Charles Bannerman

Maybe you could try that approach as regards Westminster! I will when they start to try their best and work hard for more than their cronies and their own self interest! Equally, I consider life in Scotland since 1999 compared with before the Scottish Parliament and I ask "In what respects is life better?" Apart from the smoking ban, it's a question which doesn't seem to have too many answers. I'm not saying life is worse, but I can't really say it's better either.

Oh God... were're back to the People's Front of Caledonia versus the bloody Romans again

Alex... four paragraphs above... some comments/questions regarding each...... 1 - I do take it this was also translated into Gaelic? How many other public documents other than "the vision" are translated into all these languages? 2 - Of course there's been a delaying tactic! Salmond (mistakenly) thought that as time went by, people would come flocking to his side. He also couldn't resist both himself and his pet vanity project being in the limelight for as long as possible. And of course there's a Bannockburn factor because far too many people in the SNP thrive on this blend of romantic claptrap and grievance-based rubbish which is their chosen take on Scottish history. Of course they expected loads of people to start feeling all tartanny and blue faced as they pinned on their spider lapel badges and headed for Bannockburn a few weeks before the vote. But the reality is that they've had to cancel a chunk of the Bannockburn celebrations (sic) because hardly anybody gives a toss. It just goes to show what a pathetic, superficial, caricature perception of Scottishness far too many of these Nats actually have. 3 - If it is going to be publicly funded then it would have cost a lot less if it didn't have the verbose SNP manifesto/ wishlist as a substantial part of it. 4 - I know the SNP are keen on dear booze... but ten quid a pint is just ridiculous! So you mean that in the event of a yes vote we're not even going to be able to afford to anaesthetise ourselves to the consequences with a few bevvies Really the "let's be like Norway" claim is quite absurd.... especially since it's only a Plan B after the Ireland and Iceland "arc of prosperity" went t!tsup. But hang on..... you guys don't do Plan B's

I wasn't aware until recently that they translated it into loads of foreign languages too, at our expense. Have they revealed how many Russian, Arabic or Spanish editions have been circulated? All part of Salmond's ego trip Yngwie. Similarly, delaying this vote until 2014, apart from some misguided delusion that we will all get dewy eyed and Anglophobic on the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, also keeps his moonlike in the public eye for as long as possible. It sort of makes you wish you were a Crimean. At least they got theirs over in a few days!

OQ... call it what you like. Like most of the rest of the world, apart from the ultra-Nats to whom the term is , I use the working title of "Britain" for the highly successful state which resulted from the aggregation of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales, and from which part of Ireland (the "arc of prosperity" bit ) departed in 1922. And IF Scotland decided to secede from that, you could still call it what you like but in practice it would still be "Britain" because dropping off 8.3% of the population - sort of like Yorkshire - really isn't going to make that much difference to "Britain" which might regard it as a bit regretful, but perfectly bearable. However this would make one hell of a negative difference to the seceders who would lose the security and stabilising influences of something which was 12 times bigger. And we didn't cease to be "Britain" when the Irish went away in 1922. Our history over the last 1500 years or so has been one of ongoing aggregation. You had random tribes which became Strathclyde, Dalriada, Lothian, Pictland (that's the bit with the oil by the way ) Correspondingly the likes of Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria became England. The next stage was that Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales, by 1801, became Britain or whatever the hell you want to call it. Fast forward another couple of hundred years and the debate has moved on further to the extent to which there should be further integration in the form of the EU. That's except among you lot in you who just seem to want to turn the clock back more than 300 years to "Scotland" which was really just an intermediate step - and in a lot of respects a failed state until it aggregated with its neighbours - in an ongoing evolutionary process. It's a bit like being a Homo Sapiens and saying you want to go back to being a Piltdown Man! But if you want to turn the clock back, why stop at 1707? Go on - adopt the slogan "It's Pictland's Oil"

I've always thought this poor woman has had a hell of a life. Standing there freezing since 1746 getting constantly shat on by seagulls on her head.

