Re: Scottish Independence
 

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Re: Scottish Independence
 

It's rather sad that the Yes camp have proven to be so petulant and graceless in defeat. And so much for Salmond's pledge to "respect the sovereign will of the Scottish people" following the vote. Slimy self-important little gobshite. Still, he's a politician, so I guess I shouldn't expect anything else.

Re: Scottish Independence
 

Sorry I'm in Dubai at the moment but did I miss a one man revolution or something?

Re: Scottish Independence
 

There's only three constituencies out of 32 where the margin of victory (for Yes or No) could be described as razor thin.

Inverclyde (49.9% Yes, 50.01% No)
North Ayrshire (49% Yes, 51% No)
North Lanarkshire (51.1% Yes, 48.9% No)

Scottish independence referendum: final results in full | Politics | The Guardian

Most of the constituencies gave healthy margins of victory to the No camp, including quite a few by thumping good majorities, such as Edinburgh at 61% no, Aberdeen at 58% no, Aberdeenshire at 60% No etc.

It's funny, looking at the map and constituency vote breakdown, that most of rural Scotland, the origins for so much of the Scottish cultural identity, voted no by good margins. The SNP's strength primarily came from a few key areas, namely Glasgow and environs plus Dundee, which overlaps with the more deprived urban areas. It does underly the flaw in the popular SNP/Yes argument that Scottish votes are wasted in Westminster due to the dominance of English votes, for had the SNP eked out a victory, it would be because of the dominance of urban Scottish votes over the rural areas. The rural vote would effectively be wasted in an independent Scottish parliament. It's the same problem, on a smaller and more localised scale. I imagine quite a few No voters outside the big cities/towns recognised it and decided it didn't a difference whether they were in an independent Scotland or in the UK.

The particular fault of democracy is that there are always losers. Labour wins, the Tory areas grumble. Tory wins, the Labour areas grumble. That's the way it goes. Had Labour held on to victory in the 2010 election, would there have ever been this referendum? Especially given how the SNP victory in 2011 seemed to be direct reaction to the Tory victory the previous year, and especially anger at the LibDem entering coalition with the Tories because most of the SNP gain came at the expense of the LibDem. In other words, had Brown held on to power, would enough Scottish Labour and LibDem voters have switched their support to the SNP to give them the victory in the Scottish Parliament? Who knows, but I suspect probably not.

Re: Scottish Independence
 

Small point; they are not constituencies, but local authority areas.

Re: Scottish Independence
 

So after all of Eck's pre-vote blether about "respecting the sovereign will of the Scottish people", you really didn't see him going on about how he didn't really need a referendum at all, he could just declare UDI if there were enough SNP members in the Scottish parliament? :lol:

Like I said, slimy self-important little gobshite. The Scottish people have spoken and their message was very clear - the SNP still has a *lot* of convincing to do.

Re: Scottish Independence
 

There already is an SNP majority at Holyrood. What happens if a majority of the 59 Westminster MPs from Scotland are committed to leaving the Union ?

Re: Scottish Independence
 

are you referring to this interview where thats is not in fact what he actually said at all?

transcript here

"DM: I want to ask you specifically about that in a moment or two but I am intrigued by the other route to independence, if not a referendum, what? Just paint us a picture of how it could happen.

ALEX SALMOND: There are a number of political opportunities coming up Dermot. You know, for many, many years a referendum route wasn’t the chosen route of the Scottish National Party of Scotland, I think a referendum has proven itself to be a wonderful thing, a wonderful participative, enabling, empowering thing. I think referendums are great, they have been my policy and even I have been surprised by an 85% poll and the degree of public engagement but of course for many years there was a gradual attitude to independence, that is to say you establish a parliament, you establish successfully more powers until you have a situation where you’re independent in all but name and then presumably you declare yourself to be independent, many countries have proceeded through that route. There is a parliamentary route where people can make their voice heard as well so a referendum is only one of a number of routes. I think it’s the best route incidentally, that’s always been my opinion but my opinion is only one of many. What we have learnt from this process over these last few weeks is the power of a grassroots campaign, a campaign of the people, of tens of thousands of people engaging in politics and a lot of politicians – myself included – are going to have to get used to that new reality. At least I understand that new reality, David Miliband – sorry, Ed Miliband and David Cameron, I don’t think they even understand the question, never understand that reality."

the biggest problem with Salmond is that too many are willing to grab soundbites usually out of context and then continually ram them down a media megaphone regardless of what the man actually said or meant.

A UDI was the clearly stated aim of the SNP for a few decades, its quite nice that the rest of the UK has finally decided to listen but also ever so ****ing slightly annoying for people to be so up in arms about a decades old policy.

still i suppose its nice to be noticed

Re: Scottish Independence
 

all ****ing hell will break loose

Re: Scottish Independence
 

He's an irritating wee naif!

Re: Scottish Independence
 

That's as maybe but few politicians aren't.

But this latest scandal and outrage isn't actually based on what he said.

Same old same old in the media and politics

Re: Scottish Independence
 

Surely the biggest problem with Salmond is that he shouted "SCAREMONGERING!" far too much during the campaign, leading to many voters getting the impression that he didn't really have any solid, convincing arguments about the most crucial issues?

If he'd been more honest and willing to admit that there were major risks and things might well not go Scotland's way but he felt the end result would eventually justify taking them, he might have taken enough voters with him, or at least made the result much closer than it eventually was. His hubris ended up costing him his entire raison d'etre.

Re: Scottish Independence
 

What "scandal and outrage"? There isn't any. Just amusedly pointing out his gracelessness in defeat, after he'd spent time before the vote loudly proclaiming that he would "respect the sovereign will of the Scottish people". As long as it was a "yes" vote, natch :)

Re: Scottish Independence
 

Now you're just bullying him.

Re: Scottish Independence
 

There's a deep cultural gulf between Highland and Lowland Scots, to be sure. The average Glaswegian existing on benefits on a deprived estate has far more in common with a Londoner in the same situation than they do with (say) a Highlander or Gael.