It has been said, cuefay.

Ah you missed the point my friend. The streets of London is not where you find England, nor should it be. In as much as we appear to have a disunited Kingdom, the Scots have been alive to that for some time hence the present referendum, we also have a disunited notion of what England is. Post independence, if the vote is yes, the lack of union within England never mind what is left of the UK will be thrown into sharp contrast. If we no longer have the bogey man of the Scots to direct our xenophobic tendencies then we will be left to direct them amoungt ourselves - home counties against the North, Cornwall declaring a move for independence, London against everybody. What is England indeed. As for your suggestion that England would consider keeping the Scottish trappings for state edification - well really is that not the root of our problem. We have nothing of our own so we borrow. Good grief what has happened to the United Kingdom.

[QUOTE=Kluseau;7722876]

If I lived in an English region and saw devolution moving ahead in Scotland, Wales and NI, and the Scots being offered a choice on nationhood, I think I'd be pretty cheesed off too. The answer to this is not to stop doing things right in the devolved administrations: it is to start to do them right in England.

[/QUOTE

Spot on. Instead of our purile whinging we should be honest and recognize that the Scots have made devolution work. On a democratic basis they have decided that university education should be free at point of access, that Health Care should be protected from creeping privatization and remain true to its founding principles. And don't make the the mistake oft quoted of those "down sarf" that those decisions are taken without responsibility for funding.
"They are spending our money" writes the Daily Express. No, they are spending their share of the tax take differently, directed by different priorities, different needs, different philosophies. They simply decide on their priorities for public spending just as we do. If we are envious of what they do then we need to get up of our arses and make our head in the sand politicians change. How often do we hear "Westminster is to follow Scotland by introducing" - only this week it was minimum pricing on alcohol. Yes I am envious of their approach to health care for elderly, university funding, social justice; but i don't hold it against them its what we should be doing. Scotland has grown weary of the Union and I for one sympathise; if only we had been as switched on.

"Good grief what has happened to the United Kingdom. "

It's still united Tom and with positive influences such as yours it will remain so.

This whole Scottish independence cr@p has rattled us all but we could all learn from it.

I sincerely hope so


Posted from Pprune.org App for Android

All very true. Tartan as we know it today effectively dates back to a visit to Scotland by George IV in 1822, which was choreographed by Sir Walter Scott. Scott drew on some traditional elements of highland dress to invent a very different and largely fictional "tradition" more or less from scratch. This was further embellished in the 1842 by a pair of fraudsters, the Sobieski brothers, who published a hugely popular catalogue of "traditional clan tartans" that were no such thing, but which subsequently became accepted as such.

Meanwhile, aren't bagpipes of essentially middle eastern origin, finding their way to Scotland via southern Europe and Ireland? So if the King of Jordan did copy Scottish pipes, he was merely returning to a tradition that was probably considerably older in his country than in Scotland.

And... St Andrew, a man who never came within 1000 miles of Scotland, though some of his bones might have done, arguably, after his death. He is also the patron saint of Romania and Russia and had a much closer association with those places. He seems to have been acquired as partron saint of Scotland in preference to St Columba as a result of an ecclesiastical power struggle after 1070.

Yet, out of this remarkable rag-bag of inventions and borrowings comes a culture which probably has more recognisable and distinctive elements than most: something greatly helped by the presence of maybe 20 million people outside Scotland who trace their origins here. I saw only yesterday a photo of a highland games (one of many) held in the USA, featuring an Imperial Stormtrooper (as in "Star Wars") wearing a kilt over his white armour. The culture has developed a life of its own...

Irn Bru?

234

Irn Bru or jellied eals and warm beer guess it depends on which side of the wall your vote lies. The origins of the symbols are largely irrelevant, we all came out of Africa anyway. What is relevant is the gap they leave behind if the vote is yes. You are a fool if you underestimate or deny the importance of Scotland to the union, ask yourself why the mainstream parties are so against
the yes vote. There are idiots and bigots making comments here on something the import of which they cannot comprehend. Idiotic bigots are the worst type of bigot, and a bigoted idiots are the worst type of idiot.:ugh:

Reverting to the 1801 pre union flag would bring two benefits, firstly it would no longer be possible to hang it upside down and secondly cheaper to produce.
A win win situation for England.

As to anti English racism, I was taken out for a drink in Dundee circa 1977 by my cousins husband. I was told not to speak loudly and thereby identify myself as English or to attempt to go to the bar. A great night, not!!!!!!

Actually the best bit was drinking up time. Everbody seemed in an almighty rush to get out of the bar after last orders had been called. Baffled I had the large fire alarms on the wall pointed out. After drinking up time was over these were switched on and left on till the bar was clear. How I missed Germany.

Come to think of it we could advertise the vacancy I am sure we could find a new partner in crime.

We are going to miss those Scottish infantry though. When going over the top having the Scots on one side and the Australians on the other was about as good as it got.

GladRag - Entirely true I'm afraid. - I'm not anti Scot, indeed it's a lovely place., but my 3 year flirtation with it gave me experiences I doubt any of my Scottish colleagues experienced in England (open to be proved wrong) nor indeed Wales, albeit South Wales. Therefore when the subject of independence pops up, I'm more than happy to hold the door open.
The defence matter is considerably more complicated than my simplistic view. I can't imagine any force funded by an indepandant scotland would be large enough to guarantee any security, so imagine any future regime would allow bases to be used as part of an agreement with NATO, or a yet to be announced British Isles setup, whereby some operational costs are paid for by the new Republic.

Very little is certain about next year's referendum, except for one thing: Scotland will not become a republic. Everyone is clear that whatever the outcome the monarch will remain head of state.