Erm..it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - and we WOULD no longer be part of that. Far too many people in connection with this referendum are failing to use the conditional tense - ie WOULD.... as oposed to WILL which implies a degree of certainty which is not at all justified. But here again we have yet another suggestion from the yes camp in tge quoted extract that voting yes really is no great deal and nothing will really change very much... so go on!! Have a fag!!!! The stark reality, which the yessers are trying to play down at the moment along with the institutionalised Anglophobia of the SNP, is that separation would be complete and permanent with no chance of reverting to the security of the UK when it all went t!tsup.

firstly.... what strong voice do you think we in the Highlands would have against the preponderance of central belt members of an separate Scottish parliament (or indeed the current one for that matter.)? At this point it is worth reminding everyone that a central belt-created SNP majority has deprived us of direct control over our police and fire/ rescue services as well as our local government services since they have also imposed a Council Tax freeze. Hence, the SNP regularly commit the ultimate hypocrisy of whingeing away about the centralisation of decision making in Westminster whilst at te same time centralising decision making in Edinburgh. The future for the Highlands would be especially grim in a separate Scotland.... but historically we really don't owe the central belt one brass Swinney for what they have done for us in the past. secondly... the current arrangement for the Scottish parliament is to quite a large extent also first past the post, which means that less than half the votes cast in 2011 produced the small SNP majority which has saddled us with this tedious Neverendum. thirdly.....you seem conveniently to ignore the fact that, as things stand, it's BRITAIN'S oil. It is a (highly volatile) UK asset but not for the first time on here we find an example of someone trying to pre-suppose an outcome in order to establish a justification for that outcome - which is a logical non-sequitur.

100,000 circulation represents around 2.3% (TWO POINT THREE PER CENT!) of the Scottish electorate. For goodness sake, the Scottish Sun SELLS 276,000 copies EVERY DAY... and you have to pay for that whereas this Toom Tome is FREE, funded by £1.25M of public money. Now of that 100,000 I'm sure a fair chunk will have been acquired by SNP ultras, all sycophantically hoping to get their free copy signed by Alex Salmond so I don't really think that this document has really set the heather alight. As it happens I was actually referring to the content and its impact having divebombed, but indeed it does appear that its circulation has done just the same. Since I'm on, I have to say I find the £4.4 billion (44%) fall in oil revenues over the last year quite interesting. Now, apart from the fact that this is part of an underlying trend of oil revenue decline, I do accept what Salmond says about some of that being attributable to oil companies not being taxed on investments they have made. So at least two things become evident - * Irrespective of the reasons for it, oil revenues are now shown to be perfectly capable of swinging by over £4 billion, year on year, and * It has now emerged that the year on year public finances of a separate Scotland would to a large extent be determined by the investment strategies of oil companies. What kind of independence is that? On the other hand, a British economy which is about 12 times the size of a Scottish one is far, far less easily threatened by fluctuations and declines like this.

Bang on OQ When you see the word "lecture" in the same phrase as "Alex Salmond" you know this is something you need to avoid for your own sanity. But tell me something. When are the SNP going to start actually saying stuff which might have a chance of getting people to sit up and listen to their case? Since the 670 page publicly funded manifesto divebombed without trace, I'm just noticing nothing - apart from random defensive mutterings off the back foot in response to the now almost daily battering their stance is getting from all directions. I do have to say that, although somewhat lengthy and sometimes a tad resentful, the contributions on here from your good self have been as good as I have seen - and have been like a veritable Nationalist Sermon On The Mount compared with what is coming from official sources.

Alex... thank you very much for that welcome item of extra ammunitiion. Because we can indeed add reduced corporation tax to the SNP wish list of incentives to vote yes - BUT which will (maybe?) only materialise IF an SNP election win in 2016 were to follow a yes vote. You need to make up your mind whether any re-election of the SNP in 2016 would be a good thing because in the event of a yes vote it might help the wish list towards a degree of reality, or a bad thing because an increasing number of people are seeing through them as this infinite campaign rumbles on. CT is indeed yet another element of the SNP philosophy (yes... a cracker of an oxymoron I know ) which promises jam tomorrow.... but only if they can manage to get a van to deliver it (and the van doesn't break down). I'm not so confident that a left-leaning Scottish administration would be all that rabidly keen hand the capitalists a CT offering like this which is probably already sticking in the throats of Nat lefties like Cunningham and "Photographergate" McAlpine. But hey-ho! Let's just feed the masses with as much pie in the sky as we need to get them thinking the way we need them to for their 30 second stay in the polling booth. And let's not worry too much about what will actually be affordable (note this morning's further warnings on oil revenues) or deliverable post-any yes vote.... because that will be irreversible and by then we will have got the only thing we are interested in to the extent that we don't actually give a stuff about the consequences.

