Oddquine

You actually raise another serious questionmark against separation there - which I am sure you will try also to categorise in your so called "Project Fear". But with less than 9% of the BBC's current licence fee revenue, I would be interested to see what kind of service a Scottish equivalent would be able to provide - even if it were to try to raise a few more quid by imposing lots of adverts on viewers of and listeners to... what? The BBC is actually an excellent example of one of the fundamental benefits of the Union - economies of scale. Just home.......never intended to recognise your existence until I had sobered up (had a bottle of red) and became less swearie inclined......but, imo, who gives a toss about a taxpayer paid Scottish equivalent of the Project Fear BBC supporters? Really? I think that an SBC would be the death of democracy in Scotland just as the BBC has been in the UK! Why would we be even wanting to pay for a state subsidised entity which is little more than a brainwashing mouthpiece for the state....whether that is for the UK state or the possible Scottish one.(and one which, in print produces worse grammar and spelling that I do pretty smashed.) Having spent a lot of time listening to BBC radio, perusing BBC online input ,BBC blogs, etc since independence was mooted.....few of which are open to comment in Scotland, btw....I'm not prepared to have the likes of you in a Scottish BC brainwashing my children/grand children etc in an independent Scotland as the media is currently doing UK Wide. Project Fear is not a new thing.......it is what all Governments have always used to combat possibilities they don't want..or alternatively to ramp up possibilities they are gagging to accomplish. Project Fear brought us Afghanistan and Iraq, Trident, the terrorism acts here and the Patriot acts in the US ..and to an extent, even the economic meltdown.because of the fear that we would be left behind profit-wise as the USA reduced financial controls of banks to let them rip the population from bahookey to breakfast time..so we followed suit. The current Project Fear version is in the "possibilities they don't want" stable...because they can't..and you know they can't come up with any real reason NOT to end the Union.....bar it will be really bad for the UK.or what will be left of it. So far as I am aware coming out of the Union would reduce the UK influence in the world...(hidden in the weasel words "no Scottish input in international entities"...as if there had ever been any in the past 300 or so years ), To me, Project Fear confirms the utter childishness of what will be left of the UK epitomised by their never-ending cry of "you're not going to be able to do that"...re currency, the EU, the UN, NATO, pensions, welfare, oil, etc.as if the UK/rUK was god.and lies and misrepresentation were facts. . Explain to me why we would WANT, in an Independent Scotland to pay tax, which is what the licence fee is, to set up a government mouthpiece to shaft the people who pay for it as is happening in the UK at the moment?

Flipping heck... .apply pressure why don't you? As PMF has stopped me in my tracks for tonight and I'm away for the weekend tomorrow, I won't be responding in the short term to Charles Bannerman's conflating of an Aberdeen Schools referendum result with the notion that the younger generation are massively against independence. But to be fair if I was a youngster and had read that leaflet handed over by the Bitter together Crowd...I'd have voted against it myself. In the meantime, here's a read for the undecided. http://www.scribd.com/doc/134771714/An-Evidence-Based-Case-for-Scottish-Independence It's about 100 pages and the figures don't really start until about page 24......but it is in manageable chunks and not written by a politician. And now I'm off to bed.

Bugger, PMF......spent bliddy ages composing a response to Charles Bannerman's post to keep dougiedanger onside....and now you come in and send me back to the drawing board. That leaflet is just as bad as Simon Heffer's crap on the English issue of the Daily Mail today , which has even got some English and pro-unionist people incensed. Have to say, I'm still really struggling to work out how anyone in Westminster thinks that the fact that there is a UK representation gives Scotland more than about 9% of a whispered voice and no actual input in the UN.......and it is frankly hilarious that the UKOK gang are taking credit for the free tuition and prescriptions.......and the EU membership that we may well, on a No Vote find ourselves out of whether we want to be or not. And there are really people who believe every word of that ordure. I can forgive those who feel British first and Scottish second...got cousins older than me who are going to vote no......but not anyone who bases their vote on the crap produced by the UKOK Project Fear campaign.. Frankly...if we vote no this time.....there is going to be a lot of animosity at the UKOK tactics. Nobody much minds losing a fair fight.....but the Bitter together campaign wouldn't know fair if it reared up and got them by the throat.

LOL ! Cheer us up, why don't you!

