I know it is not an easy left- right split - but the left position is far more prevalent. I have heard a lot of Scots say it will rid them of the Tories forever - shame on the 20% of Scots who are tory as they will effectively be disenfranchised. I do not buy this Brave(heart) New Scotland. There is nothing about Scottish politics to suggest any desire of the mass to change the political system. That is just part of the PR blurb to fool a few more people. They will replace an incompetent Westminster with an incompetent Edinburgh How do you think people from the North east and Liverpool will view a Scotland that fails - with scorn I suggest
Leo - 85% of the MPs in Westminster are from English constituencies - there is only one Conservative MP from Scotland. I would suggest that, with the present voting system, Scotland itself is disenfranchised - in that they have effectively no power to influence their future via Westminster. Elsewhere you have said that the UK is a successfull model - so why should the Scots want to break away from it for an unknown future. Successfull for who ? The UK has the most unequal wealth distribution in the western World - some of the lowest pensions and a difference in average life expectancy of about 10 years (ie. between Manchester, Glasgow or Hull at the lowest end and the rural home counties at the other end) - this difference being one of the highest internal differences in Europe. Germany has more or less neutralized its East-West divide in about 20 years - Britain has had over 200 years to solve its own divide and has failed. Model UK is not working !
Not sure that you are right Cologne. In 2004 the people of the North East did have a vote for a regional assembly and 78% voted against. The argument at the time that won the day was that there were quite enough tiers of government without adding further to it. Of course since then ideas might have changed.
Leaving aside whether we support yes or no I must admit it was quite exciting bing in scotland this week. Everyiody has a view (which they seem to share even if you don't ask for it) and tghere's a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm in the debate. I actually think it's quite a positive thing as it has changed the way pople think, generated interest in politics and serves as a really useful reminder to politicians that people are prepared to engage in debate if you give thm a reason to do so.
At present they are MORE enfranchised than the English - as are the Welsh and Irish - it is only England that has no English Assembly. Scots Tories see Tories in Westminster and Scots Labour / SNP have a strong representation in Holyrood - so they get the best of both worlds. In 300 years Britain moved from a relatively poor backwater in Europe to the largest Empire the World ever knew - and even now it has a residual Commonwealth of Nations that get together - not least for very successful games. Yes there are a few people who own vast tracts of land and these distort the figures lefties always use. Most of us are far more equal than Socialists would have us believe - and can move up or down the ladder quite easily. None of my grandparents had two farthings to rub together, had no education to speak of and were in the Navy for a living. My mum was a housewife and my Dad who left school at 15 and went into the Navy in the war went on to work for various companies in their offices. I had a total state school education - available to everyone - and yet through sheer hard work and determination have not done too badly - I am a working class background boy - and everyone could have what I haave if they work as hard as I have. Nobody ever gave me a penny. I don't envy those with say footballing skills that have let them become multi-millionaires. Some who now have less perhaps do not want to work at two or three jobs to get on - that is fair enough but with a welfare state nobody suffers real poverty - sorry BB but poverty means poverty not some silly definition of 60% of mean earnings. There are times when areas become devastated and jobs almost impossible to find but as time goes by even those wounds heal largely. I know Tebbit was derided for his "on your bike" speech but that is in fact what many people actually did - they moved - not because they wanted to but because they had to. If you had your way I think you would return society to a far more primitive set up of local living. Well ask the Irish how that works out when there is a famine. This is straying more to the Pure Politics debate so I will stop there. The Union has made Scots so much richer than their forebearers could ever have dreamed
Good post Dan. However, I can remember all the protests over the Iraq war and thought then that it could politicize a generation - it did for a few weeks, but then afterwards the lethargy started setting in again. What is unique about this situation is that, whatever the result, Westminster will have taken a kick up the arse. Never before have they been so powerless in the face of the tyranny of the popular vote as now, and if this only has the effect of having shaken up the establishment a little then it will have been worth it. Unfortunately I do not think that many of those who are hotly debating the issue now will become permanently active in the politics of the future. In fact political lethargy is so big in the UK that the Scots don't have to break away to avoid the Tories. The Conservative Party have recently declined to reveal their membership figures - possibly embarassed by seeing them drop the wrong side of 100,000. This party once had 3 million members. During Thatcher's reign they had 800,000. The average age of members of the party being now 70 the Scots only have to wait a few years for the party to die out.
I also left School at 15 Leo to go to work in a factory, and I also have not done so badly - though emigration helped. However, before you can make such claims as 'anyone can do it' you have to be able to produce evidence ie. actual rates of social mobility through time - you will find, for example, that those born in 1970 had much lower rates of upward mobility than those born earlier - and they have not risen since. One more point Leo - are you really suggesting that the British Empire was something to be proud of ?
