The further you travel from Ibrox and Orange parades in Glasgow, the asymptotically fewer Union Flags you see.
I cannot recall the last one I saw. The saltire is there in abundance.
I am suggesting that pushing the symbols of union in the current atmosphere is counter-productive for Unionists.
But given the car crash of the “Better Together” campaign that turned a minority for independence close to a majority by its overt centralism and scare tactics, I would have expected little else.
If it becomes widespread I can see the wilder fringes of the cybernats starting graffiti and flag destruction campaigns.
Faux pas like these are bad politics for Unionists.
Go back and read your history. Discrete national kingdoms or states like Scotland, England, Portugal, Scandinavia, and Ireland were rare in much of Europe until the late nineteenth century. Multi- national empires Spain including the Netherlands, Prussia including Poland and parts of the German speaking world, the Austrian multi national empire from Slavs to Germans to Hungarians, the Ottoman Empire from Slav to Turk to Arab, the Russian empire. When not under empire rules, nations in Italy, Germany, and even France were split into sub national principalities and statelets.
I don’t think anyone would argue that BT was anything other than a disaster, and the result was in spite of it.
But I disagree about hiding symbols of union. Scotland is either in the Union or it isn’t, we can’t continue to put it in its own separate box and hope it won’t bite us.
If you mean proudly displaying union flags might be a bad thing in the very near term, and could affect the elections, let’s face it there’s not much the westminster parties can do at this stage to gain scottish seats. It’s just a matter now of how many seats labour cedes.
Did I make any claims otherwise?
Which still doesn’t get round the FACT that the Acts of Union was the coming together of two Kingdoms in an equal partnership, which you manage to compare to a load of Empires run by a central Kingdom (or equivalent, think something that can be described as the “House of …”) invading other countries to expand their empire.
Which obviously is a false equivalency that I put forward that you used so as to sneakily repeat the claims that you have been warned for.
Which was the fucking point I was making in the first place.
It is you that has the wrong end of the stick:
It started with Steophan making the statement:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18150403&postcount=358
I find UKIP generally reprehensible, and would have no problem with them and other nationalists being kicked out of the European Parliament. There’s a massive difference between breaking up the EU and breaking up a country, however, and the EU is nor sovereign over the UK in the way the UK is over Scotland, so the comparison isn’t accurate.
Any decision over Scotland’s leaving the UK should be made by the whole Union.
I replied:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18150446&postcount=361
Can you explain how the UK is sovereign over a voluntary union.
The UK is built on a voluntary union between two states. There is no constitutional bar to separation except in your mind.
If the sovereign people of Scotland vote for independence, independence will follow as night follows day.
Steophan replied:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18150513&postcount=363
If the UK Parliament passes laws to allow it, yes it will. There’s no reason or precedent for them doing so if they haven’t previously agreed to be bound by the referendum, though.
As we discussed at length in the previous thread.
The people of Scotland are not an independent sovereign people, they are participants in one of the oldest and most stable democracies in the world. Any claim that denying one small region of the UK the right to leave is undemocratic is nonsense.
Clearly you still don’t understand what independence entails for a region wishing to become a country. It’s not something that can happen unilaterally, it requires the recognition of a large amount of other countries. Usually, but not necessarily, including the country they wish to become independent from.
After further discussion Steophan posted:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18153392&postcount=384
It’s not a valid view to want to break up a country against the wishes of its population. There is no reason to think the the population of the UK want to break it up, and the small amount of them actually asked voted against it.
I replied with a list of countries that had broken up:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18153445&postcount=385
You replied:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18154701&postcount=390
How many of those were due to invasion (meaning there may well be a moral “right” to go back to how they were pre-invasion) as opposed to a peaceful coming together of nations?
Is this a sneak attempt to imply that England (and it is England, you seem to only moan about them and never Wales or Northern Ireland) is acting in a “neo-colonial” manner by drawing parallels between the UK and the actions of various empires? You know, that thing you were warned not to do anymore.
I replied:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18154741&postcount=391
At the time when Scotland and England entered a union, the nation state was a rarity. There were empires and stateless.
Nation states were largely a product of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the passed into and out of control of empires.
In this I was pointing out that it was a rarity for two nation states to 1/ be nation states at all, and 2/ for them to agree to enter a voluntary union.
And then you misunderstand and post:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18173909&postcount=418
I believe we called the kingdoms.
You don’t half write some utter shite.
And I replied backing up by comment about the rarity of Nation States and voluntary unions before the Nineteenth century:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18173950&postcount=423
Go back and read your history. Discrete national kingdoms or states like Scotland, England, Portugal, Scandinavia, and Ireland were rare in much of Europe until the late nineteenth century. Multi- national empires Spain including the Netherlands, Prussia including Poland and parts of the German speaking world, the Austrian multi national empire from Slavs to Germans to Hungarians, the Ottoman Empire from Slav to Turk to Arab, the Russian empire. When not under empire rules, nations in Italy, Germany, and even France were split into sub national principalities and statelets.
