Oddquine

What Mr Carney seems to be saying is that the Romans have been rather busier than the People's Front of Caledonia would have us believe. Nope...what he's saying is that the Romans have been busier than the Romans would have us believe! Mr Carney wouldn't be up here saying anything at all if he hadn't been allowed to say it. Have to admit, though, that I almost prefer Project Fear if the alternative is Project Love Bomb.....if Barrowman was the first effort........it is going to be boak-making! Was really impressed at the way Mr Carney didn't allow the TV folk and journalists to put words in his mouth, as well! Bet they went away spitting nails to make up headlines!

Ah..but a currency agreement is an agreement......and like all other agreements, it is mutually beneficial (if the negotiators have intelligence greater than that of a haggis) and it only lasts as long as it works. It has always seemed to me the sensible option, because I'm sure we have all seen what happens when you feel obliged to rush things.....you only have to look at many Coalition Laws/decisions since 2010 as illustration. I think we should have our own currency, but with only 18 months from negotiation to Independence Day, a lot of negotiations to get done in that time, and a lot of essential services to set up/sort out, seems sensible to leave less essential things on the back burner.....and if we are being honest even a currency agreement isn't essential. We don't have one now, do we...but the BOE sets our monetary policy....and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it....and we don't even have the fiscal powers to ameliorate the effects of that policy on our economy as we are.....but independent, with or without a currency agreement....that would change. The biggest problem, as I see it, wouldn't be Scotland's ability to manage our economy sensibly to the satisfaction of the BOE/rUK, but Westminster's propensity to not manage theirs.

Love it! I'm nicking it for my avatar on some forums! Of course there are no CyberBrits. Nobody on the side of the Union writes nasty comments every time a YES supporter comments on the garbage in the media, which passes for reporting on the "debate". Bet this laddie would beg to differ http://thetarge.co.uk/article/current-affairs/0045/a-response-to-my-question-time-critics

http://wingsoverscotland.com/sometimes-you-have-to-write-things-down/ And for those who won't read wings on principle........you really mustn't miss this (if only for the fact that it almost looked like Gary Robertson was insisting on a real answer to his question, for once) GARY ROBERTSON: When we look at the experience of other countries, I mean, you say in your article ‘Young people fear an independent Scotland would be a narrowing, not a broadening experience’. Could you point to a country that’s gained independence where that’s been the case? DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Well actually we’re in a distinctive position, in the sense we’re a historic nation but we’re part of a multicultural, multinational, multi-ethnic country, and - ROBERTSON: Yeah, but I’m asking you to back up this claim that an independent Scotland would be a narrowing not a broadening experience. Which country has that been the case in? ALEXANDER: Well, look at the study that was undertaken that your own package quoted from Edinburgh University, where overwhelmingly, young people made clear that they wanted to be part of something bigger, as well as feeling great pride in what they’re part of here in Scotland, as part of their Scottish identity. So actually, for me, there isn’t a choice between being comfortable in that expansiveness, you can support, Rangers, Celtic, St Mirren, you can support Manchester United, Barcelona. That’s this young generation – they feel that they can have it all. Best bits come in some of the comments, though.......including this wee gem..... Forever known as the ‘St Mirren argument’, that is a person talking “mince” in answering a question. And just watched the whole clip..and swelp me.....Gary Robertson asked another difficult.(for the BBC) question about guarantees of more devolution if there is a NO vote....but let Alexander off without getting any answers..so not that much change there then! But Douglas Alexander does talk a lot of mince when avoiding having to answer questions! Ach,.he talks a lot of mince most of the time!

Oddquine is fatally verbose (and opinionated, nit-picking and pedantic)! What you get is my post having spent ages researching it, even longer writing it.....and then a while cutting it down, removing the swearie words and most of the personal abuse.........and it is still as long as a short story! Sorry, peeps.........but it could be worse!

Alex.if they didn't trash Alex Salmond and the SNP and denigrate the Scottish people who would kinda like to get out of this dependency culture (as the Tory Party is always screaming the less than rich should do) and into taking responsibility for ourselves (as the Tory Party is always screaming the disadavantaged, disabled, under 25s, unemployed should do)..what are they going to say? It has, certainly in Scotland, become the Nulabour Party mantra....Nulabour/Union Good............SNP/Scotland Bad! All the rest of this isn't really a response to your post.....but my general observations about the debate. We can expect a lot of "winding up the pro-independence supporters" and not a lot else, between now and 18/9..because there isn't a lot else to be said. If there was anything positive to be said....I'm sure Charles would have found it and posted it. Seems to me if there was anything at all which the Union could offer that we can't do for ourselves, (over and above bombing the crap out of countries the USA doesn't like, sitting on the sidelines while UK politicians use Scotland's farmers to get cash off the EU, and then share that cash out among the other countries who didn't get it directly from the EU because they didn't need it etc).....then I am damn sure it would have been headlines in every newspaper and on every News Bulletin on the Telly.....and because it hasn't......then there is nothing to recommend it to us.....though you kinda get the impression that Westminster wants to hing on hard to the Scottish "subsidy junkies" not to benefit Scotland......but because losing Scotland will diminish them in the eyes of the world. Anyone care to try and convince me otherwise. (I can be convinced that I am wrong and other people talk sense......I have taken IHE off ignore, because he has proven he was right about Butcher and I was wrong when I was a happy clapper about everything bar his youth policy.) There is nothing to recommend the Union in 2014, imo, bar the history.......and, tbh, I'm not convinced even the history can be recommended when you consider the state the world is in now...and largely due to the imperialism of the "Union" in history. Sure history was a different time with different ideas......but isn't that the whole point of this exercise...that we learn from history....and I think we have but Westminster hasn't..and as long as whichever Government sits in Westminster has to win a majority of English seats...Westminster won't. It seems to me to be a very simple thing, if Westminster really wants to preserve the Union.......all the Unionist parties at Westminster get together ......and fight among themselves to come up with a cast-iron guarantee that they will give Scotland devo-max/a federal system, approved by a Scottish Parliament, and get it through the Westminster Parliament whole and unamended, as the Scottish Majority would prefer, within a very limited time scale.....and if it doesn't happen, we do all this again before May 2016. The current."each party will put forward their promises on devolution for Scotland within the Union at some stage prior to September if we feel like it " just doesn't cut it, because Westminster politicians lie to get elected. Want a list of the lies the Tory and Lib-Dem parties told.....and all the crap they introduced which was never in their Manifestos and all they have left out? Anyone want to convince me that this time, they will do as they say?