I wasn't making any point at all, if you read posts #133 and #136 you'll see I was just helpfully answering questions from Pullmyfinger. To quote your good self, "Might have been good to look back at the context" Erm, Yngwie ....you do, I assume, realise that post #136 is the one to which I am currently responding. Do you mean post #130 which was a response to starchief? Re your response to post #133 having read post#130......my comment still holds........the comment you cite was, I suspect, though I cannot be 100% sure....,but given the timing it is very likely, was made during a debate called by a Labour MSP on allowing ex-pat Scots to vote for the future governance of a country in which they no longer choose to live..a debate which was supported by all Unionist MPs, including Ruth Davidson and her cohorts...but argued against by the SNP and other pro-independence parties/individuals because there was evidence that the UNHRC would consider a referendum based on criteria other than residence would be queried by other nations......resulting at one stage in the debate in the response you paraphrased. What context did you use in your response to post #133, I'd be interested to know.? I can find nothing online bar the MSM interpretations...with no context or links to the original debate,... some tweets with no context or links to the original debate.......and a blog with what looks like cherry picked quotes from the debate, given the sparsity of them (and the umbrage expressed by the blogger as to the offence caused to her by the out of context cherry-picked quotes), and tweets resulting from it, Have you found anything more compelling to illustrate that Joan McAlpine was being more offensive to the Unionist members of the Scottish Parliament than they were to to a Scottish population they appeared to deem incapable of deciding their own future without input from Scots who prefer to live elsewhere? I await your links with interest.

Maybe I wasn't being completely fair there.I should have perhaps emphasised more that they go to Westminster and generally vote for the policies of the political parties which funded their passage to the green benches....so they work in Westminster for the UK and for those constituents who voted for them. I am sure, however, that they do the the best they can for individual constituents whoever they voted or didn't vote for...but being in Westminster, even as an integral part of the Government does not give them the ability to over-rule policies with which they don't agree..or promote policies they'd like to see. The Secretary of State for Scotland is the Government's mouthpiece in Scotland and is meant to ensure that the UK Cabinet and others involved are fully aware of Scottish needs and circumstances.....which hasn't worked that well when you consider that the majority of Scottish MPs opposed various UK bills from the Poll tax to the Bedroom Tax and many in between, but we got them anyway. I don't so much mind the party political aspect...as it always flags up the mindset of the candidate.....but I do think that there should be no whip system. Imo, if a political party in power can't convince their own members of the benefit of the bill they are placing before the House, they should not be forced to back it.. I came to that conclusion re the usefulness of party politics as a flag to attitude in the days when proud Tories, dunted when Grampian Regional Council died, resurrected themselves as Independents to stand for The Moray Council..and still do to this day. I'm not so sure about that...there will quite possibly be Scots who would prefer to be in the rUK military.if it continues to be run as it is now...as it will undoubtedly offer more excitement and travel than a Scottish Defence Force..but I suspect that there will be a separate Scottish military.......which is not to say that there may not be mutual co-operation once tempers after the divorce have cooled...but I am not inclined to think so as long as the rUK keeps Trident. I also think that there will be an SBC.....though we'd probably still manage to get the BBC with the right equipment as they do in Europe. But I suppose that will depend on the negotiations after the vote if it is yes. Economics will always be far from clear. Different economic theories applied to the same set of figures will generally produce as many results as there are economists interpreting them. All of them will be possible....but none will be guaranteed...not the ones to be produced by the SNP shortly......or those produced by UK Governments.or individual UK parties in the run up to September 2014.. They can't be....because they are all based on estimates extrapolated from the newest set of accurate figures, however old those may be...and in the case of the Scottish Government,..from an assumption that Scotland will get, as under International Law,, the geographical share of oil revenues.and an extrapolation as to the worth of that going forward...and the assumption that negotiations re the division of UK assets and UK debts will be fair and equitable. To me, it isn't the economic policy and the tax take etc, which is important, as that is unknowable until you start to take it.....it is the policies that tax take is going to be used to implement......and a comprehensive acceptable Written Constitution. Way I look at it is that the Scottish Government has done no bad with what they had to disburse to ameliorate the effect of the policies of a UK Government on Scotland......and with the best will in the world, I can't see them producing what will be tantamount to their manifesto for 2016 by plucking figures out of the air or promising more than they believe they can deliver. We already know pretty much what the policies for 2015 are for both the Tories and Labour..more of the same kind as we have had since 2010. We take a leap of faith every election when we vote in our MPs and MSPs , and that doesn't always work out as we might have liked.....but when we vote for a Government in Westminster, we know two things for sure...they are only there for five years.....and if the economic forecasts on which they based their policies go wrong, they have the fiscal tools to readjust their tax take and change outcomes. In an Independent Scotland, we will have the same ability.....all it takes is that leap of faith to believe that we are a competent population able to govern ourselves, I could live with a federal system, in which Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland together could outvote England.......and England would therefore be obliged to carry at least one other country's representatives to take us to war, keep Trident etc.......but that has never been on offer even in 1707 when Scotland tried for the 1707 equivalent.,,though we did get to keep our Laws, religion and Education system as a sop for "ceasing to exist as a nation". Devo-max would have been a sensible addition to the referendum..if only because Westminster didn't want it, and Salmond didn't dig in his heels to get it ...not that I'd have voted for it, myself, but I did think that a referendum so important should offer a middle of the road option as well as the two extremes..if only because it would have, imo, ensured the continuation of the Union for those who are wedded to it as an identity, but like the idea of being "different".....and a halfway house for those who would like Independence, but are, to put it bluntly "feart" and need to be convinced that Scottish politicians can be as competent in Scotland as they have been a lot of the time in the UK. Devo-max may well have been the end of the journey if it had been available.......kinda the best of both worlds for most....but we have been forced into the situation that we are obliged to choose the Union or Independence..nothing in between........and I suspect that a NO vote will not stick for the three generations the NO camp appears to think..but will become a neverendum.or even, given the need to get UK permission for referenda....a unilateral declaration of independence in the future. Exciting times!

