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You can't quit UK without my approval, David Cameron warns Scots
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Fratton Fred wrote: »The only time we ever consider ourselves Brits is for the first ten days of Wimbledon, along with Andy Murray.
Then he gets beaten and suddenly he's a jock and we're all English again.
Nah, it's more than that. Did some googling...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/24/labourleadership.britishidentity
Most of the decline in British identity is taking place in England, where once again less than half of the population now says that "British" is the best or only way to describe their identity. Fifteen years ago, fully 63% of people living in England went for the British identity options. Today the figure is down to 48%. The proportion who opt more naturally for an English identity is commensurately on the rise.0 -
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dublinscot wrote: »
Nah, it's more than that. Did some googling...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/24/labourleadership.britishidentity
Most of the decline in British identity is taking place in England, where once again less than half of the population now says that "British" is the best or only way to describe their identity. Fifteen years ago, fully 63% of people living in England went for the British identity options. Today the figure is down to 48%. The proportion who opt more naturally for an English identity is commensurately on the rise.
You are working on the erroneous assumption that there are still English people living in England though.0 -
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You're 'explaining' it by doing the same thing again. What do you mean by the bolded section?
Did I bold it again :rolleyes: awfully sorry old chap. You seem to be fixated with 'the likes of' for some reason, but its a harmless phrase meaning 'the likes of' and this context I mean the likes of Alex Salmond (A politician on a mission) to break up the United Kingdom, that's all Nodin, relax.
BBC Radio 4 tonight 8pm = All about the this subject, enjoy
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It's obviously not an issue or there would be some sort of political movement towards it.Have you got any figures on the percentage of English people who don't want an independence referendum?
Wrong about the Ireland and Iceland parts of it certainly.The SNP were wrong about the Arc of Prosperity and now they rarely mention it.
The general point that the SNP were making regarding 'the Arc' - i.e. giving the Scottish Parliament power to set economic policy is still valid though.
14 billion is the lower estimate. As for 17 years, unionists have been saying it will run out soon for decades.According to Oil & Gas UK’s 2011 economic report there may only be 14 billion barrels of oil and gas left in the North Sea and extracting this at the current rate of 2.2 million barrels a day means it could run out in just 17 years.
Either way, it'll be a huge bonus to the economic fortunes of a future independent Scotland.
85% lies in Scottish waters, and would belong to an independent Scotland. Or are you saying the UK wouldn't respect international law on this issue?Also, I say BRITISH North Sea oil production as that what it is. It is NOT Scotland's oil. Given that Scotland is not a sovereign state, it has no effective maritime boundaries, so there is no definitive 'Scottish' sector of the North Sea in the same way there is a Norwegian sector or a Danish sector or, of course, a UK sector. So I never listen to those numpties who say that "Scottish" oil is propping up the UK economy.
I know all that. I don't see how its relevant to the debate though? There has been no move by Shetlanders to setup their own independent state.Most Shetland Islanders and Orkney Islanders do not consider themselves to be Scottish. They consider themselves to be Shetlanders and Orcadians first. They have more of an affinity with Norway which is inherent in their local dialect, a form of Anglicised Norwegian. The Up Helly Aa festival celebrates Shetland's Norse heritage on the last Tuesday of January each year. 1,000 Shetland Islanders dress up as Vikings and carry flaming torches as they make their way through Lerwick, where they eventually set fire to a replica Viking ship.
This is just a canard unionists have been using since the 1970s to undermine Scottish independence.
Are you forgetting Natwest? Ulster Bank? What about all the other subsiduaries?RBS is a Scottish bank, based in Edinburgh. And I'm sure it'd still be be based in Edinburgh should Scotland become independent. And I think you are wrong to say that most of its customers are English. That's because RBS has 700 branches and most of them are in Scotland.
How does Ireland defend itself? Denmark? Norway?And then when Scotland is ever threatened by another country the Scots will suddenly go crying to the English asking them for military help to help defend Scotland because they aren't able to do it themselves.
Define "some point"?Since Czech Republic joined the EU in 2004, it has been bound by the Treaty of Accession 2003 to join the euro at some point. It MUST join the stricken euro at some point.
We'll never know for sure.Twenty three European countries, including the likes of Romania, Georgia, Norway, Latvia, Hungary, Denmark and Iceland, took part in the Iraq War, so it would have been likely that an independent Scotland would have, too.
I'm fairly certain though that had the SNP been in power at the time, then Scotland would have stayed out of Iraq.