Don't think about what's happening to Britain - or you may have to get out and vote This Headline from the Mirror is actually about the 2015 UK election, but could as easily be written as Don't think about what's happening to Britain - or you may have to get out and vote "YES" in 2014. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dont-think-whats-happening-britain-3049793#ixzz2r9UHQVxt and in Scotland Running on Empty: the desperate families forced to turn to the foodbank for survival. http://archive.is/CChhp Can we really do worse in an Independent Scotland than Westminster is doing now and has been doing for decades.....really?

I see nothing wrong with the BBC seeking the raw data before reporting on this. Why on earth should they report on research which criticises them if they genuinely feel the findings are flawed. We all know that mud sticks and if they were to dutifully report it but make a statement that they were challenging the findings, the perception that they were biased would persist even if subsequent analysis of the raw data showed otherwise. Let's face it, this type of social science research is open to a lot of subjectivity and there is some seriously bad research about even where there is absolutely no intentional bias. If the BBC see content in the paper which suggests that the evidence may not reasonably lead to the conclusions reached, they have every right to challenge that. As an example, the report cites a story about a Scottish patient being denied a cancer drug which was available to patients in England. The implication here is that because Healthcare is already devolved matter, independence will lead to more of this. The BBC reporting the patient being denied the drug is therefore interpretted as taking an anti-independence stance! It goes on to state that there are examples of patients in England being denied drugs available to patients in Scotland but that this was not reported thereby increasing the bias. But why would a patient in England being denied a drug be a news story for the BBC in Scotland? The story may be a criticism of the NHS in Scotland and it may be an unfair criticism, but to interpret it as taking an anti - independence bias really is stretching it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the BBC is not biased, but I do think that this illustrates just how complex these issues are. The kind of soft research identified here is fraught with difficulties and the BBC are quite right to seek the raw data before reporting on this. Of course, once they have seen the raw data they should then report it objectively and offer their comments accordingly. If you read all the pro-Independence websites and FaceBook pages, DD, and read the whole report....you'd know that, for by far the biggest proportion of them, there had been individual complaints made....all of which had been pooh-poohed or ignored (as were both of mine). And despite the volume of complaints, none of them have turned up on the BBC complaints website. Now maybe I'm not as trusting as you...but that smacks to me, of an organisation which knows it is driving a horse and cart through its charter obligations.and hopes that, by ignoring they won't have to admit it. The heid bummer of the Beeb said at the Edinburgh Festival that they don't have to be fair and unbiased until the official run-up to the Referendum. Does that not illustrate the BBC mindset to you? I had a rant, when I wrote to them, about the very fact that, when I went on to their complaints site to complain about their bias, I found that their charter allows them to be biased, if they want, unless within the official run up to elections/referenda, which means they can produce their crap until 30th May 2014, before they actually have to have an equal number of pro-independence and anti-independence supporters on political programmes in which independence is an issue, instead of, as now, having a three to one majority of pro-Union supporters..and won't be allowed to sign off a programme with the last word going only to the Unionist and repeated in different words by the presenter. It wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have a majority population who didn't still believe, as I used to until 1979, that the BBC was trustworthy, unbiased and always told the truth. Add to that a print media who is at least as biased, and faithfully picks up and promulgates all the crap emanating from the likes of Elgin's Gary Robertson, Keith's James Naughtie and every UK politician's rear end. I can link you to a lot of stuff which was blatantly unfair....but do you know how hard it was to get even this acknowledgement of bias .....it took nearly a year....and no public acknowledgement to make up for their public lies. Raw data reported objectively and the BBC to offer their comments accordingly....don't make me laugh! http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/affairs-scotland/8501-independence-and-the-eu-how-bbc-scotland-were-caught-misleading-the-public-part-one. To prove they are unbiased, in their response to me, they linked me to this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13326310 . and I then complained about the whole tone of the article...and the fact that the writer said Incidentally, 2014 also happens to be the year two prestigious sporting events - the Ryder Cup golf tournament and the Commonwealth Games - are being held in Scotland. And for the more romantically-minded, next year is also the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, which saw the English army defeated by the forces of King of Scots Robert the Bruce, during the wars of independence. And never mentioned the newly decided "Celebration of the start of WWI" which is something only the UK is celebrating out of all countries involved.. The Ryder Cup, the Commonwealth Games and Bannockburn had at least the merit that they were not deliberately organised to try to influence the Independence campaign. I read somewhere that "Of course those who went to war couldn't have known when the referendum was going to be held to get the dates right, so it wasn't a deliberate action by Cameron to try and influence the referendum (or words to that effect)", but I bet you any money you like, if WWI hadn't started in 1914, and there had been any battle or anything at all he could have wrapped in a UK cloak, which fitted the timing, we'd be celebrating it. Cameron has known since he was at school that WWI started in 1914....so it is really awfully coincidental that he decides, four days before the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement, that it is acceptable to celebrate the start of a war which killed thousands of British soldiers. The charter says they have to be even-handed and accurate. In the NHS case....why else would they give the impression that it was only something which happened in Scotland and not mention the fact that it was something which pertained UK wide if they were reporting the NHS situation accurately? Can you not see that attributing something which happens all over the UK only to Scotland is because they are intending to imply that, because the NHS is devolved, it is a problem only for Scotland which will get worse with Independence? Sure as hell that's the way a helluva lot of Daily Fail readers will understand it. DD, if you had been an independence supporter subjected to the drip-drip of biased propaganda the Unionist media, including the BBC, have been subjecting us to over the years since 2007, you'd be irritated at best and incandescent at worst.

Didn't expect anything less, tbh! I sent an email of complaint after one horrendous example of pure bias, and mentioned a few others of which I was aware. I got a response which denied all I had said, not so unlike the one referenced in Bateman's piece....and pointing me at a blog which, in their eyes, proved they were unbiased. I complained about that as well (imo, you can be biased as much with what you leave out as what you include......and with how you put things..context is all!) Was promised a formal response "after they had talked to their people" and I've heard nothing since...but then I didn't expect a response. Seriously thinking of stopping paying my licence fee and saving it up to pay to the new SBC when it is set up!.. I have lately been on their complaints site, which gives a list of complaints received...and would you believe NOT ONE in the first two pages has been about bias in their Scottish Independence coverage...so that just proves they lie through their teeth, and know they do, because the complaints go in thick and fast. When I remember the BBC when I was a kid, trusted world wide.......and look at the way it is being run now..I could weep!

