Scottish Independence

[Union Jack]

Union Jack: You have destroyed you (sic) reputation. - Sam

Sam, Sam! Oh treble dear, there are so many inaccuracies in your posts that I’m going to allow myself to indulge in a little thread drift. Try to help a poor fellow and what happens? Apparently, according to you, I've destroyed my reputation but, based on your poor staff work, I‘ll leave it to cleverer people than you to judge, as indeed some already have.

So let's look at the evidence .....

In Post 77 you said your grandfather was “RSM of the in*Vth Inniskining (sic) Dragoon Guards during both the Boer War & the 1st World War“.* He was awarded both the MC & the DSM.”

In Post 88 I said there’s no such regiment, but that he could have been in the 5th Dragoons, the forerunner of the 5th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, formed in 1927, some 12 years after the period you specified.

I also suggested that it seemed unlikely that your grandfather had been awarded the DSM, an essentially naval decoration, and that it seemeds much more likely that he was awarded the DCM or Distinguished Conduct Medal, which actually indicates a higher level of gallantry than the DSM, or its army equivalent the MM or Military Medal.

In Post 92 you say “Well, Union Jack, have look at many websites, if you can find them. My grandfather was RSM Harry Croft MC, DSM of Vth Dragoon Guards“, which is what I suggested, and with no mention of the Inniskillings or indeed the "Inniskinings".

You continued, “ He was awarded the MC for grenading & shooting a German gun position in France in 1915. He was awarded the DSM as a cavalry RSM for leading a horse attack on a German armoured troop train (the last ever recorded cavalry charge) at Harbonniers, France.”

I duly reacted to your rudely worded suggestion and, quick as a flash, I discover that Harry Croft of the 5th Dragoons Guards was indeed awarded a decoration for attacking a German position in France in 1915 as a Squadron Sergeant Major whilst acting as infantry, not the MC as you say above, but precisely the award I suggested, namely the DCM.. Incidentally, since he was an SSM in 1915 so could hardly have been an RSM in the Boer war as you originally stated..

I must admit to feeling a degree of concern at commenting in such a way on the distinguished exploits of a very gallant man, who clearly distinguished himself even further in the attack on the armoured train at Harbonnieres when he won the MC, and not the DSM as you stated, as an RSM in 1918. Incidentally, whilst that may have been what you describe as “the last ever recorded cavalry charge”, it may well have been the last in WWI, but certainly not the last ever as even the briefest research would show.

Equally, I am not at all surprised that Spinks should have placed such a high value on his medals, or that,, even if you managed to get the actual awards the wrong way round, you are so rightly proud of him However, for precisely that last point, I feel able to comment as I have, and believe that you owe it both to your grandfather’s memory, and for the benefit of your family to marshal your facts properly and correctly.

So "Union Jack" my reputation is intact. Is yours? I doubt it. - Sam

As I said in my opening paragraph, I‘ll leave it to cleverer people than you to judge

Jack

PS I couldn't help noticing that you took far too long to withdraw your thoughtless and undistinguished remarks about named officers, nor did you seem to appreciate your Irish connections

PPS I’ve been trying so hard to put you on the right track that, just to make your happiness complete, I forgot to tell you that, yes, I am a Scot!

[Wholigan]

Errr ............... HE didn't withdraw anything himself!

Incidentally, he cannot see what you have written above, as he is PNG in this thread. Sorry.

[obnoxio f*ckwit]

Not that it makes any difference to UJ's rather good ripostes to SAMXXV's enthralling and well presented posts, but the 5th Dragoon Guards merged with the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons in 1922, to form initially the 5th/6th Dragoons, later renamed the 5th Dragoon Guards in 1927. I know this because my grandfather was a 6th Inniskilling Dragoon from 1905 until 1912 when he discharged (although he was but a mere private, and was far too canny to go winning any medals), but was subsequently called up again into the 2nd Dragoon Guards in 1915, discharging again in 1920 (still a private ,but with a couple of medals this time). He was apparently gassed at some point, but don't know where, and Mum cant remember, but we still have a few of his possessions (Soldiers Small Book that sort of thing) which are fascinating. Sorry to wander a bit off track!

[Wholigan]

5TH ROYAL INNISKILLING DRAGOON GUARDS
5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know the second one is Wiki, but they both agree on the lineage.

We were on detachment with them when Walter Courage was a captain. Later, he and Piers Courage visited us at Chivenor, but I can't remember why. Age tha knows.

[Hummingfrog]

I may move in the wrong circles but I have yet to meet anybody who thinks Scotland will be better off independent. There is banter between me as a "white settler" and native Scots such as my in laws about how England supports the Scots but most Scots I know who have voted SNP have done for their own personal reasons, such as free Uni education, rather than the independence issue. They admit they won't vote for independence.

Salmond is a crafty politician who is using every means to stir up an English/Scots divide but he won't hold a referendum now as he knows he will lose it.