Yep. That's what makes a mockery of the term 'union'.Only through the accident of England having a larger population than Scotland.
How can you have an equal partnership when one party is 10 times the size of the other?
As an aside, when the union was agreed Scotland's population was two-thirds that of England. Now it's a tenth or less.
Why is that?The chances are that if England and Scotland had the same size population it would be Scotland nearly always getting the government it wants and imposing it onto England.
Your attitude shows up the true notion of this "partnership".But, despite Scotland having a vastly smaller population than England, it's still imposed governments on England a fair few times (such as in 2005) and England was still ruled by a Scottish-dominated government - dubbed "The Scottish Mafia" - between 1997 and 2010.
Not only that, but up until 2005 Scotland was over-represented in Westminster, having more MPs per capita than England had.
Scotland may be a nation of just 4 million but it has had a huge influence on British politics, so is in no way "ruled by England."
"Scottish Mafia"? :rolleyes:
Those poor put-upon citizens of England. 0 -
Did I bold it again :rolleyes: awfully sorry old chap. You seem to be fixated with 'the likes of' for some reason, but its a harmless phrase meaning 'the likes of' and this context I mean the likes of Alex Salmond (A politician on a mission) to break up the United Kingdom, that's all Nodin, relax.
BBC Radio 4 tonight 8pm = All about the this subject, enjoy
I'd go as far as to say that if the Cold War was still on, Alex Salmond would fit the bill as an archetypal Fifth Columnist - perhaps it never really ended and he his? 0 -
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dublinscot wrote: »unionists have been saying it will run out soon for decades.
No. Experts on North Sea oil have been saying it.Either way, it'll be a huge bonus to the economic fortunes of a future independent Scotland.
In June last year an official study said that Scotland had a significant deficit, even after including North Sea oil revenues:
The annual assessment of Scotland's economy found that, in 2009-10, the country had a £14.9bn current spending deficit without taxes from North Sea oil and gas and a still sizeable £9bn deficit if it had a full geographical share of North Sea revenues.
The findings, in the Government Expenditure and Revenues report, led to new attacks on Alex Salmond's claims that an independent Scotland could use oil revenues to build up a substantial "oil fund" while still paying for heavily-subsidised public services including free prescriptions and a council tax freeze.
The Scottish National party argues that Scotland "owns" 90% of current North Sea oil and gas tax income, based on its geographical share of the North Sea. Last year's assessment found that booming North Sea incomes in 2008-09 would have given Scotland a £1.9bn current budget surplus.
But those figures exclude capital spending. Even with oil receipts, the Centre for Public Policy for Regions (CPPR) at Glasgow University said including capital spending would have left an independent Scotland with continual deficits for the past five years, from 1.7% to 10.6% last year – broadly similar to the UK's overall deficits.
Michael Moore, the secretary of state for Scotland, said the figures made a "compelling case" for Scotland remaining within the UK.
"Today's figures show a £9bn plunge into the red which wipes out the modest surplus of previous years many times over," he said.
"That would have huge consequences for Scotland if it was not able to spread the risk of that volatility as part of a wider UK economy. There is no escaping that fact, no matter how creatively the Scottish government interprets these figures.
"The year-on-year variations of the oil prices are far better managed in a UK-wide economy. It means Scotland can benefit in the good times and manage its risk effectively when the price drops. As part of the United Kingdom, we share in the risks and we share in the recovery".
Richard Baker, Scottish Labour's finance spokesman, said: "These figures show the huge economic risks associated with independence, and starkly illustrate the volatility of oil. Revenues have halved in the last year alone, and this really shows the folly of relying on oil to anchor the Scottish economy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/22/new-study-undermines-economic-independence-scotland
Not only that, but in 2009 a Scotland Office paper entitled “Scotland and Oil” dealing with the tax income from oil and gas fields around the UK concluded that:
• If all North Sea oil revenues had been allocated to Scotland there would only have been 9 years out of the last 27 when Scotland’s finances would have been in surplus.
• Including all North Sea oil revenues the last year of surplus was in 1988-89 and since then there has been 18 years of annual deficits with Scotland’s spending being greater than the tax raised in Scotland.
• Even if all oil revenues had been allocated to Scotland the total deficit would have outweighed the total surplus by £20bn since 1980-81.
http
/www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/Scotland%20and%20Oil%20-%20Background%20paper.pdf85% lies in Scottish waters, and would belong to an independent Scotland. Or are you saying the UK wouldn't respect international law on this issue?