Speaking as an Englishman who lives in Scotland and having spent most of my RAF life based in Scotland...., I have absolutely no idea how the vote will go but if there is a RSAF of the future, I would be first in the queue to jump across (if they would have me). I'd even take a considerable pay cut to do so.

Just think, for the 1st time in 20 years, I'd belong to an organisation trying to build up from scratch. Everyday would be talks on expansion and taking on new and more staff, probably with open minded leadership as opposed to FJ is the be all and end all and the mantra of cuts/savings/cuts/savings etc...

But back to CM's original starter. I reckon 12 x Typhoons would work (similar to Slovakia with 12 x MiG 29's). This would be sufficient to maintain an independant QRF capability and stop NATO worrying about having to defend the latest member. Maintenance packages and maybe conversion would be catered for south of the border. Nothing unusual nowadays, especially when you consider platform types currently in service that the RAF needs to train on in the States.

Next priority would be MPA. Probably a lease type package of 7 x P3's with a laydown similar to New Zealand. Following that would be SH and AT. Not sure how many numbers and of what type but matched to the size of the Army (Scottish Brigade maybe??). Finally, for the RSN, a Frigate/OPV mix.

All training outsourced to the best provider or home grown in a joint HQ/Training setup for all ranks of all services.

Anyone else??

I'm intrigued by this. By whom's authority will Scotland (bending the knee to Brussels when handing over the newly minted Certificate of Independence) require that the monarch will remain head of state? I thought the entire process revolves around leaving the United Kingdom.

Back in July on the Scotland would get 18 fast jets plus 26 helos if it splits thread, Fatter Gator came up with a shopping list of expensive items that the new Scottish government would need to furnish (20th Jul 2012 at 07:24). If I may paraphrase:

run, staff and maintain schools,
free healthcare for all,
police,
roads,
welfare,
fire service,
free university tuition,
criminal justice,
parliament,
civil service,
bus subsidies, tram subsidies, railway subsidies, farm subsidies,
NATO subscription (yes they are planning to do that),
foreign development,
a diplomatic service,
culture, media and anything else that people expect of governments.

One could think of a hundred more, I'm sure. And many of the items on the list would have many, significant sub-divisions such as vehicle licensing, passport office, border agency, customs and excise, highways agency, and so forth. All that to come from an annual budget that may be something in the region of £140 billion? That's a GDP that would possibly reduced by, for example, the potential move of contracts such as Type 26 south of the border and the loss of local income from the current UK military bases in Scotland. They would, of course, also inherit their share of the total UK debt (and who knows what their credit rating would be and, therefore, how huge their repayments). I can't see that leaving very much for defence.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers (Director of Research at the Royal United Services Institute) pointed out that their likely defence budget might be around 1.4% of GDP, say £2 billion. compared to around £39 billion for the UK. Even Norway spends double that figure, Denmark one and a half times. Round figures.

With that, Salmond is talking about running one naval base (presumably with mainly smaller vessels to service its fisheries protection and border patrol - a border that is mainly maritime), one air base (if we leave one there - why would we if we thought separation were coming?) and a mobile brigade.

They would also face the one-off costs of building all the infrastructure for their MoD, logistics, training units, air, land and sea HQs, etc, etc.

I doubt very much if they would be in the market for fast air. I would imagine their defence needs would revolve around the threat of terrorism, cyber-attack, ops in the Arctic seas and, possibly, playing a part in NATO or UN peace-keeping missions.

We all know that defence is expensive and it is interesting to consider how a new nation would be able to pay for all that. Perhaps they might be expecting to be able to rely on the fact that a threat to one part of the British Isles is a threat to the whole; so Scotland might be tempted to shelter under the UK's defence umbrella for free. One could extend this argument to them gaining protection from NATO for free.

My questions here are:

Once they've paid for all those items on the government shopping list, would they realistically be able to afford a battalion, a naval base with ships and an airfield with some aircraft.

I also wonder what those ships and aircraft might be.

You've missed one thing off your list Courtney. Scotland is totally commited to free renewable energy, aka windfarms. So when Europe sits under a blocking high pressure system for a week, Scotland will be absolutely certain to be at the top of the list for Norway to supply hydro-power (bypassing their mates in Sweden and Denmark). And of course France won't give priority to their Francophone neighbours and Germany. For sure, Scotland will be the top of Europe's energy priority list.

At which point it would cease to be "United".

Why should Scotland's leaving the United Kingdom, if that were the outcome, prevent the monarch remaining as head of state? Doesn't your logic imply that having QEII as head of state means that Canada, Australia or New Zealand must somehow all be part of the United Kingdom (which, before the incoming arrives, I should make very clear they are not)?

As has already been stated on this thread, the SNP are offering a "package" which they think will attract the most "yes" votes. That package therefore currently includes such things as retaining the monarch as head of state, keeping the pound, etc.....

How many of these the SNP actually intends to keep once independence has been obtained may well be a very different matter. For example, they were actively discussing joining the Euro until they perceived the voting public weren't keen on the idea - but that may well still be a long term SNP aspiration, one that simple isn't discussed in the open. In the same way, maybe retaining the monarch is just a short term vote winning measure, rather than a long term intention?

AR1 -
From:

"Go and toss your cabers has been my attitude ever since."

To:

"I'm not anti Scot, indeed it's a lovely place., "

You're not to sure where you are on this at all, are you fella? But it's an improvement in attitude, anyway.

I'm still curious, did you report the policeman?

Ignoring the whole political thing for a second, 12 x Typhoon or 12 x Gripen??

Courtney ... I'd argue that any Scottish Mil Aviation needs could be broadly similar to that of Erie. In which case their fleet mix seems reasonable ?

Irish Air Corps

Coff.

I need new reading glasses :(