying is that the people of any country have a right to have a say in how their country is run and governed and increasingly in the kingdoms of the united kingdoms those kingdoms are looking at self determination and a fairly large part of the scottish population already considers independance as the next step........ why is that so abhorrent

Bison

..

Bison

I reckon we should take over, expand England into Scotland and Wales

MacScot

Oxford economic report (http://www.oef.com/Free/pdfs/ukmpubfinfeat(jul).pdf) shows that 5 English regions are beneficiaries doing better than Scotland.

shiva

careful now, you cant let facts get in the way of the same old "you'd never survive" argument

Cape Blue

[QUOTE=annacarna;7183342] You're right, if they would just increase the tax or remove the 300K allowance it would enable us to start to give a decent pension to the retired.

shiva

for those who can be bothered to read three pages of financial analysis of the falacy of scotland being an economic drain on the UK

http://www.realmofscotland.com/financial/

"In May 2000 I wrote a paper called ‘The Big Lie.’ It was an exercise to establish the truth of the often repeated claims of the British Government that Scotland was too economically weak to stand on its own two feet. In fact the claim has been made numerous times that the English Taxpayers are subsidising the Scots. After months of painstaking research the results were astonishing to say the least. The reverse was actually true, it was Scotland that was substantially subsidising the rest of the UK. My paper was well received and over 22,000 downloads of the PDF file were recorded in total.

However this did not stop the subsidy myth being repeated by the Unionist Scottish Executive and Labour Politicians, both in Holyrood and Westminster in the form of the GERS report 2005 and I was retained by an Independent policy think tank and the newly formed Scottish Enterprise Party to verify the truth or otherwise of the GERS 2005 report. According to the GERS 2005 Report, Scotland was an economic basket case with a huge deficit which required £11.2 Billions annually from the UK exchequer to balance the books. I successfully demonstrated that the GERS report was seriously misleading and that Scotland actually contributed a Revenue surplus of £9.632 billions to the UK Treasury."

Sky Blue

Why dotn we have a referendum, if it is truley what people wan then let them get on with it...

I am thinking what would be different, humm, less medals in the olympics, no less whinging, more whinging, dunno - lets devolve the union - oh no that would mean years of endless Tory rule tho

shiva

lol we had one in 1997 and voted for devolution. The plan now the SNP are in charge is to have another referendum this time on Independance before the end of 2010.

Sky Blue

Yeah but the 97 vote was not for independance, totally different, although do you think it would go though and the SNP have the balls to actually do it? I think Salmon has given slightly confliciting views and will see how the tide is in a few years...

At least then we wont have to put in any token Scots, Welsh or NIrish in the 2012 Olympic footy team