For all those who equate Independence with a perpetuity of having an immortal Alex Salmond and the SNP in charge, because God hates us.....or more likely because the media is always giving that impression....there will be other options from which to choose. Salmond et al, set out just one vision for Scotland in the White Paper...but there are other visions, some by groups of like-minded people, out of which may or may not grow fully fledged political parties after Independence.. The information is not often set out in one place on their sites..but is mostly under Articles or Policies in the links on the pages. Groups for Scottish Independence Common Weal...... http://scottishcommonweal.org/what-is-the-common-weal-project/ Wealthy Nation.....http://www.wealthynation.org/ Radical Independence......http://radicalindependence.org/ Labour For Indy......http://www.labourforindy.com/ Current Scottish Political Parties for Independence Social Democratic Alliance.....http://www.scottishdemocraticalliance.com/ Scottish Greens......http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/policy/ Scottish Socialists........http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/policies/ Solidarity......http://www.new.solidarityscotland.org/ I'm not including the plethora of FaceBook Groups, though I have often wondered if a political party formed out of all the football related Groups for independence might not herald an era of less sectarianism (given there are 3 Rangers ones,two Celtic ones.and a Rangers and Celtic one)..but what would it be called? I would suggest The Caledonian Thistle Secular Slap Bang in the Centre Party! (you think that would be suitably Scottish and non-controversial?

Yes I am perfectly aware of that, and indeed referred to Ferguson's book as the source of that 26.4% figure in a recent letter to the Inverness Courier on this very subject. In his definitive text on Scotland's contribution to WW1 "Flowers of the Forest" (2006), the leading Scottish military historian Trevor Royle makes an informed, well argued and detailed analysis of likely Scottish deaths. He quotes Ferguson as his source of the 26.4% which Royle then rejects as "a figure which is clearly too high". As for Ferguson, reviews of "The Pity Of War" refer to the book as "uniformly at variance with the accepted version of history" and its author as "known for his provocative contrarian views." Royle's analysis even rejects a figure much lower than 26.4%, which is hence exposed as a gross overstatement. But hey! If you can get a hold of a number, even through a marriage of convenience with a Thatcherite, to put into the SNP Oil Revenues Calculator and produce an answer which might help to stoke up resentment against "the English" for turning the Scots into a latter day Uriah The Hittite....... I never fail to be amazed at the rather strange take on history to which many nationalists seem to be prone. The Battle of Culloden tends to be a favourite. For instance in last week's Courier one of their local councillors claimed that "If the Jacobites had won it would be the Stuart monarchy rather than the Windsors." That might be literally true but he completely ignores the fact that there was never any chance of the Jacobites winning Culloden, which was no more than the eventual venue for the inevitable, and even if they had, the Government still had plenty other armies at its disposal as the clansmen, victims of an outdated feudal system, sensibly filtered off home. But there seems to be this obsession with categorising the Jacobite rebellions as Scotland v England matches (I suppose this enhances the desired resentment factor) whereas in reality they were actually Old Firm games. So what you are saying is that you could have given references to illustrate that there are different opinions as to the accuracy of the figures used by Colin Campbell, as used by Niall Ferguson and as originated by JM Winter..or even said that the figures were from sources, which are generally accepted by most people, and not simply produced from the top of Colin Campbell's head. However, as is your wont, and that of your Unionist media friends, you misrepresent the facts to give a spurious excuse to do your usual irrational SNP rant . Glad you cleared that up! Why would I need to look up the figures? I wasn't the one who introduced the book review and used it to make a pretendy point. Couldn't you find anything from your Unionist reference points to actually discuss the differences between your assertion that the 4000 (rising to 5000 in 2017) direct jobs and the many other indirect ones which would be lost if the Faslane base were to close and my figures which make the job losses less than 2320. (but to be fair, both of us have more realistic figures than Hammond, who claimed not that long ago, the loss of 12000 jobs ), And what makes you think Faslane will close...there is life after Nuclear Weapons, you know? What does Culloden have to do with anything,...bar I'd not be too happy to see housing built next to the battlefield........don't fancy having my ashes scattered in somebody's garden if the Fraser stone happens to end up in it!

What about this? Has nobody seen it or does nobody care? Obviously I don't mean you Charles I would be interested to know the yes/no stance of the researcher from this most prestigious of Scottish Academic Institutions who has done this analysis- an analysis where the categorisation of broadcast content will inevitably be to a large extent subjective and the product of a judgement or perception on the researcher's part. Which reminds me of a book on WW1 I saw revewied in The Courier the other week and which came to the most crazily outrageous conclusion that 26.4% of Scottish combatants died! Then it emerged that the author was a former SNP MSP who, to work out his sums, had clearly borrowed the SNP Oil Revenues Calculator - which of course is permanently set at "Think of the biggest number you can, extrapolate as wildly as possible from there and NEVER try to justify the figure you get." Given the current high degree of separatist twitchiness about the WW1 centenary and their paranoia about any resulting feeling of "Britishness" (q.v. Joan MacAlpine MSP's now notorious "misplaced loyalty" rant) you could just about predict a few attempts to foster a feeling of resentment at the sacrifice - real or imagined. I'd assume from no knowledge whatsoever, that he is at a minimum as biased as all those academics who support the Union campaign with their research..and which you believe implicitly.....and a lot less biased than the likes of the OBR and IMF, set up by the two main political parties, but hailed as "independent" and which you believe implicitly..and even less biased than the MSM. Now, now, Charles...your bias is becoming frankly irrational again. Why would you assume that nobody in the SNP researches anything? It wouldn't be because you never research anything you say on this thread, would it? I wouldn't be so crass as to say you never research anything in your great tomes, because I have never read them for anything in them to strike me as erroneous..but if I had thought you were wrong.....I'd have checked out my facts before I went online and made accusations just because I could. For your elucidation...and that of the relatively few others on here who think you know what you are talking about.......the figures Colin Campbell used were taken from a book entitled "The Pity of War" by Niall Ferguson. Niall Ferguson is certainly Scottish but is an avowed Thatcherite, has an extensive CV in academia starting with an Oxford degree and encompassing lectureships, chairs and fellowships in history in academic establishments from the LSE, to Harvard.and Stanford..he's been involved in banking management for a hedge-fund and advised Gove on the History curriculum in schools in England and Wales..he also supported the Iraq War. and was an advisor to John McCain in 2008 and supported Romney. I think you'd probably like him, on reading his Wiki entry. I think he's an ass (in the American use of the term). And for your further elucidation, Ferguson took them from "The Great War and The British People" by J M Winter. J. M Winter is not even British.......he is American........educated at Columbia and Cambridge and a Yale Professor of History. I expect you will retract your unwarranted insult to Colin Campbell......and if you manage to prove that Ferguson was wrong, to save you having to do that...I assume you will post on here and tell us that a Thatcherite Scot who has advised the Coalition came to the most crazily outrageous conclusion that 26.4% of Scottish combatants died and that he to work out his sums, had clearly borrowed the SNP Oil Revenues Calculator - which of course is permanently set at "Think of the biggest number you can, extrapolate as wildly as possible from there and NEVER try to justify the figure you get." I don't have that much of a problem celebrating the end of a War, ..and to compare it to the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations....jesus wept! Who would believe that anyone, save an utter sociopath, would propose that the upcoming 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, which cost so many lives from all the countries involved, including ours, should be cause for national celebration on the lines of the Diamond Jubilee? But the cynical among us may well think that, as Scotland will have the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup in 2014, pre-referendum, and what Olympic Games and Diamond Jubilee "union effect" produced is wearing off, a celebration of the only important UK historical anniversary big enough to spend a few tens of thousands quid on smacks less of being done to celebrate anything but more to try to resurrect that feeling before YES day. It rather smacks of opportunism, given the timing of the announcement, less than a month after the Edinburgh Agreement. Wonder if Scotland didn't have the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup, if there would have been a "Celebrate the deaths of a lot of men in the world, including 26.4% of Scottish combatants. and 11.8% of those from the rest of the UK and Ireland But it happens to be the only whole UK thing in a time scale which might last until September 18th....and jingoism is jingoism...........and who cares if it is appropriate or not. There is no glory in war....and less glory in celebrating the start of any war. The dead soldiers will be birling in their graves to think that we are celebrating their deaths..and before you start, Charles...I'd have said that whenever the anniversary of the war fell.