But Westminster wasn't run for us.or even to benefit us, starchief....so the fact that For most of those years since 1999, Westminster was run by "us" and directly accountable to the Scottish people at election time. has meant nothing because the MPs who were not SNP were not working in Westminster for Scotland, they were working in Westminster for their parties and the UK Parliament....if it helped or satisfied the majority of their constituents, that was a bonus.....but not their focus. If they had been representing Scotland and their constituents only after devolution, they would not have been voting on issues which had been devolved to Scotland and which would not affect Scotland at all.....like the student university fees one which produced so much animosity against Scotland because of their actions. Don't disagree overmuch with your second paragraph.......but independence won't be remotely devo-max, given that we won't be subject to the UK foreign policies and won't have to host Trident. I rather think in the fullness of time, we will also go for our own currency and all that entails.but continuing with sterling is the sensible decision in the short/medium term at least. Have to say I've never considered that devo-max was a description of the politics in a country choosing to use the currency of another country as their main unit of exchange. Wonder if all those countries which use the UK dollar know they are not independent. Would that mean that the British Dependencies, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands are really American if currency sharing is devo-max? Re Especially when it comes to economics, which is far from clear, a debate tonight on Radio5live had a fifteen year old saying what all of us pro-independence supporters have been saying from the beginning..that, going forward, we are no clearer about the economics of the UK than we can be about those of Scotland. All economic policies are based on a best case scenario with fingers and toes firmly crossed....as illustrated by the Coalition's failures requiring U-turns. In the next few months, the SNP will produce papers setting out their vision for Scotland going forward as an independent country, as I believe NuLabour and the Tories intend to do for Scotland within the Union....but in the end, any economic forecasts are as accurate and as varied as polls generally turn out to be. The link to the fifteen year old talking more sense than many anti-independence supporters is here http://youtu.be/cRwIkiC__9U

It was an SNP MSP who is also Salmond's Parliamentary Liaison Officer, and caused a fairly well publicised rumpus with one of the more foolish assertions from either side so far. "I absolutely make no apology for saying that the Liberals, the Labour Party and the Tories are anti-Scottish ... in coming together to defy the will of the Scottish people" http://news.stv.tv/politics/293417-parties-clash-over-msps-anti-scottish-claims/ Ach, Yngwie, could you find nothing better than a January 2012 article to make what you consider a point? Might have been good to look back at the context...but I guess that would have left you with nothing to say...and that wouldn't do, would it? She said I make absolutely no apology for saying that the Liberals, the Labour Party and the Tories are anti-Scottish in coming together to defy the will of the Scottish people and the democratic mandate that they gave us to hold a referendum at a time of our choosing, which, as the First Minister said, would be the latter half of the parliamentary session. The sight of those parties cosying up on the sofas of various Scottish television studios will really alarm the people of Scotland. In the same debate Ruth Davidson said As the debate unfolds over the coming weeks, there will be a clear dividing line between patriots and nationalists..which may well have been the prompt for the above response.as it implies nationalists are not patriots. I don't know because I can't find the whole debate online..but I'd appreciate a link. Can't really see why some people were getting so uptight then, tbh, because the SNP stuck to their manifesto commitments...unless it was because so few UK elected Governments do and they couldn't get their heads round a promise made and actually kept?...And I can understand even less why you would be resurrecting it now? Why did you?