And you replied by posting:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18173968&postcount=426
Which still doesn’t get round the FACT that the Acts of Union was the coming together of two Kingdoms in an equal partnership, which you manage to compare to a load of Empires run by a central Kingdom (or equivalent, think something that can be described as the “House of …”) invading other countries to expand their empire.
Which obviously is a false equivalency that I put forward that you used so as to sneakily repeat the claims that you have been warned for.
Which was the fucking point I was making in the first place.
Which was my exact point- that two nation states had come together voluntarily, not as an act of conquering, and that constitutionally they had a right to separate without joint agreement.
I do not compare Scotland to a colony- it was a nation state which voluntarily agreed to union. I do however detect, along with many Scots, a tendency by the English to retreat into colonialistic language when discussing Scottish affairs.
Latest Lord Ashcroft poll has the Scottish situation unchanged for the fourth month.
SNP to take forty plus seats, Labour six, LibDems one, Conservatives one on a knife edge (where I vote) .
The consistency suggests that little will change before May.
The UK poll suggests once again a hung parliament with Labour the most seats on about a level par with the Tories in votes.
No cite as just live news on BBC Scotland news.
I take the polls with a large pinch of salt because I expect a huge amount of tactical voting this time around.
But these are single constituency polls with 1000 per constituency which should a low for tactical voting.
It often doesn’t work that way. Say you have a choice between the SNP, Tories, the Lib Dems, and Labour. You have previously voted Tory. But this time your prime objective is to stop the SNP, so you don’t want to split the anti-SNP vote. Which means that if voting Labour (or Lib Dem) is the best way to stop the SNP, you’ll vote for them, but you’ll still say you’re voting Tory until the last minute in case the Tory candidate actually stands a chance of winning, in which case you hope that Unionist Labour & Lib Dem voters will tactically vote for your candidate for much the same reasons.
I am aware of no psephological research that supports that, but you are free to believe it.
You know what? I am seriously bored of Scottish politics now, without commenting on the truth of PJen’s claims. Can we discuss the wider election?
The elephant in the room is that the massive swing from Labour to SNP is the major factor in the campaign- far more important than a few seats being won by Greens or UKIP.
Labour are being denied maybe forty seats in Scotland- the very seats it needs to form a government whether majority or minority.
Ignore it if you want, but the Scottish story is likely to determine the result of the election.
SNP set for 56 of 59 Scottish seats in general election, poll suggests
Polling by Lord Ashcroft indicates that Charles Kennedy could be on the casualty list and Gordon Brown’s seat could fall
You may be right. But as someone living in London, it’s not in my power to do anything about it, and this thread has been utterly dominated by you constantly harping on about Scotland, Scotland, Scotland. I am not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying that subject has been Talked. To. Death.
I probably would not have made such an issue of it if other posters had either denied that the SNP vote was important, or, even worse, suggested hat SNP MPs should be eluded from government making. Earlier I was consistently told that the polls were wrong or tat in the fullness of time the SNP bubble would burst, and that the desire for home rule or more would go away.
It does now look like the SNP will have a major effect on the governance of the UK for the next five years at least. This makes the likelihood of a further constitutional settlement even more likely.
There’s plenty you could do about it. Vote for a party that won’t ally with the SNP and/or write to your party of choice objecting to them doing so. As well as urging anyone you meet who’s considering voting for a minor party to vote either Tory or Labour, to prevent the need for another coalition.
The reason Scottish politics is so fundamental to this election is that, due to their nonsense, there’s a real possibility of a Government effectively controlled by a party that wants to destroy the country. Minimising that seems absurd to me.
In non-Scotland news, the Conservatives seem to be slightly gaining in national polls. The May2015.com poll of polls has them ahead on the last five days’ average (click "Latest Polls), which is a first. As we can be clear that this isn’t due to anything happening in Scotland, it implies a relatively big gain in England and Wales - mostly England, I imagine. How that translates into increased seats *isn’t *so clear, as the Tories do need more votes/seat than Labour do. But May2015’s prediction, for what it’s worth, is for the Tories to have 280 and Labour 265. That would leave the Tories barely able to scrape an effective majority of 324 together if they get Lib Dems and all Others.
I’m not minimising it, it’s just there’s more to this election than simply what will the SNP do. I’d like to hear about party manifesto promises, but all I get are opinion polls about the SNP.
As for where my vote goes, I am a floating voter, and I have no idea which way to vote at present. I would like to vote based on the policies they propose - I’d rather avoid hypotheticals about who they’ll go into coalition with, as none of the possibilities are that attractive. Vote Labour, and I may get an SNP coalition - yuck. Vote Tory, and I may get them dealing with UKIP - yuck. Vote Green, and I get possibly another party enabling the SNP - yuck. Vote Lib Dem, and they could enable the Tories or Labour.