A recent UK report on Scottish finance indicates that the extra public finance Scotland gets isn't covered by the revenue from oil. The Scottish budget has run a deficit of £41 billion over the past 30 yrs. This is derived from the £197 billion spent in scotland over the total tax raised - minus the £141 billion that was raised in oil revenue.

I know that statistics are massaged by both sides but this is a serious issue and I hope that the majority of Scots do not think that independence will just mean that everything will just stay the same. the following questions will have to answered in detail:-

1. Will the state pension remain the same - there is no pot to share so from independence day the scottish taxpayer will have to pay some public sector pensions plus all of the state pension.

2. Will the Scottish NHS be fully funded and give the same care as the present UK NHS. I presume Scotland will inherit the infrastructure but what about specialist treatment currently taken in England?

3. Will tax rates be the same - income, car, petrol duty etc?

Plus many more.

For those of you who know about the Edinburgh financial disasters - Parliament budget £40 million cost actually £400+ million - Tram budget £375 million no tram has yet run on a much reduced route yet cost is already £500million + with extra borrowing of £231 Million needed - a shambles! These are the people who will run Scotland!

I will fight to remain part of the UK as will alot of Scots I know so all is not yet lost.

HF

[Union Jack]

Wholigan - VMT - I saw the posts from JTO, Hval, and AA as I posted and so amended my PS, which originally read " I couldn't help noticing that you have apparently not withdrawn your thoughtless and undistinguished remarks about named officers"!

Jack

[racedo]

For those of you who know about the Edinburgh financial disasters - Parliament budget £40 million cost actually £400+ million - Tram budget £375 million no tram has yet run on a much reduced route yet cost is already £500million + with extra borrowing of £231 Million needed - a shambles! These are the people who will run Scotland

Hmmm doing that tit for tat isn't going to work as they can easily chuck back
Millenium Dome.......
Any rail investment
Nimrod
Carriers
or even go onto EMU and cost of that.
etc etc

[airpolice]

Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.

O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed,let not mine enemies triumph over me.

I can't see where he was going with the 25th Psalm thing.

Wholigan, he could of course just log on without logging in as any user and read all this.

[Wholigan]

Really???

[airpolice]

Yeah, really really.

Try it with my username if you need to be convinced.

Ban me from pprune, as you have with Sam, and I will still be able to read what you post.

I'll then create a new a/c to pm you from if that makes it clearer that it works.

[500N]

What a shame SAM has gone, I enjoyed watching Union Jack and others pull apart his posts in superb fashion and then watching SAM re post the wrong information again , especially when it took 2 minutes for anyone to look up the information on the net to see he was wrong (the Dragoon's web site for a start).

.

.

[blaireau]

But why Papua New Guinea?

[500N]

Try Persona non grata instead of Papua New Guinea.

.

[hval]

500N

Try Persona non grata instead of Papua New Guinea.

I prefer papua New Guinea.

[sidewayspeak]

I want us to break from Scotland, Ireland and Wales for the same reasons as I also want to leave the EU. England puts more money into Scotland and Europe than it receives benefit in return. In addition, the Scots and most of the rest of the world really dislike us.

Whilst they might have good historical reasons to dislike the English - Lord knows we were just a little naughty in the past - they were our ancestors, not our current population. I think we have more than atoned for their actions.

Methinks it is time for England to retreat to its protected little island and pull up the drawbridge. Concentrate on our well-being. Stop funding the world, policing the world, healing the world through the International (sic) Health Service.

Does that make me racist? I'd say no, it makes me patriotic. England is my home and I'd simply rather not share it with the rest of the world.

[Spartacan]

Hummingfrog wrote:

>>I may move in the wrong circles but I have yet to meet anybody who thinks Scotland will be better off independent. There is banter between me as a "white settler" and native Scots such as my in laws about how England supports the Scots but most Scots I know who have voted SNP have done for their own personal reasons, such as free Uni education, rather than the independence issue. They admit they won't vote for independence.<<

That's pretty much the message I am getting from folk in Scotland. They voted SNP because they are actually a half decent technical Government - not because they want to break up the Union. Or, to as one local put it to me:

"Independence? Nah, World's gone crazy enough without that happening".

Personally I think Salmons's rhetoric has become so strident he's frightened people off the idea and has probably cooked his own goose.

[HTB]

UJ beat me to it by a long way - I did similar research last night (not much on the telly!) but couldn't be bothered to post until this morning, no need now. One little confusion though; the gallant Mr Croft was awarded a Medal and then a Cross - would that be a reflection of higher status of RSM over SSM? (and he must have been a mere stripling during the Boer War)

I missed the latest round of vitriol and bile from our superstar, but get the gist of it from the replies. This clown must have been at LBH at the same time as I was (although I'm confused by the Wildenparts timeline); I don't recognise any of what he says as being a true reflection of the situation during GW1 (although that is only hearsay from Mrs HTB, as I was elsewhere being scared by SCUDS and friendly fire).

