Scottish Independence

[andrewjoy]

I don't think people where tricked it was his job to convince them and he did not do a good enough job, what you have to remember is if someone is unsure what to do they will default to the status quo in this case No.

If i was him i would leave gracefully.

[seebart]

I agree with you,more voters were unsure than sure.I don´t know if Salmond needs to leave, but he´s not making things easier with talk of trickery now.Mu might say Salmond is a little "grumpy" now.

[c137]

So you want Hamburg to be independent again?

Well, here in Bavaria some (thankfully rare) people started lobbying for independence right when the media got tracktion on the Scottish play ballot.

I think you can maintain your own identity even in a state union. The states in the US manage, the Bundesländer in Germany manage.
On the other hand, the "British constitution", which doesn't really exist as such, and the rather centralist government approach in the UK are really different. Allowing more stuff to be decided regionally would be a good start.
On the other hand, some things (like gun control, education, traffic rules) should definitly be a federal prerogative (or even EU here), it just makes things easier for the citizens.

[Compgeke]

Making it easier makes sense and that's why it'll never happen. The key to being successful as a politician is to make sure your decisions make no sense at all.

[webwit]

Tragic end of the Scottish people (now English people from the province of Scotland), who are so weak, if the English argue they can't possibly manage themselves, they vote against their own independence.

[the1onewolf]

Enjoy your new incorporated outsourced american tax evading banks ...

[Muirium]

No need to "worry" about that. Didn't you hear we lost? They're all staying put in the city.


(Not Scotland.)

Up here, nothing tends to ever actually be over. Some of the 45% who voted Yes are beginning to put up posters about it and become the proud minority. I think that's pointless, as does this Yes activist:

It makes us look like we’re wallowing in self pity. What do you notice about 45%? That it’s smaller than 55%. We lost. Let’s not do that awful Scottish thing of celebrating being the underdog and feeling contempt towards everyone else. If we’re ever going to win, we need to have a hell of a lot more people voting Yes and that means we need to look at why people voted no and help move them from No to Yes – just as we’ve done for the last 2 years. We did bloody well to get from 25% two years ago to 45% last week. Let’s not turn that number into a sad vainglorious symbol – it’s there to be built on, not to stand as a permanent memorial to the injustice of No.

For the record, I don’t think we need “reconciliation” – that’s what happens when both parties have done something wrong. But we do need to keep fighting for the Scotland that I believe the vast majority of people want to see – free of nuclear weapons, where poverty is a thing of the past and where we care for people and planet for now and into the future. The folk who want that are far more than 45% of the electorate. Now is the time to build that new Scotland, not to build a bunker.

I quite agree. The pro-independence parties, especially Salmond's SNP, are riding a tidal wave of new members joining up from the wider campaign that formed around them. That's great, as Scottish politics has been short of new blood for decades, just like England's. But the problem is that, try as we did, we lost. 1.6 million people voting for anything in Scotland is impressive. But 2.0 million voted No. That's a record, and an impossible number to ignore. Minds must change. The sort of minds who are least interested in politics, and just as unlikely to keep paying attention as the three stooges slowly fail to deliver on their last ditch election "vow".

Independence had all its stars align last week. London agreed to a vote in the first place (first time ever for this 300 year long marriage…) and the public really tuned into it, with that huge turnout we saw. Yet they voted against. A nation which doubts itself so thoroughly as to say No to taking its own destiny in its hands. I've long complained to fellow Scots that ours is an adolescent culture. Last week was the most dramatic possible proof of my suspicion. Scotland's got a long fight ahead to get back to where we were seven days ago. And then the biggest battle of them all: the one against our bloody selves.

You won't catch me bothering my arse to campaign. I didn't last time, as I read the polls…

[mr_a500]

I'd love to visit Scotland, but when I do I'm not going to ride a bike across.. a fucking mountain!

That guy is insane.

[Halvar]

[Daniel Beardsmore]

:DDD

[scottc]

That was amazing!

[Muirium]

Speaking truth from power!

