http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YkLPxQp_y0
Thesis summary: both sides have mounted ineffective campaigns that deserve to lose, but as an Englishman, on purely sentimental grounds, Oliver wants a continued Union, even if he has to eat haggis while listening to bagpipes to get it...
]]>(a) The country's (UK!) PM ignored the biggest political demo in UK history to go into that war. (The Scotland First Minister could do the same should he feel likewise.) (b) Scotexit does not extract the UK from "that relationship". (c) It is unclear that Scotexit would remove even Scotland from such poisonous relationships.
Greg Tingey wrote (ok, so I'm replying to 2 comments not 1) "I support [BR]exit, because of the corporate business corruption rampant at the highest levels"
Frankly, any corruption in the UK is not best laid at the feet of remote bureaucrats (who have little if any direct power) but of the self-serving hypocrites in the UK. Who are not going to be removed by BRexit!
"I do not like UKIP's immigration policy, but something has got to be done"
And BRexit is something, therefore it must be done.
I apologise for continuing the derailment from the Scottish question, but as a denizen of the multiverse I do find the proposed splitups and revised immigration policies to be quite disheartening. I would have thought (?) that the human race needed more integration and tolerance rather than fractionation and xenophobia.
Cheers,
]]>We are now less than 24 hours away from the polls opening.
I will close comments on this thread tomorrow morning.
I will create a new blog entry for continuing the discussion from a different perspective ("what happens next?") after the polls close.
The only thing that seems certain right now is that unless the referendum delivers a conclusive defeat to the independence campaign -- which none of the opinion polls currently suggest is likely -- British politics as a whole will spend some time taking stock and catching up next week; either to grapple with the fact that a member country doesn't want to belong to the UK any more, or with the hard question of how to defuse the pressure that led to a worryingly close-run battle lest the pressure continue to rise until it blows again, whether in 5 years, 10, or 20.
]]>With respect, "Yes" voters are fully aware that they can't remove the self-serving hypocrites from the UK. They want instead to remove themselves from the UK's self-serving hypocrites.
]]>It'd make things so much simpler; all that would be needed is to regarrison the Wall :)
]]>I have now watched so much News Media Stuff from Scotland, addressing England’s RULERS, who are hunkered down in the London City State - which they carry with them even when they visit the Provinces that exist in the Howling Wilderness that is the Place North of Birmingham - that I feel almost first generation Scots rather than Third Generation Highland Scots.
Have you noticed how...ALIEN? London LOOKS these days in the news media’s photo backgrounds and intro pieces to NEWS pieces on multi Channel T.V.?
Anyway so much stuff on the news that my Scottish ancestry - nonvoting - rears and I'm tempted to address Lady friend as 'HEN ‘...this having carefully checked to ensure that there are no book sized throwing objects within her arm range.
I'll be cheered when it’s all over save that whatever the result is wont be Over...even when the referee declares that it's Over!
As with, perhaps the Canadian permanent running referendum...at random from a Google search...
" TORONTO — QUEBEC'S newly sworn-in premier says Quebec can separate from Canada, but no part of Quebec can declare itself independent of the province.
Refusing to acknowledge the inherent contradiction in his stand, Lucien Bouchard justifies his position by saying: ''Canada is divisible because it is not a real country.''
The leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois was reacting to news of divisive movements within Quebec. English speakers in the Montreal area, who voted to stay within Canada in the Oct. 30 referendum on Quebec sovereignty, are talking of staying in Canada by separating from Quebec. And Cree and Inuit Indians in the northern half of Quebec do not want to be part of an independent Quebec, whose basis for being is the French language and its ''distinct'' culture. "
http://www.csmonitor.com/1996/0131/31071.html
Ho ...Hum, by ancestry on my Mother’s side I am a Highlands and Islands Scot and I must say that I resent all of that Low Land Scots Stealing MY share of the OIL money!
Not that I'm at all resentful, but, MY share of the Boodle would be well worth having. Just saying.
Just think of all the High Tech Shinny Stuff I could buy. And then there are the Books!
]]>Don't mean to sound ungrateful but ..Send Money! And Socks ..very cold up here/down here when compared to the rest of the Empire
“Romans wore socks with sandals, new British dig suggests Britons may be famous for their lack of fashion sense and Italians for their style. But it appears we may have inherited one of our biggest sartorial crimes from the Romans. “
]]>" £7m-a-year Tony Blair tells tyrant: This is how you gloss over a massacre "
" Mr Blair offered 500 words to insert into the speech, and hand-wrote at the bottom of the letter: “With very best wishes. I look forward to seeing you in London! Yours ever, Tony Blair.”
Mr Blair’s firm has raked in tens of millions of pounds advising countries around the world including Mongolia, Albania and Kuwait.
But a spokeswoman for Mr Blair denied he profits personally from the lucrative deal with Kazakhstan.
She said the contract with Tony Blair Associates is to provide advice on government reform, rather than PR.
She said: “While Tony Blair has always made it clear there are real challenges for Kazakhstan over issues of human rights and political reform, and that these have to be dealt with, nonetheless, the country has made huge progress over the past 20 years.
“The letter was simply making these points, namely that the events of Zhanaozen were indeed tragic and they had to be confronted in any speech, not ignored.” .."
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/7m-a-year-tony-blair-tells-tyrant-4100264#ixzz3DbEsW1hH
And Blair and his associates are on-going, " The former Prime Minister whose premiership was tarnished by the Iraq war has been honoured in the GQ Men of the Year awards for his charitable work
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tony-blair-named-philanthropist-year-4155082#ixzz3DbFEY3US
]]>On the one hand, polls still show something like 10% undecided. (I'm looking at a list of recent polls with a median around there, with outliers as low as 5% and as high as 23%.)
On the other hand, everyone is expecting colossal turnout, with something like 97% of the population registered, and most of those expected to turn out. So, that "undecided" group includes a whole lot of people who are expected to turn out and vote.
Maybe these people really are all undecided, but it seems to me likely that most of them are, at the very least, leaning strongly one way or the other, and just don't want to tell the pollsters about it. Which means that there's a real chance declared undecideds could break overwhelmingly one way or the other, leading to a result that makes a mockery of the polls.
So, I'm expecting one side to have a fairly significant victory. I just have no idea which.
]]>What on earth gave them that idea?
All the while you have lawyers, economists, pol sci types getting paid by rich pimps to get elected to political posts in a system that can safely ignore democracy for 4 years; nothing changes.
And as has been pointed out, the SNP has certain similarities with the republican party in that it's tied to religious nutters as well.
Jumping from a foundering ship to a foundering life raft with a dirty great hole in it - captained by the same idiots that put the ship on the rocks - isn't a smart move.
]]>Unless, of course you are posting in heavy-handed irony - at this point it is diifcult to distinguish, err ....
Oh your subsequent post at # 366 would be sickening, if some of us didn't know already, thanks to "Private Eye"
Applause to Charlie for # 360
Can we PLEASE address the problem we are saddled with, whether Scotland stays in the Union or not ...
The incomptence & corruption of our leaders.
{ Hint: Today's "Private Eye" reminds us of Salmond's disgusting cosying up to Citizen Kane Murdoch, euw .... )
And the institutionalsied corruption in places like Rotherham, where the police were only too plainly bought or bribed or silenced & I don't actually care which combination of the above it was.
It has got to stop.
All of you.
]]>I am closing comments on this thread.
A new thread will open on Friday, for discussing the results, and "what happens now".
Until then, I'm going to be nose-down rewriting a Laundry Files novel and/or chilling and ignoring the news inasmuch as that's possible.
]]>