What about this? Has nobody seen it or does nobody care? Obviously I don't mean you Charles Read it already. But to be fair it just said what we already know..the MSM are Unionist to the core..maybe to protect their jobs (a bit like the MPs in Westminster representing Scottish Constituencies who regularly trash Scotland and the Scots, and promote the Union lately), Can't see many antis trying to justify the bias (bar maybe Charles). If we are doing links...... Raise you http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/so-tell-me-again-why-did-gordon-brown.html .http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/opinion/letters/yes-expect-better.23198310 and http://nationalcollective.com/2014/01/21/all-together-now/ That last is the kind of article I like.....thought provoking but sarcastic/satirical with it!

How do you know? How can you or any other yes advocate speak for a Scottish government of unknown political persuasion elected years into the future? This just sounds like Alex's wish list politics with his series of "commitments" which no one is in a position to say could or would be delivered. That is presumably as specified in his 670 page publicly funded Toom Tome which must surely succeed the 1983 Labour manifesto as the longest suicide note in history. By the way you seem not to have quoted the section of the linked document which presumably says how you would replace the 4000 (due to rise to 5000 by 2017) direct jobs and the many other indirect ones which would be lost if the Faslane base were to close. Then of course there's the one thing that the SNP say they want to do and they can do now - improve childcare. But they won't because they want to keep that as a carrot to get women to vote yes and they're especially short in that department. The reason, they say, is that they don't want any cash generated by extra employment to go to the Westminster exchequer. Now how cynical is that? Giving their own anti-Westminster paranoia priority over the interests of the women of Scotland. Just as much as you can blithely and so very rudely tell us we will be nothing without suckling on the teat of "Mother England" (Have to say, she's even more bossy, stubborn and self-opinionated than I am....and regarding the similarity of your beliefs, is as irrational as you can be from time to time on this subject). However, if you have some insight into what the consequences of a NO vote in Scotland is going to be .kindly inform us...you may even change our vote. It is up to you to prove to us that the Westminster mindset is going to change, given the current rhetoric from all parts of all UK political parties, rather than denigrating those who believe, very sincerely, that a Scottish Government working for Scotland and the Scots can't possibly be any worse for Scotland than Westminster control.has been over the past three or four decades. I really can't understand how anyone can promote the option of continuing in a Union which, to date has made inequality the main focus of their policies in the last three/four decades......and that aspiration is just about the only one which has ever been met. I don't want to live under a Government which is so personally wealthy that it neither knows or cares how the other half lives.....26 millionaires in the Government do not represent the way I think. I'd not have voted for any political party so mentally impaired as to think that policies, like the bedroom tax,employment of of ATOS to throw people off benefits etc which encourage/force the disabled, the unemployed, the poor to suicide or to using foodbanks (which appear to be the only real growth industry in the UK currently), while reducing taxes for the better off, failing to close the loopholes (which frankly invite tax avoidance in the same way as badly drawn benefit rules provide loopholes allowing a small minority to take advantage) and allowing the employees of our failed banks to gain bonuses of twice salary and calling that a restriction illustrating "we are all in this together"....and despite all the misery they have inflicted on the UK population.they have not reduced the National Debt by one farthing, but are still adding to it annually. But then, of course, I don't remember seeing any of the above in their manifestos......of which I have copies of the key policies , as I do of the Coalition agreement. (and very few have been fulfilled as yet). .Thing is, Charles that if we vote for independence....... firstly, the decision about Trident will have been made, by a negotiating committee which will not just be drawn from the ranks of the SNP.....and maybe even accomplished (though I doubt the time scale will allow immediate removal, especially if Westminster hasn't made contingency plans.) by 2016..... and secondly, despite the YES/NO divide, a majority of Scots want Trident out,as do a large proportion of the rest of the UK, so I hardly think any Scottish Political Party no longer joined at the hip to its UK mother, and who aimed to be elected, would be foolish enough to have rolling back the Trident removal agreement in their manifesto. That the 4000 jobs the NO supporter, Gordon Matheson, is panicking about losing on the Clyde? It must be, because trhe MOD said in 2012 that civilian jobs at Faslane are at about the 520 or so mark. Are the employees in the ship yards incapable of building anything but defence related ships? I can follow any knitting/crochet/cross-stitch pattern....and what else does a competent company need but a pattern and someone of capable of reading it? Will an Independent Scotland never need to build ships? The Clyde didn't always rely on UK MOD defence contracts......and given that the UK is happy to order fuelling Tankers from Korea......why would other countries not be as happy to give the Clyde yards contracts? Just been on the link and reread it...and I see nothing referring to 4000 or more Faslane jobs....but I'm sure you can point me at the paragraph or so to which you refer. I did the usual FIND 4000 in my browser, which threw up nothing on that page. However, even if you are correct, a proportion of the money saved from not funding Trident can and will be put into infrastructure spending in the west of Scotland, which should create more jobs than you claim will be lost. In 2012, the Scottish TUC and Scottish CND funded a study which said that the total reduction in direct and indirect civilian employment across Scotland if Trident was scrapped would be less than 1800. The childcare thing...get real...if they forked out money for childcare, they would be obliged, given their limited finances, to cut something somewhere else. I know you and other Unionists would like that, as it would produce yet another imaginary stick with which to beat Salmond.......and honestly.I agree with the "why remove the likes of free bus passes for pensioners in order to fund childcare and help grow our economy just so it enriches a Government in Westminster which appears to have hands with holes in the palms, given the short time it takes them to waste every darn penny they get" mindset. We are talking, remember, about a Government which has spent a quarter of a million of our smackers on getting portraits of MPs painted.and which spent £10,000 pounds on acting lessons for ministers. It's just a real shame they weren't taught how to act as human beings!