By which time the oil will long since have run out! Separation is for ever - not just for Christmas! . What has the oil to do with anything? The only country which desperately needs the income from oil to make ends meet is the UK....which is maybe one of the reasons for the reluctance to see the back of us (the other being the Trident marina).. Anyway...the oil is going to be around for a good few decades yet.....should think it will still be around when my great-great-grandchildren are teenagers....but I repeat, what has the oil to do with anything? It's a bonus.....not the reason for wanting Independence. Separation is for ever - not just for Christmas! That is such a stupid comment from a supposedly intelligent individual!

Kingsmills I am rather less than sure about that. The SNP exists for the sole purpose of taking Scotland out of the UK and everything else comes a poor second to that objective. I am also sure that this will become even clearer as the referendum approaches - as will be their attempts to pick fghts wth "the Westminster government" which has become their latest bete noire now that they can no longer gripe on about "the English" since their Anglophobia count was getting dangerousy high. Well. of course it does and they have never made any secret of the fact.which is why the Scottish Parliament voting system was deliberately set up by Westminster to ensure there would never be majority Governments in Scotland as the SNP vote increased......just in case! That worked as well as they anticipated, didn't it.... NOT......much as most of their policies have achieved what was anticipated...NOT. Having lived through the years since 1999 with Scotland and the Scots being called "subsidy junkies" and lots of other pejorative names........I really struggle to understand why the Westminster Government wants to keep us at all..because I get the impression that if voters in England had a say....we'd be set adrift on a raft with no paddle. You surely don't think that the UK Government, that bastion of probity, fairness, equity and social conscience could possibly have an ulterior motive which benefits them but not us, do you? I will be voting in this referendum for the future of my great-grandchild and future great-grandchildren, which I think will be best served in an Independent Scotland and not within the Union. In the 1979 referendum, I voted and actively worked for the future of my children...and in the 1997 referendum, for the future of my grandchildren, I used to assume the SNP would go their own ways as individuals into other political parties when independence had been achieved (I had planned the LibDems, myself)....but now I'm not so sure that's a good idea....at least not until there is a centre/centre left party for which I can vote, who can stand in elections in Scotland after Independence (as in registered in Scotland as a Scottish Party as opposed to registered in the UK as a UK wide Party) and produces policies tailored to Scottish needs and aspirations. . I'd say I am thoroughly disillusioned with the UK mainstream parties...but that is stating the obvious...however, I'm also thoroughly disillusioned with the Scottish versions of the UK parties. They are, and always have been,imo, vitriolic against the SNP to the point of irrational obsession....and are simply the ventriloquist's dummies for their UK based masters (and I use the term dummies advisedly) in this independence "debate"..and every time they open their mouths,they add another yes vote to the total.......much as Unionist MPs travelling to Scotland and being reported in the MSM telling us what to think do. They don't have to pick fights with the Westminster Government, any more than the wee laddie cowering behind the bike-shed has to pick fights with the school bully...but if you want to consider that contradicting the lies, disinformation, misrepresentation, spin etc produced by Westminster and faithfully reported by your "journalist" cohorts in the MSM, is on a par with punching the nose of the bully who has just grabbed your dinner money..then that says a lot more about your attitude than it does about that of pro-independence supporters. With you being a "journalist" or something on that lines , anyone of my age would expect unbiased and temperate views.and not bias couched in unsupported "facts" .......but then I used to live in the days when the media was at least almost even handed enough to use the occasional "maybe","perhaps", "allegedly","it is said". "an unnamed source" etc...which flagged up the fact that the "news" report was more related to gossip interpreted by the "journalist" than actual fact....so kindly link me to something unbiased which confirms your assertion that their attempts to pick fghts wth "the Westminster government" which has become their latest bete noire now that they can no longer gripe on about "the English" since their Anglophobia count was getting dangerousy high.