The SNP claims that Scotland would receive 95 per cent of oil revenue, but its calculation is based on the total revenue from oil and gas. Its opponents say that they do not take into account the large number of GAS fields in English waters.
A Prof Haszeldine says: “The vast majority of the oil is in Scottish waters. With practically all of the gas in the UK in the southern North Sea, that is in English territory.” He says it is hard to separate the revenue from oil and gas.I know all that. I don't see how its relevant to the debate though? There has been no move by Shetlanders to setup their own independent state.
There has been an independence movement in the Shetlands. A movement that calls for the Shetlands to be independent from Scotland.
And the SNP has promised that, should Scotland move towards independence, Shetland will be free to choose its own path: whether to remain in Scotland; whether to become an independent state; or even whether the islands should break away from Scotland and become part of England, giving England the revenues from the islands' oil fields.
Did you know that the Shetland Islanders have never voted for the SNP? SNP always do miserably there. Not only that, there is a good reason why the Shetland Islanders do not see eye to eye with the Scots:
Shetland, along with Orkney, only became part of Scotland in 1469, when they were pawned to the Scottish crown as part of a dowry payment from the king of Norway and Denmark to James III of Scotland. The agreement made was that once the full dowry was paid the islands would be returned to Denmark, and until that time Norse laws would remain in place. But Scotland reneged on the deal.
Denmark appealed to the Scottish crown several times over the ensuing centuries, but to no avail. Norse law was eventually ended in 1611, though Denmark has, in theory, never renounced its claim to the isles. Following the Act of Union between Scotland and England in 1707 which saw the islands becoming part of the UK, at a time when many islanders still spoke the native Norn as their first language, the vast majority of Shetlanders were forced into serfdom. The people were cruelly exploited by their new Scottish landlords until the end of the 19th century.
This tainted history explains not only the antipathy towards Scotland, which continued well into the 20th century, but also the persistent nostalgia for a romanticised, Nordic past, which is most apparent in the Viking festivals of Up Helly Aa, held around the isles each winter.
But the uniqueness of Shetland identity would hold little interest beyond the pubs and homes of the islands were it not for one, significant factor: oil.
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, while the Scottish nationalists were shouting from the rooftops about “our oil”, there was a faint but significant murmur from the Northern Isles that, actually, it’s ours.
When the North Sea was first being explored for oil, Shetland was quick to see the possibilities. The Zetland County Council Act was passed by parliament in 1974, giving the local council full control over all developments around the isles, and also allowing them to build up a massive oil fund over the following years. It has made Shetland into one of the wealthiest parts of the UK. The oil terminal at Sullom Voe became the largest in Europe, handling, at its peak, 1.4 million barrels a day, and although production has decreased since that time, the terminal is expected to last until at least 2020.
It is no surprise then that an independence movement developed within Shetland. It saw as its models the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as the islands' closest neighbour, Faroe, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.
Interestingly, the SNP has never rejected the right of the isles to autonomy, and the party did not stand against the coalition candidate of the Orkney and Shetland Movements in the 1987 election. The SNP has promised that, should Scotland move towards independence, Shetland will be free to choose its own path. But what that path will be is not at all clear.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/malachy-tallack/2007/04/shetland-scotland-independenceAre you forgetting Natwest? Ulster Bank? What about all the other subsiduaries?
As part of the RBS group they are all banks that would cease to exist now had Scotland been an independent nation. The cost of bailing them out was greater than Scotland's entire GDP, so an independent Scotland would not have been able to bail them out. They were bailed out thanks to Scotland being joined to England.How does Ireland defend itself? Denmark? Norway?
Ireland doesn't defend itself. It relies on Britain to do that. It shelters under the British military umbrella.Define "some point"?
When the conditions are right for Czech Republic to join the euro it will do so, whether it wants to or not. This is the fate that awaits an independent Scotland.How can you have an equal partnership when one party is 10 times the size of the other?
How can you have an equal partnership when Scotland was given its own parliament and England wasn't? How can you have an equal partnership when Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs are allowed to vote on English-only matters when English MPs are not allowed to have a say in Scottish-only, Welsh-only, or Northern Irish-only MPs?As an aside, when the union was agreed Scotland's population was two-thirds that of England. Now it's a tenth or less.
In 1707 Scotland's population (1 million) was a fifth that of England (5 million).Your attitude shows up the true notion of this "partnership".