That would kinda depend on the decisions of the first elected Government in 2016. If we vote for Independence, and there are negotiations as there should be, regarding the division of debts and assets, the assumption in the White Paper is that we will get a share of the current UK military assets, to which we have paid a disproportionate amount of our taxes for little return to date. The info on all that is here. http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2013/11/scottish-independence-white-paper-defence-issues/#Defence_capabilities_at_the_point_of_independence There's too much in it to C&P. It assumes, of course, that after negotiation and agreement over a share of military assets, at the point of independence, Scotland will have enough military equipment to equip a basic force........and then says what the SNP would do over the following five/ten years if in Government and assuming we will be in NATO. The man/woman power requirements over all three services would be at Independence, 7500 regular and 2000 reserve personnel, rising to around 10000 regulars and 3500 reserves in five years and 15000 regulars and 5000 reserves within ten. The units of the Scottish Army will carry on the names, identities and traditions of Scotland’s regiments, including those lost in the defence reorganisation of 2006 and it says that they would put in place joint arrangements with the Westminster Government to identify and transfer units and personnel wishing to serve in Scottish defence forces.. The response to a Westminster Defence Committee meeting on the implications of Independence asked the same question of the Secretary of State, who confirmed that they would be able to continue serving with the rUK forces if they chose. There are likely going to be a fair few who wouldn't be able to transfer to Scotland, even if they wanted to do that...as we won't have for a long time, if ever, the likes of submarines. And no Trident!!!!!

I can't see popular opinion moving to be in favour of a yes vote but that is quite a different thing to who will actually win the vote. In my view, the best chance of a "yes" win will be due to those happy with the status quo simply not bothering to vote. Those who are enthused by the campaign will generally be those who are in favour of independence and will go out to vote in force. A perfectly believable scenario is that we get a low poll delivering independence when only 20% of the population or so actually vote "yes". I suppose it is a fair argument to say that it is reasonable to assume that those who don't bother to vote don't mind what the outcome is, but it would hardly be a ringing mandate for change. For such a radical constitutional change it would be far better if there was an actual majority of the electorate voting for the change rather than a simple majority of those bothering to vote. Regardless of which side wins, I hope there is a good turn out and that the winning side actually gets the votes of at least half the electorate. Sadly, I think there is about as much chance of that as there is of ICT winnning the league this year. Can't disagree with that tbh....but that's the way the system works...and we in Scotland didn't make the system.........Westminster did! However, the majority of the electorate thing is pretty much the same threshold thing we had in the 40% referendum in 1979....when the dead, and everybody who had left the country between compilation of voters' rolls,were included in the totals to make the threshold. The legacy of that one-off change to the norm still rankles in Scotland, as it smacks of loading the dice against the view which the Government opposes. Personally, I think voting should be compulsory in referenda. I think it should be compulsory in General elections as well, but without PR in General elections, all that would do is give either Tweedledum, Tweedledumber or Tweedledumbest even more of a conviction they can do what they like and never mind their manifesto promises and what we would like. I often think, and have said on some forums, that it is really the Civil Service and advisors who run the country. The elected members produce their brainfarts....advisors come up with how to do them and it's the Civil Service which works out how to implement them. The elected members and party or PM selected ministers are just figureheads. The politicians say "That looks good! that should increase our vote at the next election among our supporters" and nobody actually looks past the money saved to the misery caused. Nobody will ever convince me that Osborne and Alexander in Treasury.....or Darling and Brown before them sat down with an envelope on the back of which they worked out the costings of financial brainfarts and the effects of them on us. That being the case...why do we need professional politicians and political parties at all? Why do we need elections? Why do we need the undemocratic Lords? Why not just stick pins in the voters roll every five years and, as we do with jury selection, pick however many voters, representing every constituency, and park them in Westminster for a fixed one-off term of five years. They can get together, come up with ideas, which are not fixated first and foremost on what "the party" likes and will aid their continued employment at the next election, but by consensus as to the good of both the population and the country.....and pass them across to the people employed to make it work.......as the highly paid professional politicians do now? Because I'm an old bugger, I remember the days of town councils and county councils...and frankly I thought they worked pretty well on the whole.......maybe because the members were there because they were interested in the community in which they lived and were not fighting each other to push party political dogma or earn a rather large "part-time" salary. It has always seemed to me that once you bring politics and money into the equation of a previously unpaid public service...you then get less public service and more self-service. Am I cynical about modern Government? You betcha!

The Scottish Secretary's reasons to vote NO! Persuasive, you think ? Below is the list of twenty points cited by Mr Carmichael as reasons to vote no: As part of the UK we keep the strongest currency option – the UK pound. Financial services companies can be headquartered in Scotland and enjoy access to large UK market and one set of UK rules. Safer banks with the whole of the UK standing behind them. Greater financial protection for savers and pensioners (FSCS). The UK’s £860m cyber security programme protects online shopping, banking and business. More competition in the larger UK means cheaper mortgages and insurance. More spending per person in Scotland. We share the cost of expensive and vital communications networks like UK broadband and the UK postal service. A true domestic UK single market has no barriers with added bureaucracy or costs to hamper Scottish business. With 60m people in the UK we share risks and spread costs. We have highly skilled and integrated armed forces with one of the largest defence budgets in the world. The UK uses our international influence to make a positive difference through alliances and relationships. UK makes a vital contribution to humanitarian operations around the world. Fiscal-revenue stream is steady, not volatile. In MI5, MI6 and GCHQ we have world class security and intelligence services protecting everyone in the UK. The single UK labour market means workers can move freely across the UK. 200+ UK institutions, like the BBC and the Met Office, serve all of the UK and don’t have to be replaced. A strong research base supported by shared infrastructure. Highly skilled defence sector protects and creates quality jobs in Scotland. Devolution offers the best of both worlds. I dunno how much Project Fear has scared the Don't Knows in the 2014 Referendum into the YES camp.........but it has fairly hoist the UK Government on its own petard. They have done such a good job of rubbishing Scotland that they have had to guarantee to foreign investors that they would pay ALL the UK borrowing if we vote for Independence.....and we would owe the UK our share. ROFLMAO! So logically.that would be one certainty ahead of independence....we will be using sterling.

Did anyone see the SNP winning over Labour two weeks before they got a majority in the 2011 Scottish election? Labour thought they had it all wrapped up. Still a lot to play for! As an aside.....how come Cameron won't debate Salmond because "the referendum is for Scotland to decide"...yet we are getting bussed in celebrities from over the Border.....who can't vote..to tell us to vote NO...and he has invited Putin and Rajoy, who can't vote either, to stick their oars/boots in?

