Is it just me, or does Alec Salmond's argument sound a bit like a leg saying that the right to be amputated is something for the leg to decide on its own, without consulting the head or the rest of the body...?
Quick links: NewsBiscuit Home • Chat Room • Writers' Room • Top Ten
Scottish independence
(13 posts) (10 voices)
-
John Ffitch-Rucker
offlineMemberThe irony is that Salmond has been accusing Westminster of interfering, while ignoring the fact that a referendum is by no means certain to give him
his page in the history books, sorry, the result that he wants, so he’s been seeking to gerrymander the result by putting 'independence-lite’ on the ballot. Curiously, all the Scots who live in England will, it seems, not be eligible to vote, but English people living in Scotland will. So I suggest we all take a long holiday in Scotland in 2014, scupper Salmond’s ego-trip and then get on with living peacefully. Or demand that Cameron gives the English a referendum in 2013 on expelling Scotland from the union.
Jeni will be along shortly.Posted 1 year ago # -
Ironduke
offlineMemberI fail to see how the division of two bonded entities should be the sole decision of one entity but not the other.
I do wonder whether if England called the provinces bluff and called our own Referendum on becoming Great England and letting the rest of them muddle on alone, whether there would then be a storm of protest from them saying 'we won't be kicked out' and 'can we still have our hand outs'?
Maybe the Isle of Man would be OK, they've kind of got the hang of standing on their own two feet.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Quaz
offlineMemberDavid Cameroon shot himself in the ass (where he keeps his brain cell) by interfering. Certainly if I were a Scot in favour of the union I would now be saying "Is that Tory toff trying to tell us when we can vote? Right, let's show him then".
Meanwhile the Daily Express/Mail/Telegraph website forums will fume with nutters saying "Still England could always send in an aircraft carrier to keep the oil fields. Not at the moment you say? Ok well, we will have them in 2018, without planes. Oh, half of each ship being built in Scotland you say? Well, we can send in the Nuclear subs. Sorry, Where did you say the bases are? And they'll be kicking them out you say?"
It's all very complicated, will cost a tonne of cash to split, and I'm not sure that anyone would be better off. Except maybe the Tory party, who would have a near constant grip on Government without Scottish Labour voting seats. So maybe Cameron didn't shoot himself in the ass after all...
Posted 1 year ago # -
Ironduke
offlineMemberGreat points. Navy aircraft carriers and submarines, taxpayer funded, vast majority coming from England, and they are stationed in Scotland, carriers being built in Scotland so contributing to / supporting and employing the local economy there.
Park the subs in Plymouth, build the carriers on the Tyne...another economy drain cured for England!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Quaz
offlineMemberFlash, I think they already leaked the radiation in Plymouth.
Iron, well we'd have to spend billions on rebuilding the lost UK yards first. The point was, it kind of works now and England and Scotland are yoked together already, so why split it further? Just tidy up the loose ends, or "Fear and West Loathian in Glas Vegas" as I should call my un-forthcomming book (available in all good remainder bins soon).
Posted 1 year ago # -
allmyownstunts
offlineMemberHere in the Highlands I feel as remote from Alex Salmond and his Central Belt politics as I do from London. But I love being British and I love living in Scotland. I worry that this ishoo will be taken over by tub-thumping bigots when really, most people are pretty nice, on both sides of the border.
Besides. if there was a split I'd have to hand back my Essex-boy husband and half of each of my three children. Well, at least two of them but that's another matter.
Posted 1 year ago # -
beau-jolly
offlineMemberI heard a short debate about how the national debt could be divied up. By population would be in Scotland's favour. By actual cost per head would be in England's.
Also: who votes. The Scots living in Scotland or the vast majority of them who live in England?Posted 1 year ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.