"Scottish Mafia"? :rolleyes:
The Scottish Mafia, or the Scottish Raj, is a term is used in politics to pejoratively refer to a group of Scottish Labour Party politicians and broadcasters who are believed to have undue influence over the governance of England, such as the unfair constitutional arrangement allowing Scottish MPs to vote on English matters, but, by convention, not the other way around.Those poor put-upon citizens of England.
Those poor put-upon citizens of Scotland. Boo hoo.0 -
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dublinscot wrote: »Ach don't worry about that. We'll be too busy partying with our similarly oil-rich Scandinavian friends to have time to eat dinner. Good luck with looking after the kids (Wales and NI)
The government is spending more on Scottish individuals than their English counterparts but still expects English taxpayers to subsidise this difference, Treasury figures reveal.
Last year the government spent £8,588 of public money on the average English person, compared to an average figure of £10,212 for the average Scot.
This is a 15% increase on the previous year and it is expected to increase further in the future.
As well as English families benefiting from less government expenditure, English families also pay approximately £420 extra a year subsidising the difference.
Scottish families benefit from no prescription fees, free eye tests, free bus travel for over-sixties and no annual tuition fees for students.
Widening gap
Conservative MPs have criticised the widening gap at a time when public funding cuts are widespread.
Gordon Henderson, representing Sittingbourne & Sheppey, says: "It is simply wrong that English taxpayers are being asked to help subsidise people living in Scotland for a range of services not available in England."
http://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2011-08-30/scots-get-1624-more-public-money-english0 -
Yes, and they keep finding more or developing new techniques to drill the stuff they previously considered unreachable.No. Experts on North Sea oil have been saying it.
Anyway, i find the whole oil issue so boring and tedious (probably because folk have been arguing about it for decades).
All those figures prove is that over the past 30 odd years, Scotland would have had less of a deficit if it was independent than remaining part of the UK.In June last year an official study said that Scotland had a significant deficit, even after including North Sea oil revenues:
When arguing about having small deficits i don't think you can hold the UK up as a shining example!
I'm sure the split will all be worked out amicably come the independence negotiations.The SNP claims that Scotland would receive 95 per cent of oil revenue, but its calculation is based on the total revenue from oil and gas. Its opponents say that they do not take into account the large number of GAS fields in English waters.
A Prof Haszeldine says: “The vast majority of the oil is in Scottish waters. With practically all of the gas in the UK in the southern North Sea, that is in English territory.” He says it is hard to separate the revenue from oil and gas.
How many votes did their candidate at the last elections get? (or any election for that matter) :rolleyes:There has been an independence movement in the Shetlands. A movement that calls for the Shetlands to be independent from Scotland.
Seems fair enough!And the SNP has promised that, should Scotland move towards independence, Shetland will be free to choose its own path: whether to remain in Scotland; whether to become an independent state; or even whether the islands should break away from Scotland and become part of England, giving England the revenues from the islands' oil fields.
Up until the last election there were large parts of Scotland that had never voted SNP. The Shetland example isn't that unusual.Did you know that the Shetland Islanders have never voted for the SNP? SNP always do miserably there.
Exactly, so a deal similar to the Fortis bailout in the Benelux nations would have had to be reached... i.e. both governments would fund the bailout.As part of the RBS group they are all banks that would cease to exist now had Scotland been an independent nation. The cost of bailing them out was greater than Scotland's entire GDP, so an independent Scotland would not have been able to bail them out. They were bailed out thanks to Scotland being joined to England.
Sounds good to me!Ireland doesn't defend itself. It relies on Britain to do that. It shelters under the British military umbrella.
Though it's the EU and US military umbrella more than the British one.
Who decides when those conditions are right?When the conditions are right for Czech Republic to join the euro it will do so, whether it wants to or not. This is the fate that awaits an independent Scotland.
We both know there's no way the Czechs will be joining the Euro anytime soon, and they won't be forced to either.
I agree that the whole West Lothian issue is unfair on England.How can you have an equal partnership when Scotland was given its own parliament and England wasn't? How can you have an equal partnership when Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs are allowed to vote on English-only matters when English MPs are not allowed to have a say in Scottish-only, Welsh-only, or Northern Irish-only MPs?
Remember the SNP abstain in Westminster on purely English issues.
Aye, i know what it refers to and its a load of xenophobic shyteThe Scottish Mafia, or the Scottish Raj, is a term is used in politics to pejoratively refer to a group of Scottish Labour Party politicians and broadcasters who are believed to have undue influence over the governance of England, such as the unfair constitutional arrangement allowing Scottish MPs to vote on English matters, but, by convention, not the other way around. 0 -
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