Where's Red Celt when you want a laugh!?

[mistermack]

Please be upstanding, and kindly raise your glasses,
to wee sleekit cowrin timrous, but canny Scottish lasses.

The men got all emotional, and more voted to split,
but the women used their heads, and ignored the nationalist shit.

They thought about it long and hard, while doing their daily labours,
And came to the conclusion, that there's value in good neighbours.

To the women up in Scotland, I say well done, you got it right.
Not to listen to old Alex, and his nationalistic shite.

You didn't fall for promises, of magic transformation,
or the emotional blackmail, by those who want a little ''nation''.

The people in the south, are friends and neighbours now, not foreign.
So Scotland is much more now, than a little local warren.

So please be upstanding as the national flag unfurls,
and drink a toast to Scotand, and especially, THE GIRLS !!

[John_fi_Skye]

I haven't got much time now:
Just a little bit.
But I felt I had to comment
That the poem above is shit.

[mistermack]

Wee sleekit cowrin timrous jock,
you write as if I give a darn.

Now Alex Salmond is out to grass,
he can stick independence up his devolution.

[John_fi_Skye]

Jock's my name, so at last you've posted one thing that's accurate.

The figures everybody seems to ignore are: SNP membersip: c70,000; Yes votes: c.1,600,000. It suited the UK media and their bosses the No camp to characterise the Yes campaign as "the SNP" and to demonise Salmond. To have been taken in by such shite shows some ignorance.

[mistermack]

I honestly don't recognise your description of the media reporting.

I thought, from the other side of the fence, that they gave the nationalists a very easy ride, and far from demonising Salmond, they were generally overly complimentary about him personally.

You seem to be implying by your post that there are 2,000,000 ignorant Scots, and that the media generally lied. I don't recognise that scenario either. Virtually all of the lies came from the Salmond camp, starting at the very beginning with the question.
Cameron was a spineless wimp, to let them get away with that question. And the press let them get away with it too. It should have been ridiculed by the press, not ignored.
That's what I mean by an easy ride. His claim that there would have been a currency union should also have been held up to far more ridicule. It was a blatant lie and he knew it. But of course, he chooses his lies carefully, only telling the ones that can never be proved either way. ( unless he won the vote, in which case it would have been worth it. )

If he had won the vote, and that and various other lies had later been exposed, he would simply have put the blame on the other party, for not fulfilling his own lies.

I still think that now the vote is over, there is still a risk to the Scottish financial sector. Especially with some elements of the nationalist party still making noises about another vote.
If a company has a free choice of where to locate it's financial business, it's now more likely that they will go to London. It might be a slow drip-drip, but I wouldn't be surprised if permanent damage has been done.

[John_fi_Skye]

I don't recognise much of what you say, so we can just agree to differ. Your side won the vote, and short of becoming a terrorist there's nothing I can do about that. I have various other ideas, too, about how the world could become better, but you may not agree with them either. (One of them is that apostrophes be used accurately.)

[mistermack]

I have various other ideas, too, about how the world could become better, but you may not agree with them either. (One of them is that apostrophes be used accurately.)

That I agree would be a suitable matter for devolution.
I wouldn't object to that being handled by the Scottish parliament. It's just the sort of important problem that they SHOULD be dealing with.

[klr]

I don't recognise much of what you say, so we can just agree to differ. Your side won the vote, and short of becoming a terrorist there's nothing I can do about that. I have various other ideas, too, about how the world could become better, but you may not agree with them either. (One of them is that apostrophes be used accurately.)

Oh boy, now there's a lost cause.

I've probably said this before, but the No camp underplayed one of its best cards, namely how Scotland would join/rejoin the EU. I can understand why Tory Euro-skeptics might have wanted to avoid it, but I'd have expected Labour and the Lib Dems to make more of it.

And please note my correct non-use of the possessive apostrophe in its.

[John_fi_Skye]

The thing is, there's far too much fucking democracy. (I trust you note I'm ignoring the most recent inanities.) OK, democracy is a Good Thing, and in all seriousness it's better than any other political arrangement our species has tried, but that doesn't mean we have to go on having more and more and more of it. I am governed from Inverness, from Holyrood, from Westminster (where a lot of fucking clowns are, who couldn't be trusted with a full stop, let alone an apostrophe) and from Brussels. It's fucking nonsense. Four levels! Two would be plenty - a local authority for micro issues like fixing holes in pavements, and a national government to see to big issues like the economy. That's plenty.

The best political philosopher I've ever heard of was Guy Fawkes.

[klr]

The thing is, there's far too much fucking democracy. (I trust you note I'm ignoring the most recent inanities.) OK, democracy is a Good Thing, and in all seriousness it's better than any other political arrangement our species has tried, but that doesn't mean we have to go on having more and more and more of it. I am governed from Inverness, from Holyrood, from Westminster (where a lot of fucking clowns are, who couldn't be trusted with a full stop, let alone an apostrophe) and from Brussels. It's fucking nonsense. Four levels! Two would be plenty - a local authority for micro issues like fixing holes in pavements, and a national government to see to big issues like the economy. That's plenty.

The best political philosopher I've ever heard of was Guy Fawkes.

I have one level less than you, but I'd say your situation is quite common in the EU, and likely to become more common.

I can live with 3 or 4 layers of government, providing each layer governs efficiently, and has the most appropriate set of powers - or responsibilities if you will. How to achieve that is another ball game entirely.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to
do, chapels had been churches and poor men's
cottages princes' palaces
- Portia, The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Sc. 2

I tend to distrust politicians at all levels, from my local council all the way to Brussels and Strasbourg. Not in any malevolent sense. I'm just always on high alert when I listen to/watch a politician.

[mistermack]

And please note my correct non-use of the possessive apostrophe in its.

Its impressive. How do you do that?

I would never have allowed the Scottish parliament, if I was in power.
Its a useless extra level of gasbaggery, its divisive, and there never was a need for it. Nor the Welsh Assembly.

I would have considered a special committee of Scottish MPs in Westiminster, with some powers over Scottish matters, as a sop towards evening up the disparity of voting powers between English and Scottish MPs. But really, none of that should be needed anyway.

If the UK is a united kingdom, there should be no need for any regional powers, other than advisory.
Because a United Kingdom government should have the well-being of all of it's regions right up there at the top of it's agenda. That's what united means.

I blame Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for the whole fiasco. And David Cameron for agreeing to the vote. And especially, for not insisting on a proper question, and an early date. Spineless.