Your grandson's just five???!!! Pull the other one!

Geez Oddquine... I've been working a 70 hour week just to get to post #76 never mind #576 in the face of the increasingly verbose ways you seem to dream up to say that you don't like Westminster (a near synonym for The English ?) and as a poor put-upon Jock, what a completely bum deal you're getting from same. My viewpoint is straightforward. Like a large number of people in Scotland I am perfectly happy with the current arrangement and as such I actually grudge having to endure three and a half years of grievance and resentment politics and harping on about a complete side issue - or rather non-issue. In particular I have no interest at all in nitpicking away about the perceived intricacies of the Barnet Formula and the evils of "Financial Corporatism" etc etc etc. However just in case there might be the slightest risk of the unthinkable, the unprecedented and the highly improbable emerging from the unlikeliness of the biggest turnaround in political history, I do feel obliged to dip my toe in the water from time to time. As a result, something did emerge from recent posts when I made the point that Salmond and co. say they want to keep the queen. "Don't worry," someone else replies. "That's just what the SNP are saying they WOULD do IF they were re-elected in 2016 which is by no means certain!" Aye, OK then. So equally, all the stuff they put into the "Bribery" section of the 670 page publicly funded manifesto, some of which I listed in an earlier post, must presumably fall into the same category and be equally ingnorable then? The punchline here is that this actually epitomises one of the SNP's fundamental strategies which is simply to tell people what they thnk people want to hear in the hope that they can be conned, for the duration of their 30 second stay in front of the ballot box, into casting a vote for something which will have consequences for all time. Wanting to benefit from both contradictory sides of this argument is typical of the separatists' "have your cake and eat it" methodology which also includes the idea of sharing all the bits they want to keep, such as sterling and embassies etc whilst hogging as much of the oil for themselves. Separation is for life.. not just for ther duration of a single parliament and certainly not just for Christmas.

Gordie... I am a republican I find this presumption of Royalism a bit bizarre. Just the union Jack onesie then? Mmmm.... maybe just a bit too "Rangers".

So equally we can also completely ignore the following, and a lot more about the so called "shape of an independent Scotland", from the 670 page publicly funded SNP Manifesto published last November? Thirty hours of childcare per week in term time for all three and four-year-olds, as well as vulnerable two-year-olds. Trident nuclear weapons, currently based on the Clyde, removed within the first parliament. Housing benefit reforms, described by critics as the "bedroom tax", to be abolished, and a halt to the rollout of Universal Credit. It would be in Scotland's interest to keep the pound, while the Bank of England would continue as "lender of last resort". BBC Scotland replaced at the start of 2017 with a new Scottish broadcasting service, continuing a formal relationship with the rest of the BBC. Basic rate tax allowances and tax credits to rise at least in line with inflation. A safe, "triple-locked" pension system. Minimum wage to "rise alongside the cost of living".

Gordie... I am a republican I find this presumption of Royalism a bit bizarre. My apologies CB just in jest anyway Yes, I know Gordie... no offence taken. You couldn't afford to take offence on this thread anyway I find Oddquine's suggestion that an separate Scotland would get rid of the monarchy a bit strange. One of Salmond's several commitments is to keep the monarchy.

Gordie... I am a republican I find this presumption of Royalism a bit bizarre.

