Scottish Independence and the UK State

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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Sun Jun 29, 2014 9:25 pm

Heh, it has been, you're right. I probably should've waited and only started this thread a couple of months ago.

The vote is on September 18th this year. Most of the polling suggests that my side will take an absolute hammering, and be laughed off the stage into utter and irredeemable historical irrelevance - but the polls suggested the same thing would happen to the SNP prior to the elections in 2011, which they won by a landslide. So who knows?
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Sun Aug 03, 2014 2:37 am

Current polling:

The Yes vote is hovering somewhere between 43 and 46 percent, by most accounts, though there are pollsters who still rank us in the mid-thirties. Not good enough, either way.

The No side appears to be somewhere between 51 and 57%. Good enough, for their purposes.

The undecided are still undecided, it seems. They might want to think about reading up on stuff now, perferably as soon as possible. I would expect them to tend towards No, on the whole, since the uncommitted will generally not support what could turn out to be a radical change.

Some polls show the undecided leaning heavily towards Yes though. Not sure what that's all about, or what would explain it. Shy-Yes syndrome?

The mechanics of the vote are becoming increasingly worrying (not making excuses in advance here, honest guv - I'm just sayin').

Apparently a full quarter of the electorate have applied for postal votes ( :shock: ) and the Electoral Commission and Electoral Management Board have printed up 120% of the required ballot papers.

I can understand why there might need to be a lot of extra ballots, considering the likelihood of a high turnout, combined with a lot of first-time, re-registered, and "returning" voters - but 120% of the necessary papers, as compared to the electorate, scares me a bit, especially when it's combined with the announcement that the final count might take days before the announcement of the result.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/ ... t.24170065

Ach well, nothing i can do about all that anyway.

Except make satirical Youtube videos which will surely bring the Westminster system crashing down. Oh aye.

Hey, btw, those first twenty minutes of the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony were not our fault. I accept no responsibility for that fiasco. That was Glasgow Labour and BBC Scotland at work. It was a No show, through and through. Barrowman was proof enough of that. Jesus, what a fucking embarassment. Purple tartan suit, aye? Are ye sure?

The Games themselves have been pretty good though. I liked what I saw.

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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby MacCruiskeen » Fri Aug 08, 2014 6:05 pm

"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby coffin_dodger » Fri Aug 08, 2014 6:37 pm

Mac - what are the benefits for Scotland if devolution takes place? The real benefits, not politician blurb and hollow promises.

(Apart from the obvious: distancing yourselves from a dying Empirical liability of which Scotland enjoyed the benefits; securing an energy supply for yourselves, that, in a crisis, the English would walk in and take forcibly if they really needed it; closer ties to an increasingly disunified Europe - on the verge of disintegration and possible internal conflict).

I understand completely how awful the English are, but what is it that makes the alternatives so much better?
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby MacCruiskeen » Fri Aug 08, 2014 6:50 pm

Briefly, coffin_dodger: the main benefit (apart from the many large and obvious ones you mention) would be relief, at long last, from the eternal, soul-destroying, future-negating ToryLabour cycle of eternaal return. An explosion of frightening autonomy and the threat of a wordwide good example.

- In any case, it won't be allowed to happen. Imagine it! The break-up of the UK! Obama has already spoken against it, so that settles that. Plus (this is truly inexcusable), "electronic voting" is being allowed, so manipulation is inevitable in the extremely unlikely event that the No Campaign (aka Project Fear) hasn't mounted a sufficiently effective propaganda effort.
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Fri Aug 08, 2014 11:24 pm

coffin_dodger » Fri Aug 08, 2014 5:37 pm wrote:Mac - what are the benefits for Scotland if devolution takes place?


Devolution took place in 1999. This time it's independence.

coffin_dodger » Fri Aug 08, 2014 5:37 pm wrote:The real benefits, not politician blurb and hollow promises.


Money.

https://fullfact.org/factchecks/will_an ... _off-28889

But more than that, the things that money can buy. We would finally have control of our own revenues, to spend as we see fit. Or at least, as our government sees fit. For the first time in 307 years, the government of Scotland would be elected by the people who live in Scotland, and (very importantly) they would have the economic and social wellbeing of Scotland as their priority, rather than it being a vague annoyance that they ocassionally have to throw a concession at (that's how the Uk Government has always saw it).

So we'd have control of our own revenues, and the ability to truly elect our own sovereign governments. Most countries would consider that reason enough for independence. Many have in the past.

UK Governments have been deliberately and provably acting against Scotland's economic and social interests for at least the last 40 years, and lying about it into the bargain:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... cords.html

The UK Government documents are held in the National Archives, if anybody has a spare day to go and check them out. It's well worth it.

coffin_dodger » Fri Aug 08, 2014 5:37 pm wrote:distancing yourselves from a dying Empirical liability of which Scotland enjoyed the benefits


Very few people in Scotland, England, Wales, or Ireland-Northern Ireland have ever enjoyed any benefits at all from the Empire.

