An Independent Scotland?

Great Debates
121

It’s an odd thing to have become an issue, but I do agree that Murray’s comment was unwise. I mean, “teenager responds to nationalistic slagging in kind” isn’t, well, news to me. At 19 or 20, and in the face of such (obviously good-natured) joking, I’d have responded (good-naturedly) in the same way. He just didn’t realise he was supposed to be the hero of a nation.

He has matured, of course, but I don’t think it’s quite fair to say he “recanted” the comment - best I can tell is that he’s said he shouldn’t have said it. Not quite the same thing.

To your second point, that was sort of what I was getting at. I never noticed the British/Scottish thing, even though I’ve had people telling me it’s the case for a lot of my life. It’s just that Murray was the first example I could see where there seemed to be something to it.

122

“Recants” was the word used in several articles when I searched for background before writing my post. Anyway, suffice it so say, he at least “regrets” saying it.

123

Well, OK, I mean, this isn’t really central to my point and it sure isn’t a hill I’m going to die on, so point conceded.

124

Well. if you are happy to misrepresent stuff to yourself there is no arguing with you.

:rolleyes:

125

Let’s see if we can detect bias on the Internet. I searched for combinations of British/Scottish Andy Murrray loses/wins and found:

[ul]
[li]75.7% of the wins were British[/li][li]73.5% of the loses were British[/li][/ul]
In this methodology, any article containing both “British” and “Scottish” would appear in both categories.

So the use of “British” when winning was 3% higher (the 2.2% difference is 3% of 73.5%). than when losing. Is this significant? I don’t know - I’m not a statistician.

As a comparison, I searched for Tim Henman. There I found:

[ul]
[li]55.2% of the wins were British[/li][li]53.7% of the losses were British[/li][/ul]

Again we have more British wins than losses - by 2.8% this time, virtually identical to the Murray/Scottish numbers. There looks to be no evidence of bias, and all we can tell for sure is that Andy Murray wins a lot more often than Tim Henman did.

126

True - but I am aware of my own bias.

127

Well, how long will the oil last? Because in the grand scheme of things, oil only lasting 50 years is essentially “the oil about to run out”. So, how many years of profitable reserves are left?

128

And a certain Mr Cameron. And Ming Campbell.

129

Yep, I missed Ming. Forgot about the lib dems (who hasn’t?)

Bit confused about Cameron though. His father was Scottish, but he was born in London (at least, according to Wikipedia)

130

The Camerons are an ancient Scottish clan.

131

Yeah, but David Cameron is born in London, so doesn’t that make him English?

132

I think that’s the nature of the UK though :wink: it’s not where you’re born, it’s who you’re born from!

133

Speaking as an Anglo Scot my opinion is that there are to wings to the desire for Scottish independance.

Salmond is a minor politician on a local level in a major first world nation.

An independant Scotland would make him a national politician in the international scene, and as such make him much more important.

But this started off when we discovered North Sea oil.

Scotland became the poor relative, who’d always been "Helped out "financially by their relations, until they spotted a ten pound note lying on the pavement.

Oh no thats mine, he cries !
I want nothing more to do with you .

Thats my tenner and I’ll make my own way from now on, thanks for all of the help in the past , cheerio !

Except…

An independant Scotland expects to be defended by N.A.T.O., at little or no cost to themselves .

It expects to automatically remain a member of the E.C.
(Though I expect that Spain and other member nations with seperatist movements might disagree )
An independant Scotland expects that its citizens can enter, travel around, work, live and vote in the U.K. without restrictions.

Much like the “independant” Republic of Ireland does.

Unfortunately, Scotland wouldn’t own the oil/gas fields entirely as the border doesn’t run E to W, but , SW to NE.

Which means the U.K. owns a LOT of the oil fields.

But this is not so important because they will run out in the not so distant future.

The English taxpayer subsidises every single Scot, every single day of every single year.

Which is why there is strong support from many English for Scottish independance.

Unfortunately for the Scots, they mean TOTAL independance, where Scots need to get a visa to enter, travel or work in the U.K.

If it works out, that the Scots get a better time of it, then I personally will claim my Scots heritage and get the best out of it.

Which I suspect, many, many others will do as well.

134

The thing is, it is utter bollocks.

I was in Scotland during Wimbledon (I saw Murray’s final the day after a wedding somewhere near Blair Castle) and had this discussion with some of my relatives that come from Scotland.

I had to point out to them that the BBC coverage of Wimbledon in the run up to the Final had a montage a Scottish sport, including such things as the Scottish rugby team and, IIRC, the Archie Gemmill goal against The Netherlands.

But the same people still claimed the bias is there. Because they want it to be, pure and simple.

135

What I have seen is Scottish people angry that England fans want them to do well or even gasp win. Apparently some see it as taking the piss/demeaning/belittling/something.

136

This is true. I remember being in a London pub with a Scottish guy watching England play in a European Championship. After the England match was over, they switched to watching the end of the Scotland game. The crowd in the pub was cheering vocally for the Scots. My colleague couldn’t understand it and thought they must be taking the piss. But they weren’t. In the unlikely event that England and Scotland ever both qualify for the World Cup finals, Scotland would be the second-favored team of most English supporters (and England the least-favored of many Scots).

137

And the royal family is as much Scottish as English (or German, whatever); Elizabeth the Queen Mother was Scottish.

138

If they’re both EU members, won’t they have open borders?

139

It remains to be seen if Scotland will be able (or even be willing) to join the EU. If they decide they want it, they may find a number of countries blocking their entry, and Accession requires unanimous consent of all the present Member States.

I wonder if they’d join the EEA instead, however, which is like EU-lite.

140

Ah right. So when you say “Salmond is going to immediately spend the oil revenue, so there’ll be nothing left. A post-oil independent Scotland has little in resources to offer apart from water, whisky, and tourism” you reckon Alex’s reign is going to be long enough to see out the oil revenues…but you don’t anticipate the oil to run out for 20 years. Which is it then? You reckon he’s putting himself in as presidente for life, or you reckon the oil’s only got 20 years in it?

Of course, it’s an obvious fact that it will one day run out. Did you ask your bro the reservoir modelling engineer? What did he say? 40 to 50 years is the usual guestimate from the analysts I work with. That’s a pretty decent period to invest in new revenue streams, obvious examples including water (England’s going to need imports in the near future if they don’t do something drastic) and renewable energy (small country yet receives 1/4 of Europe’s wave & wind energy, and an extensive track record in marine engineering). Tell me a country that won’t need to change its financial basis in that time period? Consider also the predicted increases in food prices globally, and ask yourself what affect that will have on a country that is 75% agricultural land.

And yes, I did read the article I linked to. Let me paste the whole thing here:

Not sure which part of that you reckon suggests stocks aren’t recovering to sustainable levels. Then again, I’m also not sure how you reckon your links support your claim that the fisheries are spent. One is an article from 2006, talking about further cuts to be implemented for 2007 to support the recoveries seen in cod (“more cod had been born in 2005 than in any year since 1996”) and the other is a BBC school education piece from 2004, with a graph up to 2002, showing that cod levels started to recover in 1999. Would you like to try again?

As for Salmond. He’s a politician, so in my opinion is a lying, self-serving sack of manure like all the others. About the only thing I think he’s honest in his stated belief in an independent Scotland. A man can be a self-serving, lying idiot and still be a nationalist.