Thought I'd missed this. Put me down for two. I'll pay by paypal as soon as I find my wee notebook with my logins....I'm not inclined to do it tonight, but will dig it out tomorrow,

Depends if we are in the EU.......because they are Burgundy, whether we like it or not.

And as the holder of a United Kingdom passport, because the UK is the country in which I was born, I am assuming that - along with others like minded - I would be entitled to retain it since I should not be obliged to surrender it in the event of the majority of voters in my local area of the UK deciding that they want to separate from it. That would kinda depend on the pouting and foot stamping levels of the Westminster Government, wouldn't it? And anyway.technically.there won't BE a UK if Scotland ducks out of the Union, so the point is moot. As Theresa May said Decisions on UK citizenship remain with the UK Government, but if the vote in the referendum is for a separatist vote then Scotland will become a separate state – it will not be part of the UK." and Scots could be forced to hand over their British passports and be barred from holding dual nationality with the UK after independence,..I would assume not. ....so kinda looks as if she hasn't quite grasped the concept of Scottish Independence and its effect on what used to be the UK..and Britain as an artificial blanket nationality introduced 300+ years ago. Salmond may like to think the rUK will be sensible and act their ages not their shoe size, when it comes to post-vote negotiations, if we vote for Independence...but on current Project Fear performance, I have real doubts about that. But sure as hell, I'm not about to be happy if negotiations mean we have to keep Trident just so you can keep your UK Passport until it expires.(I honestly can't see it being renewed after that unless you go South of the Border to live in any event.) Personally, I'd think a Scottish Passport would be a lot more acceptable in more of the world than holding a UK passport is, given the efforts of Westminster to make the UK so flaming unpopular.

Come on, I'm on record on here as saying I take posts as they are written, not being a mind-reader. How hard is it to do a one click smilie insertion like anyway, if you meant it to be taken as <tongue in cheek>? I have read all your posts on this thread.....which is why I didn't even consider you weren't being serious.

My mistake, but I've heard it put forward so many times that a reason for independence is that we won't get involved in foreign conflicts, I thought it was Yes party policy! Lol! There is no Yes Party to have any policies...but hey, if you want to believe the pro-Unionist crap, who am I to stop you...I'll bet you think they are just a cover for Alex Salmond and the SNP's effort to gain world power as so many Unionists do! I don't think I have heard anyone ever saying we would refuse (though given I'm not overly enthusiastic about being a member of a NATO or the EU.......though I could just about live with the UN....I could certainly wish we will whoever we ally ourselves with, if the operation is perceived as unacceptable). But you will undoubtedly have read/heard some of us saying stuff like we would not have to be involved in excursions into foreign lands, who are not a threat to us, carrying guns to change regimes, acquire oilfields for Oil Companies, maintain the profits of armaments companies.or keep Israel sweet. If you choose to interpret that POV as refusing to take part in international military conflicts......maybe we have different ideas about what constitutes a good reason to go into another country and kill civilians to "save" them.

Is your vision of Scotland a country that would just stand back and allow genocide then? One which refuses to take part in international military operations, but would fully expect its NATO partners to step in to protect Scotland? The only think more defenceless than an independent Scotland is that stance! Seems to me the UK itself has little to preen about when it comes to standing back and allowing genocide..don't you think?How do you differentiate genocide from civil war, anyway? Is what is happening in ~Syria actually genocide or a continuing Civil War?? Did the UK go in like Flynn over the decade long situation in Darfur? Did we do it in Iraq when Saddam actually did gas the Marsh Arabs? Did we help the Tutsis in Rwanda? Have we ever gone in anywhere just to help the ordinary people, when genocide became the logical interpretation of the fighting, rather than than wait until after a few more thousand civilian deaths in order to support our preferred winner (if he wasn't going to manage it on his own)? How much military help have we given over the decades to save the lives of the Palestinians? How many more have died in Syria since Christmas when gas was reportedly first used and we did nothing? Where do you get your refuses to take part in international military operations. I'm quite sure we will if they are perceived to be warranted, as the very last resort and for good reasons.....but care to tell me how many genocides and other mass murders the UN has managed to get the Big Five to permit legal action against, over the decades, given that genocides etc have killed more than all international wars in the last century added together. To be fair to the UK, they only do anything if the USA primes the pump first, in order to ennsure the preservation of this mythical concept of a "special relationship" I do sometimes wonder, if the criteria for inserting UK forces into countries which do not threaten us, included an immutable obligation for our politicians to offer their nearest old enough relation (son, nephew, grandson or female equivalents etc) to serve on the front line in the conflict....how many of them would still then be voting for interfering anywhere the USA wants us to interfere? We will not, in Scotland, do state aggression.......we'll leave that to the rest of the Island...but we'll do state defending.....and without Nuclear weapons. That stance appears a lot more sensible than getting into fights hanging onto the coat-tails of the USA just because we want to pretend we are still as important in the world as we were in the days when we were invading it, and into the bargain, the days when we were unthinkingly setting up a lot of the problems the world is now facing (like Islamic Terrorism). I'd much rather see a Scotland which does not predicate its reaction to ongoing war crimes like genocide to just what will benefit them either directly or indirectly, but which limits its help to providing available resources to take part in legally constituted interferences by whichever international body we happen to have joined. Can't, tbh, see that happening timeously in any case, however obviously required, via the UN, given the five vetoes, applied only in their own country's specific Interests...which tends to mean that there is a lot of talk but little action.