This will be at least a two-parter, given the character restrictions on posts in place on here and my verbosity! Charles seems bereft of reasons to vote NO.......bar all those which will benefit the UK more than Scotland.....as in........... Big is Better/Economies of Scale....which simply means we share the costs of funding, among other things, a large pretty undemocratic House of Commons, and an even larger completely undemocratic, unelected House of Jobs for the Boys in Ermine; plough our taxes into helping pay for Olympics, London Sewage systems, HS2, the Channel Tunnel, covering England in Motorways (compared to Scotland); pay our share for Foreign Embassies and the running of Government Departments, like HMRC ......but if Scotland wants to actually use the facilities we already contribute towards, we have to pay more on top of what we already pay out. Big is Better/Economies of Scale means we, who entered the Union with no national debt, but from day one, acquired a share of that already produced by England's war making machine, now share in a ginormous debt total, solely down to the lack of economic nous (and propensity to make war) by Westminster Governments. Perhaps Charles could tell us how much of the current UK debt total was incurred solely by, or on behalf of Scotland (without going the Scottish Banks disintegration route..because Westminster made that possible...if not pretty inevitable). Big is Better/Economies of Scale means we help fund the salaries and pensions of 448,835 UK Civil Servants as at March 2013. Of those, about 29,000 working in reserved departments(which will be included),are Scottish based...and, depending if the UK total includes those employed by devolved administrations in the total, another 16,400 are employed in devolved areas including support within Holyrood. Been browsing the most up to date Scotland Office report I can find (that for 2011-2012), and after wading through pages of "we worked with the Scottish government to" and " The Scottish Office chaired meetings to" we find that the pretty pointless Scottish Office transmitted to the Scottish Government, in 2011-2012, £26,179,500,000 in hard cash.......to undertake all devolved items. (at least I THINK that is what it says). I find it interesting that no Senior Civil Servants in the pretty pointless Scottish Office is getting less than £60,000 annually and one of them gets between £90 and £95 thousand.and that was in 2011-2012. I shudder to think what they are going to get pension-wise, eventually! I do really have to admire (as a one time Apprentice Chartered Accountant) the ability of Government agencies/accountants to surround everything they say in so much verbiage that it is really hard to abstract any figure from that verbiage and actually understand to what part of where the figures should be allocated. .I did note that, over the piece, the UK MP punters who man the Scottish Office get golden parachute payments when they are dunted (wish everybody who is dunted from their jobs did....I'd be quids in!) But regarding the Economies of Scale, thingie I'm inclined to think that it doesn't exist, and am more inclined to think that the UK Government has "Bottomless Pocket Syndrome" just as so many of the now privatised Nationalised Industries did, but the Government likes it more when they reap the subsidy benefits, and aren't so keen on joe punter getting as much benefit as they do from taxpayer input. Looks as if we have paid, since 2010 and the change in Government, a share of Golden Parachute payments for a dunted Advocate General, who got £24,000 in severance pay, a Secretary of State for Scotland, who got about £19000, a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Scotland Office who got about £7000 and the UK also paid about £36,000 to the Lord Wallace of Tankerness because, as Advocate General, he was more important than an elected MP who was Secretary of State for Scotland, and was entitled to also claim his House of Lords Office Holders Allowance on top of the £90 odd thousand he got for being Advocate General. I have to say I can fully understand why Scottish Unionist MPs and Lords are so dead set on stopping Scotland getting independence..because their gravy train will hit the buffers and at least grind to a halt, even if it doesn't crash! Big is Better/gives more security and safety.......well it certainly does for everywhere South of the Border as long as Trident is in Scotland, but given that in WWII the priority for Westminster was the defence of England, and losing Scotland to invasion was acceptable to ensure all available forces (including those from Scotland) could fight to prevent England being invaded, not a lot has changed in that attitude over the time from then to now regarding the importance of Scotland to the union.....which appears to be something expendable to make sure England will always go on being. That was likely the reason the experimental fast-breeder reactor went to Dounreay.......less and more unimportant collateral damage if it all went wrong.........just as they consider the area around Faslane and Coulport to be expendable http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-mod-says-trident-nuclear-weapons-not-safe-enough-to-be-stored-at-english-base-1-2721194 .And it certainly doesn't imply more security and safety when you consider the lack of Maritime defences, which entailed a destroyer (or something) chuntering up from Plymouth when the Russians turned up 30 miles from the Moray Coast. If this link is correct http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2533846/Battle-stations-Navy-scrambles-destroyer-challenge-Russian-warship-British-coast-takes-24-hours-make-600-mile-journey-Portsmouth-base-Putin-testing-response-time.html it's the third time(I think) in the last few years that the Russians have been in a position to invade if they had wanted to do so! More secure and safer? Really? Big is Better/We have importance in the world as part of the UK.......but that is a downright lie, because we don't have any such thing. The odd individual Scot may well be warming a seat in the UN, the EU, NATO, etc....but they are sitting there on behalf of the UK, not Scotland.....so the nation of Scotland has no voice, anywhere in the world...which isn't being used to bum up the UK, bar in the EU Parliament, and those few Scottish focused voices are drowned out by the cacophony of UK oriented ones. However....with Trident parked in Scotland, the UK certainly has importance in the world, though likely not as much as the Westminster Government has in their own minds. Big is Better/Currency.....now there I am inclined to agree...although, personally, I'd be more than happy to go short term with an informal arrangement that the rUK couldn't stop anyway, while we got ourselves set up with our own Central Bank and currency. Having the ability to rejig our own fiscal policies to ameliorate rUK brainfarts in the short term is not that much different to what we do now in our limited way using the Block Grant, after all. but full control of all fiscal policy will make it easier. But if there is no currency agreement, I rather think that a UK which has a pretty big trade deficit at the moment will have a much bigger one if, as rUk, they remove, just because they do cutting off nose to spite face, the input from Scotland to the rUK Trade figures. What gets me is that Scotland, via the Scottish Government, is trying to be fair to both Scotland and the rUK in their proposals, and build a kinda co-operation of neighbours.......but Westminster is doing pouting, huffing and foot-stamping, much as any toddler having a tantrum does.......and the way they are behaving now is not so different to their reaction in 1979 at the time of that referendum. Being an old bugger, I can remember stuff in the Unionist media then like "How much of Scotland's economy will be left intact if a Scottish Assembly gets the go-ahead on March 1? Will our coal mines go gaily on? Will Ravenscraig or Linwood thrive? Will Bathgate flourish and Dounreay prosper?” And I distinctly remember the promise that Douglas-Hume made that, if Scotland voted NO, a future Conservative government would offer Scotland "something better". And when we voted NO, under the special new 40% rule imposed, (despite actually voting YES, as I did myself)....what happened? Our Coal mines did not go gaily on, Ravenscraig and Linwood didn't thrive, Bathgate didn't flourish..and Dounreay didn't prosper. And the Conservative "something better" turned out to be Margaret Thatcher and an 18 year hiatus before any form of devolution.....which didn't come from the Tories, who were too busy closing Scottish manufacturing industries/coal mines, selling off the UK family silver and introducing the poll tax, to remember the promise made on their behalf. Which just goes to illustrate how much store Scotland can set by any promises made by UK Parties,ever , when you remember that it took Labour 100+ years to get round to setting up the dependent baby brother of the Home Rule which had been in their manifesto from 1888 (ie Devolution) and the Lib-Dems are still chuntering on about federalism but given the chance to try pushing it, they went for getting PR...and didn't even manage to succeed with that! I look forward to Charles.or others explaining to me where I have gone completely wrong in my interpretation of the attitude and actions of Westminster with regard to Scotland. I'm off to bed now, but will be back later today, hopefully, if I have enough time before a YES Moray Coast meeting, to give my take on what staying in the Union will mean for us, given we already know much of what is going to happen until 2015 and are currently getting told pretty much what the various UK Parties have in store for us beyond then.