At the very height of Britain's imperial glory, in the very epicentre of the imperial capital, we were still sending kids up chimneys and burning straw in the grates to stop them from climbing back down again. The wealth from all our international burglaries rolled in at the ports of Britain, but it was unloaded there by men who scarcely had any more rights than our slaves on the plantations in the West Indies, and then the money rolled up the big hills into the big houses and simply stayed there to this day. It's still there now, and the descendants of those same owners still essentially own us now.

Look at the great port cities of the imperial period - Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff, London. They were shitholes at the time, when the Empire was supreme, and they are still shitholes now.

If Empire is supposed to bring the homeland wealth and prosperity, why does Denmark have a higher GDP per capita and noticeably higher standards of living than the UK right now? Why is the same true of all the smaller independent countries in north west Europe? Surely the citizens of Great Britain should be richer, happier, safer, more secure in themselves than the denizens of these wee Scando backwaters, most of whom never had an empire of note? But it's the opposite. They are better off than us.

coffin_dodger » Fri Aug 08, 2014 5:37 pm wrote:securing an energy supply for yourselves, that, in a crisis, the English would walk in and take forcibly if they really needed it


It will be for sale at a fair price. Undoubtedly at a far cheaper rate than what a military invasion of Scotland would cost England in this day and age.

Even in these days of reduced recruitment from Scotland, at least 10% of the British infantry are Scots, 8% of the air force, and around about ten percent of naval personnel. A bit silly to threaten invasion, even hypothetically, unless they're all going to be fired first in Hammond's defence cuts.

coffin_dodger » Fri Aug 08, 2014 5:37 pm wrote:closer ties to an increasingly disunified Europe - on the verge of disintegration and possible internal conflict


No closer than the ties we already have with Europe now, seeing as the UK is already in the EU. We just need to cut out the middleman, since the middleman has a long and troubling history of selling our interests short for his own benefit:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/t ... t-1-634422

coffin_dodger » Fri Aug 08, 2014 5:37 pm wrote:I understand completely how awful the English are, but what is it that makes the alternatives so much better?


The English are fine, nobody has said otherwise. I think they could make a real go of governing themselves.

As for the alternatives being better, we see them very close by, in Scandinavia, and all across the entire north west of Europe. The small and medium-sized independent countries there are noticeably better run than Britain, are far less corrupt, did not deliberately destroy their own manufacturing and export bases, and have been thriving uninterrupted throughout my lifetime. They do not suffer from the UK's post-imperial hubris or ridiculous rollercoaster economy, and are ranked as being better than the UK on nearly all social indicators, and by all international measures (UN Human Development Index, etc).

Mac, I thought Russell Brand's support came across as more than a wee bit ... shaky? Qualified? Some papers are preferring to run with him trashing the SNP and telling us not to get our hopes up about the post-independence future. Which is fair enough.

Sorry for jumping in there coffin_dodger, I cannae help masel.
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby coffin_dodger » Sat Aug 09, 2014 6:44 am

Ahab said:
Sorry for jumping in there coffin_dodger, I cannae help masel.


Don't apologise - I appreciate the response. However, I can't help but think you'll replace one set of crony psychos with another, but I'm sure it's more complicated/sophisticated than that. :eeyaa
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby MacCruiskeen » Sat Aug 09, 2014 8:13 am

It's a good thing Ahab is here to do my thinking for me* In any case, when I return from exile to take up my post as King President-for-Life of the new Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Socialist Republic, Mr. Sotherleg will be appointed my trusty spokesman. (I'll make it worth his while.)

*I could manage that task myself, of course, nae bother, but where would I find the time?
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Sun Aug 10, 2014 2:09 pm

I hope the people of Manchester are happy that I've upgraded their city into a great imperial port, even though it is located at least 36 miles inland.

When the weather is nice, all those displaced BBC execs can go down and sun themselves on the famous Salford Riviera. :bigsmile
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby conniption » Tue Aug 26, 2014 12:00 am

C-SPAN - Scottish Independence Debate

August 25, 2014
Scottish Indpendence Debate

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and pro-UK campaign leader Alistair Darling debated an independence referendum that would end Scotland’s 305-year-old political union with England. Scotland was to vote on the referendum on September 18, 2014.

Courtesy of BBC Scotland.


~

Salmond v Darling key points beyond the propaganda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHinmKNRjfE
Published on Aug 25, 2014
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Wed Aug 27, 2014 10:44 am

Mac, there's a delivery here for you. Just arrived. Not sure who it's from. :partyhat

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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby conniption » Thu Aug 28, 2014 1:54 pm

RT

#Patronising: Sexist anti-Scottish independence ad sparks angry backlash

Published time: August 28, 2014

An online video depicting a timid housewife fretting about the dangers of Scottish independence has roused sharp criticism in the UK and beyond for its inherently sexist and “patronizing” overtones.

The woman who made up her mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLAewTVmkAU

continued...


~

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, lady.

Let's make this thread a sticky.
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby Morty » Thu Aug 28, 2014 7:59 pm

Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Says UK Rogue State, Danger to World

ST ANDREWS, (SCOTLAND), August 28 (RIA Novosti) Mark Hirst – The United Kingdom as a rogue state and a danger to the world, a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray said.