What anti-Englishness? Both sides are a broad kirk of all nationalities, religions, football affiliations, no specific politics and very specific politics etc. Better Together is led by a Unionist,.the fact he is a Scotsman is neither here nor there, tbh...just as the fact that he was a crap Chancellor wasn't down to him being a Scotsman....just down to him having as much economic nous as the average ten year old...which seems, in all honesty to be the qualifications for politicians world wide......regardless of their academic qualifications,.they rather need to have the same sense of self importance and entitlement to everything as the average spoiled rotten Primary school pupil. However....are you really going to tell any of us as a fact that the votes of 533 English Constituency MPs are ever not going to decide UK Government policy/laws when weighed against 117 MPs from a combined Scotland, Wales and NI? Really? And that is the whole of the problem right there.........because that isn't a Union.......that is a colonisation not a lot different from that which appertained in the days when the world was mostly coloured pink.

Fair enough but what if you had told them beforehand it was the ConDems rather than the Libdems they were voting for (still haven't worked out how to access the smileys using this otherwise mighty fine iPad)...... Well, actually you might argue that they would have got more votes. The usual consequence of our antiquated first past the post system is that the Lib Dems get a decent vote but few MPs and even less influence. By siding with the Tories the Lib Dems have had a lot more influence in Government and have got some of their favoured policies through. Had voters known that the lib dems' alliance with the Tories would allow them to have some influence in Government, and a few more voted for them as a result, then we might have found that they were much less the junior partners than is currently the case. Clegg's mistake in my view was not to hold out for PR as a condition of joining in an alliance. Refusal might have triggered a second election in which the lib dems would have stood to fare even better. As it is, clegg's lust for power has meant we can kiss goodbye any chance of PR for at least another 10 years. Coming back to the independence debate, the point here is that the UK electoral system means that a strong SNP vote will, from time to time, hold the balance of power in the UK parliament. When that happens Scots voters will get a far greater level of influence and the English will feel they are being ruled by a Scottish minority. Don't forget also that it has sometimes been the case that we have a labour Government because of a strong labour showing in Scotland and Wales. England votes Tory and gets a Labour Government because of the voting patterns of its Celtic neighbours. It is disingenuous of the "Yes" campaigners to say that we need independence because the Government we get is the Government England votes for and we have little say in decisions which affect us. The English will see the Scots and Welsh as having a disproportionate say in UK affairs - and this is without devolution. Devolution gives Scots their own voice on devolved matters whilst they can still interfere on the same topics as they apply to England. There are many who would argue that the current political set up works better for the Scots than the English. Coming back to the Independence debate.......the fact is that a strong SNP showing is the ONLY thing which has ever wrested any small concession, like devolution, from the UK Government..nothing to do with balance of power in a UK Government,,,,,,more to do with a realisation that the Scots think differently to a majority UK Government joined at the hip to London and the big businesses based there. .......and, if we are going to be completely honest...the immense fear that we might just pick up our waters, and the oil wells in them and head off into the non-UK controlled sunset while packing the nuclear subs with all the Nuclear warheads we store and sending them back to the only country that wants them. . What has Labour in Wales to do with anything regarding Scotland? Wales is not legally a separate country...in the UK....as they have no Union treaty......so in that case England just has to suck up what they have set up......including the Welsh voting propensities.because in legal fact Wales was annexed to England centuries ago, which makes Wales an English possession.. Which part of "in 300+ years, Scotland has had influence in deciding this Conservative/LibDem Coalition Government, an 18 month long Labour Government and a Lab/Lib pact. Government " do you not quite grasp that you maintain Don't forget also that it has sometimes been the case that we have a labour Government because of a strong labour showing in Scotland and Wales. England votes Tory and gets a Labour Government because of the voting patterns of its Celtic neighbours. So you and others justify fifty and a lot of + Governments chosen by England because "sometimes" .as in one time in three hundred years..Scotland actually got got what Scotland voted for against the wishes of the English voter? Well shucks! Would you care to argue on here.or even in another thread, that the current political set up works better for the Scots than the English.

