Always find it funny that when someone mentions Scottish independence it is always met with abuse from English people as in "let them go they will be sorry" etc etc.

Ambivalent on the issue but doubt London Govt would allow breakup without some form of action.

You have the wrong end of the stick - we English find it amusing to wind up the Scots, and this is the best way of doing it at the moment (unless we put an extra tax on deep-frying fat). They take it all far too seriously.

I thought it was the Hadrian wall until the Gay Italian Midget tried his luck at getting the throne. On a serious note why would any sane minded Englishman/woman want Glasgow or Edinburgh to be part of England?

Not any more than the Scots would want them.

However, such a division leaves England with two huge airports right on our border and we would only have Leuchars and Machrihanish, although the Cowal Peninsula would extend a long way into the English part of the Atlantic.


I suspect that things will get worse before they get better and survival may become more important than Independence before the SNP get around to having a vote on splitting away from Westminster.

Some real cuts to public services are going to be needed, not this fannying around we have seen so far. Proper money saving cuts to budgets that leave the taxpayer funding what’s required not all the nice to have crap. Let’s get the Police, Fire and NHS funded and then see what money is left over for national defence.

Leave all the rest of the leeches like the Scottish National Orchestra and the Opera, National Portrait Gallery and Historic Scotland to stand, or fall, by their own means. If the people want Opera, let them pay for it the way that Speedway clubs need to survive on what they get trhough the gate from fans.


Cut all the waste of the economic folly that is the regeneration budget. All this free money from the government has to come from somewhere and if it were not so readily available in huge lumps, then the taxation burden would ease upon the rest of us.

Instead of the Police cutting 10% across the board and seeing crime fighting suffer, why not just do away with entire, non productive, departments and staff like the Diversity Co-ordinators and Marketing Executives.

Let’s have fewer council staff doing plant pots in the town centres and flower beds along the edge of the motorways. Everywhere you look you can see public money spent on things that only the recipient of the money actually wants.

£50 Million quid for a painting? If the Titan is really worth that then let someone with 50 million quid buy it, not the taxpayer.

To return to Air Defence, Scotland could operate a small airforce to protect the Scottish border and offshore assets, without the need for an expeditionary warfare capacity. Such an airforce could do without a lot of the waste that currently holds back the RAF from getting value for money.


It’s not going to happen of course, we’ll see the whole system fall apart first, as the money men hold out until the very bitter end like Gadaffi did.

Watch what happens in Greece when they can't find the money to pay the Police and the Army.

Control your ambition, or it will bring you down.

Absolutely not, never; and despite the 25% pay rise etc I wouldn't touch an independent Scotland's armed forces if I thought there was any likelihood of anything like that, obviously.

But a generous package, no risk of ridiculous civil war, and a chance to stay living in some lovely parts of Scotland would be hard to resist if independence appeared.

I'm not pro-independance, in fact the very opposite, but I am not going to sit around whilst people spout bollocks about how Scotland is a parasite on England.

All members gain from being part of the Union, particularly the Welsh.

It seems apparent that this is quite an emotive subject, although no-one has really approached where an independent Scottish military would come from. Would Scots in the UK Military be 'drafted', or would it require a whole new set of infrastructure for recruitment, trg? Would ex-pat Scots go flooding back to their new Country, thus boosting its economy? At the end of the day, I feel that Scotland will never get (and does not need) total independence, it is much better off maintaining the status quo and allowing idiots like Salmond to milk the patriotism of its residents (and ex-pats, Mr Connery) for their own benefit.

Tourist and Grumpy 106,

I am in total agreement!:ok:

FB:)

When Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, those serving in the Armed Forces were given the choice of which 'new' country to serve and were posted accordingly. The hardwear was split mostly on the basis of where it was when the split was made with some exchanges made on the basis of need and ability to provide support (ie Slovakia knew it could not afford to have everything that was bequeathed). It was done very equitably and with little fuss.

Sam,

There was a link to a very good article explaining how 40 years of oil revenue could be used to support Scotland while setting itself up as an independent economy, with all sorts of tricks it could use to encourage high tech companies and the like to invest that the UK currently can't use. Go read them.