Anyway, despite SAMXXV being PNG on this site, I wish him well in his forthcoming move to France, where he will be embraced with open arms for his forthright anglo-saxon virtues (by the way, wasn't yesterday the date of the battle of Agincourt - St Crispin's Day?). To get a little philosophical - what is "English"? A mix of Picts, Celts, Romans (and their vassals), Romano-Celts; Angles, Saxons, Jutes; throw in a dash of Danes and other assorted Nordic nations, Normans (a bit of Nordic and a bit of French there), some more germanic influence, Iberian (from Armada remnants to Peninsula War takeaways); the list goes on. Who can say with certainty that their true lineage is Anglo-Saxon? More to the point, who cares; we're British, with differnt accents and outlooks moulded by different (often turbulent) backgrounds.

Mister B

[Wholigan]

I'm sorry airpolice. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to be funny/sarcastic. I am - of course - fully aware of what punters can and can't do in here, logged in or not. I have also been dealing with re-registrations after banning for a lot of years now. It is surprising how easy most are to spot the style, then check on, then ban again.

Once again I apologise for trying to be sarcastic, I should merely have refrained from comment instead of saying "really???".

The thread ban of Sam was just to stop any more disruption of the thread.

[Tourist]

sidewayspeak


Think that through to its logical conclusion.


Next you better bin Cornwall, bunch of spongers never pull their own weight.
Then the North, useless unemployed types.
Pretty soon there is just London, and guess what, London is only what it is because it is the capital of the UK. By itself it is just a grubby city full of dull w@nkers, and remarkably enough, many of them are Scots who run half the city and political establishment of London.

Scotland gets more spent per person than England, yes, if you average it out. But it is a lot less simple than that. All the rural/underpopulated areas of the UK get more spent per capita. It is obvious why. Every gas pipe/electricity line/bus route/bin run has less people per mile so is less efficient.
Scotland has less people per sq mile than England so the economys of scale are not there. Does this mean that Scottish people have a better standard of service from the Councils than England?
No.
That Scotland chooses to distribute its budget differently from England is their choice. They take hits in other areas.
The UK currently lives off the legacy of our years of empire, and the Scottish more than held their own in building that empire, both in terms of Industry and blood and treasure. Run a very quick google on Scottish inventions or scientists, or Scottish military and you will see that the idea of Scotland as a parasite on England is very misguided. In fact, considering the relative populations, it could well be seen the other way.


This is standard little England crap
Anything the Scots have done well is British, but anything that is not so good is Scottish

[d88]

Hummingfrog -

A recent UK report on Scottish finance indicates that the extra public finance Scotland gets isn't covered by the revenue from oil. The Scottish budget has run a deficit of £41 billion over the past 30 yrs. This is derived from the £197 billion spent in scotland over the total tax raised - minus the £141 billion that was raised in oil revenue.

To put that figure into perspective, I'm pretty sure the same report indictated UK plc had run up over £700 billion of debt over the same period. The same department responsible for producing those statistics have also shown Scotland to be a net financial contributor to the UK.


1.

Will the state pension remain the same - there is no pot to share so from independence day the scottish taxpayer will have to pay some public sector pensions plus all of the state pension.

Scots have paid in to the pension pot from the inception of the welfare state, so are perfectly entitled to get an equivalent share. Longer term, pensions is a conundrum affecting every western country, so the same argument can be leveled outwith the borders of Scotland.

2.

Will the Scottish NHS be fully funded and give the same care as the present UK NHS. I presume Scotland will inherit the infrastructure but what about specialist treatment currently taken in England?

Health is already a devolved issue in Scotland, so the NHS and all it's infrastructure is already under the control of the Scottish parliament. As for care, per head of population the NHS budget is bigger in Scotland than other parts of the UK with new hospitals being built and the taking out the private sector in relation to hospital cleaning and abolishing car park charges. As for specific treatments, why would that change ? If a patient from Scotland currently needs very specific treatment at a hospital in London for instance then that is paid from the Scottish health budget. There is no reason that would change, as hospital's in London already deal with patients from outwith the UK who need specialized care.

3. Will tax rates be the same - income, car, petrol duty etc?

Quite an open ended question that one, even we don't know how the tax rates will be from year to year in the UK as we're at the whim of a chancellor and his economic forecasts, but the Nats have already hinted that things like corporation tax would be lowered to enable Scotland to bring more job creating inward investment.

For those of you who know about the Edinburgh financial disasters - Parliament budget £40 million cost actually £400+ million - Tram budget £375 million no tram has yet run on a much reduced route yet cost is already £500million + with extra borrowing of £231 Million needed - a shambles! These are the people who will run Scotland!

Both the parliament and the trams were Labour inceptions. Both ill thought out and cynically undercosted. The trams debacle in particular, when Labour pushed the legislation through parliament as they thought it would be a good political wheeze to torpedo the Nats budget at the time. They also failed to put a proper management structure in place to run what is a complex infrastructure project. You can easily argue successive UK governments have also had their fair share of capital mismanagement and pick any number of defence projects and the billions squandered for starters. So far the SNP far have delivered every capital project on time and on budget.