Frequently... especially when I come across some of these hairy eejits who wrap themselves up in swathes of tartan, wave saltires and generally have delusions that they are latter day victims of English oppression. They are the sort of nationalist equivalent of these Celtic fans who spend their lives hanging about Parkhead. The Battle of Culloden must be one of the most misunderstood episodes in British history which time and again finds itself hijacked by ultra-Nationalist cranks who are probably an embarrassment to the SNP if they haven't already been chucked out, and rightly so. It's people like this who bring me closest to any feeling of sympathy with tge SNP For instance when you look at photos of the recent protest about housebuilding near the battle site, here are the ever present saltire-waving hairies in caricature gear acting out their delusions of grievance against the English. I was also at a charity run at Culloden last October, and again here was a squad of ultra-Nat nutters doing the run in the teeshirts of some kind of off the wall, chip on both shoulders organisation. Two of the things that worry me most about Scotland are the manner in which it has allowed its history to be subverted for political purposes and the embarrassing way in which it has connived at the caricature of itself which is all too often presented on a global scale.

Oddquine - has the fact that this is principally a football website not alerted you to the fact that there was actually a game on today. So while life at the best of times is far too short to read your increasingly verbose perorations about the whole world havng it in for the Yessenpee Campaign, combining one of your pontifications with the kind of outcome produced at the TCS today is actually far, far more than flesh and blood can conceivably stand

If I rented a room in your house (unlikely I know), and you defaulted on your mortgage (unlikely I know), the bank wouldn't persue me. They would go after the mortgage holder. The UK "continuing" took on the debt, therefore the UK "continuing" are liable for the debt. Now, this myth that the Scottish government would renege on the debt is just that. As they are perfectly entitled to do, they've asked why Scotland would be liable for a debt yet not entitled to the assets. Everything is up for negotiation only Westminster stamp their feet and refuse to negotiate. It's Westminster that is causing uncertainty, not the Scottish government. It's in the Scottish government's interest not to appear to have any uncertainty, although some of the stuff they have been coming away with generates uncertainty by the barrowload - and not the least the pie in the sky promises about what Salmond's Land Of Milk and Honey (Haggis and Whisky?) would allegedly offer, whilst failing to cost any of this or even properly admit that this MIGHT only be on offer IF an SNP government continued to be in power. They simply revert to the default position of "The Oil Will Provide". It's a bit like Custer telling the troops "Them pesky Injuns really quite like us, so it's safe enough to ride into Bandit Country." The SNP have even extend this obsession of certainty to their claimed confidence that the Unionist Parties are bluffing about no currenct union. In fact I learned today that Alex Salmond and John Swinney have been made honorary members of the Flat Earth Society on the strength of this particular persistence.

No it's not. It's been there for millions of years. It's just that it wasn't until about 130 years ago that technology started to be developed which created a demand for it and gave it an economic value. It's worthless if it isn't recovered though. Like I said, I don't think it would go down well if an independent Scotland tried to claim any shale gas or other assets recovered in a future rUK. Not at all. It's no more worthless than whisky sitting in a bonded warehouse awaiting sale. And as far as the shale gas is concerned, if that scenario arose, it would be a result of an active decision by Scottish voters to secede from the UK - and its assets. But why not do a deal if the whole national debt and the oil are both UK assets, why shouldn't UK continuing not keep them both - after all the SNP seem to be quite happt for UK continuing to keep the whole debt?

No it's not. It's been there for millions of years. It's just that it wasn't until about 130 years ago that technology started to be developed which created a demand for it and gave it an economic value.

So that's Scotland's 8.3% share of the BofE, the military, the national debt (unless Alex were to throw the rattle out of the pram)... and just 8.3% of the oil as well? On the other hand if the national debt currently belongs to the UK, does that not also apply to the oil... so the rest of the UK keeps all of that if Scotland decides to walk away from the current owner of that particular asset? Once again we return to the separatist presumption of expecting everybody to agree to the breakup of the UK, and on their terms into the bargain.... or at least until they got the wake up call that the rest of the UK wouldn't be engaging in currency union for a start. Oh but I forgot! The other UK parties don't really mean that!! So maybe Alex Salmond doesn't really mean it that he wants a yes vote in September either and he's only bluffing there too?

I have just put a post on "other sport" on a thread started by Doofer's Dad suggesting that it would indeed be appropriate to have something on "ICT", given the significant role Sergei played at a very early stage in ICT's history. Extremely sad.

Yes that is really so sad. This is almost a thread which could be on "ICT" given that she is the daughter of a former manager who, although not especially successful, was a complete gentleman and holds an important place in ICT's history. A sad time for Sergei between this and what is happening in the Ukraine.