After the phenomenal torrent of disgraceful racism that flowed out from your earlier posts, I don't think you have a leg to stand on with being called a name or 2.

That would be Aran in Ireland you're talking about. We don't need knitwear here. I sit under palm trees outside my local pub! :ok:

I should have said retarded and unable to read.

You challenge us to show how Scotland could be financially improved after independence.

I will say again for the hard of thinking. Yes Sam, I am talking about you xenophobic types. (look it up)

I do not think independence would be good.

Scotland would be poorer.

This does not mean therefore England would be richer. The Union benefits from scale. We would all be poorer if the Union split.

"I never had a pleasant experience dealing with Scots/Welsh/Irish aircrew............. "

Gosh, I wonder why.......

Perhaps because you are a w..........

onderful person?

... remember a few years ago when 007 (the best one!) got some award (BAFTA?) from Prinny Anne.

He was fully dressed up in Jock Frock etc, showing his (extremely) brown knees to advantage.

Says HRH: "You didn't get THAT suntan in Scotland!" ba boom!

I think that you'll find that would be 1959! By the way SAMXXV I'm sorry you've had such a poor experience of Scots, Irish and Welsh people. Me too, I've also known some great English people, but I've not quite been able to separate everyone quite so meticulously and then find that all the arseholes are of Keltic origin and the good guys all Angles and Saxons. Take my advice, regarding your Pure Anglo-Saxon crusade, give it up now, before you find out just how many people with such origins aren't actually English or don't regard themselves as such... and just how many people have no Anglo-Saxon lineage, whatsoever, yet regard themselves as English through and through?! Ta very much!:ok:

FB:)

Guess you live in a house with no mirrors then.

Your comments do mark you out as an ignorant, bigoted racist...and also someone with a grossly exaggerated sense of his own self worth.

Once read in book that people who quote the achievements of their ancestors often have little of their own to boast about.

Top tip mate...stop insulting all and sundry and life may just look a little sunnier.

So disapointed in you all. :{ What a lot of FA!

I have seen less bitch slapping and comedy fighting down Sleaford on a Saturday night?

Your acting like a bunch of drippy brilo boys. 'He called me names', 'you said my countries poor.' Can you just read yourselves. :ugh:

Especially the poor lad crying about being called a Retard! Jesus if thats the worst you have ever been called I suggest you do some eavesdropping fella. Your eyes will be opened.

Xenaophobia - Rangers - Celtic - Scotland is full of Bigots I grew up there in the 1980's and I have lots of memories of how much Scotland loves service families and Englishmen. Fe Fi Fo Fumb :rolleyes: If you can't take a joke!

Your supposed to be grown ups are you really taking what people write on a forum as gospel? For Example - I could tell you that I am a I have 34 inch long legs, long blond hair, I am typing naked, I am eating a flake, I am a pole dancer I am Welsh and my opinion on world Economics is give me a pen and I will sort it out. Not one thing on the above list is true but do you now doubt what I have written or the denial? Forums are full of people who are full of BS. Even those people are entitled to their own opinion.

Play nicely boys stop throwing spanners and logs about. ;):p

Sam may be ignorant, he may be bigoted, he may be both, but by demonstrating his bigotry and ignorance against other nationalities does not, I'm afraid, make him a racist.

Please don't use the NewSpeak proffered upon us by the PC crowd... It only serves to encourage them...

To get vaguely back to the thread, I still think Hummingfrog had a good point about taking Independence to its logical conclusion, and allowing Shetland a referendum. As others have mentioned, large amounts of investments are going into oilfields that would belong to Shetland if they went it alone. Salmond wouldn't be best pleased at all by that, but he can't have a moral argument against it.
As those who've visited Saxa Vord will know, the nearest railway station is Bergen, Norway. I found the locals to be more Norwegian in character than typical jock (read "pleasant and generous").

"I found the locals to be more Norwegian in character than typical jock (read "pleasant and generous"). "


What!
They are a bunch of inbreds!