I agree with your Euro referendum wish, but I'm pretty sure some party will use that as a hook from which to hang their manifesto in the run-up to the 2016 election in an Independent Scotland. I don't think the SNP will, which is why this lifetime SNP voter will be looking for somewhere else to put their cross in 2016 (and anyway, I don't like the SNP filling every spare inch of rural Scotland with windmills policy either.) I also despair at the lack of debate generally.....but if I am going to be perfectly fair...and being a member of various forums, both political and general, based in the UK and in the USA, this forum is a beacon of almost sensible discussion compared with every other one I frequent.......believe me, it is! This place is pretty good re discussion...I could give you a list of places populated by Unionist members almost all of the of the "we hate wee fat Eck" "Wee fat Eck is just another dictator" " We won't vote for a Scotland ruled by the SNP", " Left to themselves, without wee fat Eck pushing, there would never have been a referendum" and various other complete irrationalities.

I don't think that is the case. There were (very sensible) proposals to reduce the number of Westminster MPs from 650 to 600 and to redraw boundaries all over the UK to make constituencies pretty much the same size. But the idea got shelved when the Lib Dems threw their rattle out of the pram about something, or perhaps realised how many of them would lose their jobs. So the 2015 election constituencies will be the same as at present. As an aside, in the last general election the Coalition got 36% of the vote in Scotland, which is actually more than Blair's Labour government got in the UK as a whole in the previous election, so we perhaps have no more reason than anyone else to complain about not getting the government we wanted. Mea Culpa.......thought that had gone through! 59 Scottish MPs, then? (less than London has.) Perhaps we have more reason to claim that we didn't get the government we wanted when 35.7% of us voted for what we got,.........and 64.3% of us didn't. If it had been the other way around, as it was in England, then your aside would have had some merit.....but as it is England 63.8% voted for what we got....which simply rather shows that under FPTP, we get pretty much the Government England wants... pretty much every time...doesn't it? FPTP only resembles democracy in much the same way as I resemble a page 3 girl.......as in not at all by any remote stretch of any fevered imagination.