“The British Government is deeply, deeply immoral. They don’t care how many people they kill abroad if it advances them. Anybody who votes No [to Scottish independence] is voting to support a pathological state which is a danger in the world, a rogue state and a state prepared to go to war to make a few people wealthy,” Murray said in a speech made ahead of an historic vote on Scottish independence to be held in just three weeks.

He told an open public meeting in St Andrews that the actions he witnesses as a senior diplomat had changed his “world view” and said it was now “impossible to be proud of the United Kingdom.”

“I think it is impossible to be proud of the United Kingdom. I think when we invaded Iraq we did to the United Nations what Hitler and Mussolini did to the League of Nations,” Murray added. “I think what we have done since where the truth is often much hidden, if you look at Libya it is a disaster now we bombed it and we killed 15,000 people when NATO bombed Sirte, something they never told you on the BBC. Did we make it better? No,” a diplomat stated.

“I’ve seen things from the inside and the UK’s foreign interventions are almost always about resources. It is every bit as corrupt as others have indicated. It is not an academic construct, the system stinks,” a former British Ambassador said.

Murray, who is a member of “English for independence” a group of English born residents living in Scotland who back Scottish independence, said that although he had once been proud to be British, the UK’s involvement in rendition, torture and the invasion of Iraq had altered his allegiance.

“I was a British diplomat for 20 years. I was always very patriotic to be British and I was very, very proud of it,” he stated.

“When I first became a British Ambassador and first went out in my own flag car with the Union Jack flying on the front I had a lump in my throat. It was a proud moment for me. It was only six months after that I discovered that in the country where I was Ambassador we and the Americans were shipping people in order for them to be tortured. Some of them were tortured to death,” Murray added.

“Now as you may imagine, my world view changed,” he added.

“It was at the same time, a month later, that we invaded Iraq against the will of the Security Council. Not just without the permission of the Security Council but in the full knowledge that if it had gone to the Security Council we would have been voted down,” the former diplomat said.

“I know for certain - as I used to be head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office unit that monitored Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - I know for certain that they knew there weren’t any. It wasn’t a mistake, it was a lie,” Murray concluded.

Former Secretary General of NATO, Lord George Robertson earlier warned Scottish independence would have a “cataclysmic” impact on the world.

Robertson, a former British MP, told an audience in the United States, that “the loudest cheers for the break-up of Britain would be from our adversaries and from our enemies. For the second military power in the West to shatter this year would be cataclysmic in geopolitical terms.”

Voters in Scotland will go to the polls on 18th September and will be asked one question, “Should Scotland become an independent country?”
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Sat Aug 30, 2014 1:14 am

coffin_dodger » Sat Aug 09, 2014 5:44 am wrote:I can't help but think you'll replace one set of crony psychos with another.


There's absolutely no doubt about that. We will do so. We will elect sociopaths with cronyistic tendencies to high office. We've had our own set of crony psychos all along, preserved through our independent legal and educational institutions, and neither independence nor maximum-devolution will get rid of them.

But for the first time in three centuries, we'll actually be able to vote these psychos out if they annoy us sufficiently. We couldn't do that during the Thatcher years - even if every single person in the country could vote, and they all voted against the UK Prime Minister, 5 million people can never outvote circa. 55 million in the rest of the UK.

That's what makes the accusation that we have been repeatedly "imposing" Labour governments on England over the last few decades so laughable.

5 million folk can't impose a government on 55 million, at least not under any definition of democracy I've ever heard of. Yet we are resented for it nonetheless. "Scottish Mafia."

These crony psychos of ours, long-established and ill-distinguished... by voting Yes we will be able to prevent them from continuing to have a pernicious and damaging effect on the wider UK - and also the wider world - through the Westminster Parliament.

We have an opportunity here (and in my view, an obligation) to remove these psychos from the existing UK government structure. I won't name names, but I'd be very happy to see all of our (many and varied) pro-war and anti-human MPs - and the rest, of course - sent back to their homeland, where they can live out the remainder of their lives in unelectable frustration, deprived of the MP's expenses and global jollies that they have loved so well, or else carve out new careers for themselves at Holyrood.

MPs for English constituencies like Liam Fox might even lose their seats too in the aftermath, which would be an undoubted boon to the planet. He's literally gagging for a war. Send them back up here and we'll keep them from doing further harm to themselves or others. It's a far better fate than they deserve.
Last edited by AhabsOtherLeg on Sat Aug 30, 2014 1:42 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Scottish Independence and the UK State

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Sat Aug 30, 2014 1:27 am

Conniption, thanks for your posts - I never realised the Artist Taxi Driver was quite so up on McCrone (though I've heard him mention it before).

Cheers for the #PatronisingBTLady thing as well. Personally, I think the Yes camp are slightly exaggerating the heinousness of the ad.

It's still pretty rank though.

Couldn't resist doing my own version, even if I think the objections to the ad (it's no more rubbish than most other political broadcasts) are a bit overblown:

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