In your dreams I am afraid there are few people who really take an active interest in politics. Even myself - I am interested in debate with people like those on here where we can disagree but not violently but that is not often the case on the streets. I am a political cynic - I do not trust any politican - mostly on grounds of competence rather than anything else. I genuinely think many still go into politics with real care but how many can deliver one tenth of what they promise? Nothing will change - here or in Scotland. they will go on being the same bunch of incompetent nincompoops they always have been. You only to have a look at those in charge of the NO campaign - has there ever been a less competent bunch of morons running the most important vote for many a generation. the NO campaign has been a joke start to finish. However much I dislike Salmond I give him my respect for running an excellent campaign.
If you could do it - so could anyone unless there was something you had that they did not. Perhaps it was drive - but if so thenif they wanted it they could have driven themselves. Yes - the British empire was something to be very proud of. Despite many horrors they were horrors in keeping with their age. I don't approve of slavery but can accept that it was not regarded in the same way two hundred years ago. The Biritish empire has led to a world far far better than it otherwise would have been - and even if it had never existed it would instead have been the Dutch, French or Spanish Empire. It is so easy to look back and sneer - and we often have different views on what is civilisation but for me it was a great civilising force. I have not done the statistics but would bet that on average the living conditions and general state of countries that were part of the empire are head and shoulders above countries that never were.
I must admit that there was a certain amount of dreaming in my analysis of the Tories of the future Leo - but my figures were, however, accurate. Labour's membership has also gone down from over a million to about 170,000. Altogether party membership has gone down from about 10% of the population in the 1960s to just over 1% now (figures for the UK). In the past Labour or Tory clubs would have been places of debate - the parties then saw themselves as cultural organizations and even offered things like language courses for their members. All of that has gone - and the parties of today are reduced to vote winning machines. Despite collapsed membership figures the same amount of political work is done as in earlier years - but with fewer people. This often means lack of real competition. It means that if you go to join your local xxxxx party they are so short of members that you will end up candidating for a position on the local town council whether you have the abilities for this or not - and so it goes on right up to the top.
Couldn't agree more. I think all of us are tired and fed up with politicians of all parties. We do not believe any of them and so are far more vulnerable to the here and now policies of people like Farage who sets out to win a popular cause no matter what its long term effect.
If people like farage take over I can see people like yourself and Yorkie getting involved to stop them - not taking the pee by the way.
It certainly has changed the way many think and has raised their interest in politics. It has also served as a particularly stark reminder to politicians up here, if not necessarily south of the border, that many, probably most, are totally disillusioned with what the traditional main parties have become. There is an excellent, intelligent and highly thought provoking piece on the Wings over Scotland website, written by James Forrest and titled 'To my friends in labour' - it resonates with what many of the public are feeling here on the Independence issue and, for me, it really sets out why fiscal arguments are not viewed as particularly important. I'd post a link, but that sort of thing is not particularly well received on this thread - but if you want to read it, I'm sure you'll find it.
BB =- you forgot to post predictions - no doubt so engrossed in this debate I would like to see the article and will attempt to find it - you are not correct - judicious use of links is welcome - it is when someone has no arguments of their own but posts endless links to Yes campaign dogma that it gets boring.
Sorry Leo but the phrase 'the British Empire has led to a World far better than it otherwise would have been' is, for me, the most provocative statement I have ever seen on this board. Check out the responsibility for the Irish potato famine - Charles Trevelyan. Check out on the concentration camps used in the Boer War (where more people died than soldiers from both sides) - a system so successfull it was copied by Hitler. Check out on the torture centres in Aden - which were apparently enough to make Kim Jong-Un feel ill. Check out the treatment of the 500,000 detainees in Malaya. Tortures committed against 3,000 + citizens in Cyprus between 1955 - 59. Check out also the use of chemical weapons in Iraq (1920s) together with the extermination of whole villages (and I mean everything within their walls). Checkout on how British occupation of India strengthened both the caste system, and poisoned Hindu - Moslem relations by turning one against the other. The policy of divide and rule being a particularly English thing, used successfully in India, Africa and Scotland. Check out the 1.5 Million people placed in concentration camps in Kenya by the British in the 1950s. Do you think it softens this to know that the French or Belgians were doing similar things albeit on a smaller scale. The full crimes of the British empire can never be told, and certainly don't appear in our School history books. One of the biggest problems for the British is that most of them do not feel ashamed about their country's imperialist past - in fact many still see the loss of empire as being a sign of decline. For them the loss of everything apart from Cardiff and Cornwall must be a bitter pill to swallow.
Engrossed in work actually - totally forgot & didn't even have the opportunity to listen to today's match.
Just watching Last Night of the Proms - will that have a greater meaning for the Proms in the Park in Glasgow if there's a yes vote?
The day after a Yes vote all the Scottish MPs voted into Westminster must resign their seats and a a General Election be called for the remaining nations in the UK. It will be an abomination to democracy if we still have Foreigners voting on matters that do not affect their own country. It has been bad enough that these arrangements have been in place since the Scots were given their own parliament but the English will not put up with this if the Scots vote for independence. The tail has wagged the dog for long enough and it's time for an English parliament irrespective of the result on Thursday.