Freedom from living under a government that the country did not vote for, that is run by and for an elite that grows richer and more powerful by the day. Freedom from sending our children to wars that mean nothing to us, from spending billions on those wars and the weaponry they require; freedom to decide what your own economic and social priorities are; and the freedom to take responsibility for those decisions. Those kinds of freedoms. That's what I meant by representative government. But under independence, power is centralised in Edinburgh. Under federalism, power is concentrated at the most local level. That's why I am a federalist - greater freedom in your words, or representation in mine . I'm undecided here how best to get there. At the same token, England has had to put up with Labour when they have been extremely unpopular there - I think they should also be ruled by the party they vote for - again, that would preferably be under federalism but I do think they have every right to complain about the last 15 years of unrepresentative government more than Scotland (80s Thatcherism in reverse). Although a lifelong Scottish nationalist with a big S and a small n..I would have had no problem with a federal system..after all it was what the Scots tried to get in 1707..and failed to achieve. Not that I'd have stopped hankering after Independence, but I'd have give federalism a fair go to see if it was working before getting back on the Independence bus. However that is a completely pie in the sky aspiration..because it is not on offer....so the choice is not available on the referendum. .and past experience with UK Governments over devolution would make the intelligent assume that federalism will never be an option.because there has been 300+ years to date for The UK Parliament to alter the system which gives English MPs complete control over all the nations in the UK. Seems to me that if there really was the slightest chance of anything more than the current Scotland Act 2012, (a small sticking plaster to inadequately cover a gaping wound), being on offer, then the Better Together Campaign would be saying that in so many words....but they are fighting this Referendum in exactly the same way as they fought the 1979 one...producing ludicrous scare-mongering sound-bytes, fleshed out in the MSM with codswallop, while hinting at meaningful change for a No vote..and we all know what happened after the 1979 referendum, when we didn't jump the 40% barrier, although we did vote yes by a majority....absolutely nothing at all. I rather think there is more chance of meaningful change if you set up a party aiming for federalisation of the regions within the Scotland after Independence, than voting for the UK status quo in the hopes that they will loosen their grip and come up with a federal system. Scottish MPs have had no practical influence on UK Governments even when there were 72 of them..(and come 2015 there will be only 52 to be accommodated)....you should bear in mind that Scotland does not vote 100% Labour. In fact, the most decisive influence Scottish MPs have ever had in UK elections was in this last one, when our input denied the Tories an outright majority..but we still got the Tories anyway. Other than that without Scottish votes, the 1964 election would have ended with a Hung Parliament as opposed to the short-lived Labour Government ..as would have the 1974 one, which was maintained pretty much to term by dint of the Lab/Lib pact. If you had bothered to check out the figures, you would realise that with I do think they have every right to complain about the last 15 years of unrepresentative government more than Scotland (80s Thatcherism in reverse). you are promulgating another myth....as even without the Scottish MPs, in the 15 years of Labour governments, the worst they would have done was a majority of 43...as England voted Labour! Sheesh!

Welfare football is welfare football. I would have thought any ban would only be applicable if he was to want to play in welfare football in the next two years. Usually it is the team who plays an ineligible player who get penalised, anyway...if he was ineligible at the time of playing in the first place. But happy to be corrected if I have it wrong.. It is really hard to work out in which Scottish Football pies the SFA have their fingers, and how they all connect together and how each league affects the one above or below them anyway. I'd have thought that until a contract with a Highland League team had been accepted by the SFA, the player could play anywhere as a trialist....but maybe not.

Isn't that a shade racist? What is wrong with the bowels of the Scottish/Irish/Welsh League system.... or do you have no faith in the ability of Scottish/Irish/Welsh youth coaches to come across decent players that their own managements think are crap.....or are you just running with the fact that it looks rather as if Marsella only looks for players in English leagues so English players are the only option?

Don't see a link for donations from those who can't attend...though to be fair I didn't read to the bottom of your Facebook page. Do you have one this year?

How? More money is would be redistributed from the SPL to the SFL so ICT would see a reduction in money through this avenue. 12-12-18 results in 36 games for the top 24 teams so that equals 1 less home game per season than now so again less money for the club. Sponsors are not gone to be queueing up to invest money in this product any more than they would now as it is still the same clubs just a different league system. So I don't see how it can possibly be financially a better package for us. Glad it has not gone through. I was going to paste in the financial re-distribution graph to answer but I see Don has already done that! And that graph shows that the red line (the proposed financial model) is lower than the blue line (current financial model) for the majority of SPL clubs. Therefore they would earn less money than currently through commercial monies distribution. I maybe wasn't clear enough with my point sorry. How is this financially a better package for the SPL clubs namely ourselves rather than Scottish football as a whole? Maybe because if Scottish football as a whole enters the black hole of unsustainability because of this vote, it isn't going to matter much how ICT fares financially...there will be no league set-up worth the name from which to profit.. Scottish football doesn't revolve around ICT's income.and this was about the future of Scottish football as a whole, not of ICT. The ICT directors understood that. If the ICT directors etc thought it was the way to go, and were prepared to cope with whatever it throws up, why are some of us carping? From what I can make out it was only going to be a max of three years anyway, before further change could be considered, which would give a decent time span to come up with something which was actually thought through and would work in the long term. This was a compromise in the short-term, imo....as a consequence of Rangers demise and all that has happened in the last season or so.....a knee-jerk reaction to events as opposed to a pro-active change for the good of the game in Scotland.. The next three years would have allowed the time to come up with a well thought through, well researched and adequately consulted alternative......but unfortunately, the continuation of the 11-1 voting will likely mean, as it has this time, that the whole package will be refused because a couple of clubs don't like one specific item in it..