To be fair, the NO people can't latch onto anything else to illustrate that Scotland would be better inside the Union than Independent........so they kinda have to fall back on personality politics to have any real argument. Reasons for voting "NO" bar the "better the devil you know" and the scaremongering kind of twaddle are conspicuous by their absence. According to the Telegraph today http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/10487295/Autumn-Statement-2013-Britain-can-no-longer-afford-welfare-state-warns-Osborne.html The welfare state is unaffordable, George Osborne will tell MPs this week, and permanent cuts will be required to make the public finances “sustainable”. The Chancellor will use his Autumn Statement on Thursday to set out more details of a new cap on welfare spending after the next general election. It is an attempt to put permanent limits on around £100 billion a year of spending on items such as Housing Benefit and some unemployment payments. Mr Osborne yesterday hinted that, even after the current austerity programme, more fundamental changes will be needed to give Britain an “affordable state”. But at least they are going to lift 800000 people out of "Fuel Poverty"..by moving the goalposts! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/800000-people-lifted-out-offuel-poverty--by-redefining-it-8976232.html So that's fine then....only those who have bigger than average bills are fuel poor..and how much you have left to spend on other necessities like eating is not important. If your bigger than average bill is produced by running a washing machine and tumble drier daily, having a TV in every room, with every family member also having a laptop, a mobile phone and probably an Xbox.and taking a shower.... and having a hot house as opposed to a comfortably warm one....you are in fuel poverty. So who decides what is average? The same people who decide on what is the "average" wage? And then we have the All Parliamentary Taxation Group recommending that if Scots vote No, the Barnett Formula should be scrapped. If Scotland has had a "black hole" in its finances before......it is going to be a deep pit after 2014 with a NO vote! Kinda funny that according to the "NO" Camp, we are going to be in dire financial straits as an Independent Country (though they can't possibly know that..unless they intend to up the National Debt drastically between now and then so that both countries will be in dire financial straits!)...when we are clearly going to be in dire financial straits as a part of the UK..and we do know it! Independence of itself will not make Scotland richer or poorer...it is what we do with it which will decide the future! That has got to be better than handing all our money to Westminster, getting pocket money back and being told what we get to spend it on, letting Westminster use the rest of our money to help pay for Trident, wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, interest on the money they borrow ( because they won't close tax loopholes which let the wealthy and businesses avoid tax), and the likes of London's sewers, HS2, the Olympics, the Channel Tunnel, Cross Rail,salaries, expenses and pensions for 650 MPs and about 850 Lords, the back-hander to South West England water customers because they are being hammered by the private water company and of course our share of the (non-Barnett) payment to the biggest "subsidy junkie" in the UK after NI.....London.

Alex, I seem to recollect that some time ago in a discussion on this referendum on here, you suggested to us that after separation there would be no need for an SNP. That's not really the way it looks now, given that much of their case rests on the extensive range of populist but economically unproven measures they are telling us they would implement if they get the result they want and in an attempt to get peole to vote for that. And maybe you should also add to what you have said there that we also have Council services which are creaking at the seams for lack of funding due to the SNP's six year Council Tax freeze (for which they are NOT properly compensating councils.) Now that's an interesting one as well. The SNP is the party which wants YOU to have more control over how your life is run by moving centralised power from "Westminster" to Edinburgh. So why are they taking power away from local areas and centralising it in the form of a Scottish Fire Service, a Scottish Police service and Holyrood exercising restraint on local authorities delivering local services. They seem to want to draw everything in towards central Scotland. I have never ever said there would be no need for an SNP. I may have said that the people could decide on another party. Just on the subject of the council tax freeze. the one thing that has achieved is a vast reduction in wasteage. How often, nowadays, do you see a council worker digging a hole with six others watching. Perhaps you haven't been reading the right papers recently Charles. If you had you'd have read that the same amalgamation of Fire, Police etc is proposed for England. There is so much negativity, just for the sake of it, about centralisation of police yet the reality is that the guys on the beat will remain the same but why the hell pay for six or seven Chief constables when one will suffice. Maybe the money saved will go towards preventing and detecting crime and protecting you and I instead of paying for chauffuers and flash cars for the stiff upper lipped pr!cks in braid. Not sure re the centralised Police and Fire Services, myself.......there hasn't really been enough time to see if it will work successfully, given it only officially happened April last (and I can't say I've noticed any difference so far)....but doesn't the centralising of Police and Fire Services take some burden off local government at a time when they are having council tax frozen, as I thought they were going to be directly Government funded rather than the costs split between the two as it had been until then...though maybe I got that wrong? If that is the case, however, it should help out Local Authority finances.

Just a quick one for Charles on his above post (while I am composing a very long history lesson about the commercial relationship between Scotland and England from 1603, with emphasis on Darien.....with links and lots of quotes .... in response to his previous post. (Been at it three days and am less than half way through! )) I worked in the UK......I paid my taxes and NI to the UK.....ergo.....the UK is responsible for paying my pension ...not Scotland....as I have never paid a penny in the whole of my working life into Scotland's coffers to pay for my pension going forward. The UK pays state pensions earned by punters who move away and live in other countries....... so they will have to pay my pension.....as will my works pension provider (whose pension set up is based with an English company). Failing that, Scotland will have to get the dosh for all our state pensions to stick in the Scottish piggy-bank to earn interest for Scotland until we need to use it (or alternatively, knock it off our share of the National Debt) . My pension money is a UK asset which accrues to either me personally, or to Scotland, if they are expected to take on the UK's obligations to me.......just the same as any gun, boat, plane nuclear weapon or bank etc we have put our money into over the last 300+ years is an asset.....after all it isn't my fault that the UK set up the system to be forward financing from annual income/borrowing, rather than stick it into some kind of pension plan so it would be safe(ish) and available as a lump sum to ensure it was available if required.. Mind you.I suspect that it will be claimed to be beyond their capabilities to pay pensions in Scotland for Scottish pensioners, when it is no problem paying folk in the EU, Canada,.Australia, the USA etc.. ..much as a Currency Union is impossible for Scotland, even in the short/medium term.....but was no problem for the ROI for decades.(wonder if our biggest mistake was not bombing for freedom?) What I struggle to work out is if the UK Government are undertaking political posturing, pouting and foot-stamping, if they really mean that we are going to be the only country in the British Isles to be placed in pariah mode because we have the temerity to believe that the UK is no longer fit for the purpose, and appears immensely resistant to change..or if they will do pragmatic and sensible if/when it comes to the crunch. The SNP Manifesto for 2016 which is part of the 670 pages is just that...the SNP manifesto....and they made no secret of that fact .......I even heard Nicola Sturgeon saying as much on Today this morning.and she said "if" the SNP was the first Independent Scottish Government...not "when" ..but it is a small part of the whole white paper. Shame it is the only one anyone on here appears to have read.....or heard about. It is no different to the manifestos of any political party in any election in the UK, tbh.....a wish list of stuff they hope to do....but I'm pretty sure that there is, comparing past performances in both places, much more chance of a Government run by an oil economist, a business and economic consultant and a Scottish lawyer being less profligate and terminally stupid than those in the UK which is run by,.currently.....a politics graduate who has never been involved in anything but politics, a journalist and a modern history graduate who has never worked outside politics.....and before them, we had an FE lecturer with a history degree/TV journalist, an English lawyer, who also has a politics degree, and a Scottish lawyer....and before them....an English lawyer, a Merchant Navy steward, with an economics and politics degree.and the aforementioned FE lecturer/journalist. Project Bribery is a UK trait..heavily practised by Nulabour in the past to attract votes...and much of the reason we are £1.3+ trillion in debt now!. Out of interest.have you actually read the 670 pages....or are you just believing what the Unionist Press and the BBC is saying it says?

But it isn't really a pro- Union argument..is it? Seems to me,it would be better described as an anti-James VI of Scotland and I of England/shared monarchy argument, because James VI, when he became James I of England did what so many from Scotland do..went down South to aggrandise and improve his own position...and promptly bought into being "English" with English loyalties only..as he and his favourites were chasing the big bucks...In fact.....our first shared monarch's opinion of,and attitude to, Scotland was not a great deal different to that pertaining today among those who make their living from sucking on the publicly funded teat in Westminster. A pro-Union argument would be the Union setting out what they envisage the Union will be like and what Scotland's place in it will be if we vote NO to Independence...but there appears to be little chance of that. After all, Scotland will only be a country as foreign as the Republic of Ireland.....and they had a much easier passage to Independence...getting a currency union, open borders etc...... with none of the pouting, foot-stamping, huffing, puffing and scaremongering that we are getting from Westminster......but then they did it by fighting for it......with guns and bombs....so maybe trying to be civilised about it is where we went wrong. Our situation was/is different...we have a Union through the monarchy as well as the later political Union. Scotland, unlike Ireland and Wales, was/is not an occupied and/or annexed country....so calling time on the political Union would only make us as foreign as Australia and Canada etc who also share the monarchy. Certainly I, for one, foolishly thought that commonsense would prevail, and we'd be grown-up about a divorce.....as in we could have a civilised conversation, without rancour, vitriol and personality assassinations etc before a vote and then get on with life as neighbours and friends/allies whichever way the vote went. A YES vote would have put both the rUK and Scotland in a better place than we have been living together under Westminster, as the Unionist subsidy junkie epithets would go......as would the blaming Westminster/England for everything which goes wrong in Scotland .....and a NO vote would not, as it probably will, given the tone of what has been passing for debate in the UK media so far, forever go down in history as the control freakery, downright lies and nastiness of a few hundred MPs in Westminster protecting their jobs and the money in their pockets.....much as we all still remember the "parcel of rogues in a nation" and the failure of the Darien Venture as directly attributable to the shared monarch of the time and the actions/inactions of the English Parliament. Scots have long memories!

A If the post to which you allude is the one of mine immediately before your response......I am surprised that you take personal opinion as representative of anything other than personal opinion....but then, that is what both sides do.......produce talking heads to give personal opinions slanted to whichever side of the great divide they support. Unfortunately, it is currently a very one-sided contest, as the Pro-Union faction has the politicians in Westminster, with the connivance of the print media and the BBC trying hard to scare us into voting NO. Now why on earth would that be.....given we are the subsidy junkies from hell.....you'd expect that Westminster would be gagging to see the back of us? Care to explain why they are not? B Now, now....I simply asked if the teaching of Scottish History had improved at all since the years from 1952 -1965 when I was at school in Scotland...when it was, in my school practically.......nay completely....non-existent. That was the fault of the UK Government, which was in charge of education in all parts of the UK, not the English people....but hey........why would anyone expect a pro-Union "journalist" to interpret information without doing it through union flag embellished specs?

In the end...a minority of the population which cares one way or another is going to have to live with the consequences of a vote which wasn't their preferred option........poor wee souls! ..That is what is called first past the post democracy! Difference is that Referendum democracy is one person/one vote/two distinct and different options.......not, as in the UK elections for a party of Government.one person/ one vote/ a multitude of options (few of which will give different outcomes in practice, tbh). So given that I don't remember any UK government which has had even a straight 50% of the popular vote .....if the Referendum gets more than 50% of Scottish popular vote....for whichever option, then that is what will happen.....and those who voted for the alternative will have to live with it in the short term However, in my opinion, there would be real merit, if there was a NO vote in 2014, which did not meet the criteria approved for the 1979 referendum, (as in 50+% of the vote,,which it got.....but less than 40% of those on the voters roll...which it was never going to get) to continue the fight for Independence from 19/9/2014, Edited to say that I'd be interested to know how much the current generation in school is told about Scottish History, particularly the actions of England re ensuring the failure of the Darien situation....AND the effects on Scotland from membership of the union from 1707 to date...AND how much they are told about Scottish Oil and its benefit, currently wasted by successive UK Governments. When I was at school, I got no Scottish history.....I could regurgitate every English Monarch from Wiliiam the Conqueror on,..... but hadn't a clue about Scotland before the Union....because that had nothing to do with "Britain" and it took me years to realise that William the Conqueror in England, had nothing to do with Scotland before the Union, Does anyone know if our current teenagers are getting the real deal re the Union and the past from their teachers yet?