Anyway, oddly enough, the fickle people of this little old "Meh Maybe" country of mine have decided to throw another spanner in the works. After voting No 55:45% in the referendum, the opinion polls are now showing an immense surge for the party of independence, the SNP, in next spring's British general election. Like landslide big. Feast your rightly skeptical eyes on this:

Screen Shot 2014-11-03 at 08.43.18 pm.png (161.09 KiB) Viewed 9862 times

http://electoralcalculus.co.uk/zoomablemap.html

Every seat in my own town of Edinburgh is forecast right now to go nationalist, for the first time. Edinburgh! Which voted No by 60:40% just weeks ago!

UK elections in Scotland are generally deadly dull affairs: last time, in 2010, exactly zero seats changed hands. Labour won almost all of them, as usual. That's tribal loyalty for you. But if this isn't just a passing phase, and Labour really does bleed from the core up here, then all of a sudden a bizarre thing happens: a hung parliament in London and a big bloc of Scottish Nationalists who hold the key to power. Scots actually have a reason to vote for a change? Whatever next!

I'll believe it when I see it, of course. But this tale's not over yet, it seems.

[quantalume]

Voting is so...20th century. I pursue technological means to achieve social change and liberation.

[Muirium]

You too, eh?

[Halvar]

And another blow:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ustry.html

[webwit]

I don't get it. The English people of the province of Scotland are becoming nationalists after voting against nationalists and independence, after finally voting to comply for eternity to their masters?

[Muirium]

I know, it's bloody daft. The only promising answer that comes to mind is that they answered a different question to the one on the ballot paper. A frequent problem in Britain. Like this one in 2011 where almost everyone voted against reforming the idiotic electoral system here, not because they gave a toss about it, but as a monumental fuck you to Nick Clegg. I voted Yes that time too, but I mistakenly read the ballot instead of just the newspapers.

[andrewjoy]

you have to love how the conservatives chop up the south into tiny tiny constituency to get more votes

[Muirium]

Well, the people voted overwhelmingly to let them keep doing that in 2011 like I said!

Now if only Angela Merkel had gotten ballsy earlier about tossing Britain out of the EU instead of letting us cheat all the rest of you yet again. Scots are supposedly extra worried about remaining in the EU. We heard a lot of that from the No campaign. Who, oddly enough, are nowhere to be seen now. Who won what again?

[ماء]

Scottish people are very nationalist Therefore, Ferguson is not coached England

[Muirium]

Or Scotland!

I think he can't bear to lose. Tough call for either of our national sides…

[c137]

And another blow:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ustry.html

What's worse, the Japanese on 1st place or the 3 american bourbons (!)?

[sth]

3 american bourbons (!)?

shove it ya pansy

*pines for bulleit*

[Muirium]

The reviewer had better be handy with a sword, because that's just asking for trouble.

[Muirium]

Things are looking spectacularly silly right now for May.

Screen Shot 2015-02-28 at 10.07.20 pm.png (371.6 KiB) Viewed 9655 times

http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/

If Alex Salmond really does hold the balance of power over all Britain in the spring, I'm really looking forward to whichever of the big two English parties will be playing the other one's bitch. Labour and Tories have a lot more in common than they do with agitated Scots!

Mind, I wouldn't be the least surprised if the big Nationalist surge rolls back against the beach come election day. Disappointed, you bet, but not surprised. That's just what happened in September.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Funny how the Irish manage to pick a colour that isn't on the chart ;-)

[Muirium]

As odd as Scotland may be right now, Northern Ireland's still got us beat. They have Sinn Fein and a bunch of Unionists over there. Meanwhile all the unionists (55% at the referendum) in Scotland have the same parties as you in England to split themselves between, while the nationalists get to beat them all combined thanks to the wonders of first past the post…


http://electionforecast.co.uk

I was always going to vote Yes in the referendum. I'm not sure about the general election in May, though. The Greens are standing in my seat, and they're my natural pick. (They were also for independence, not that anyone paid much notice.) But Edinburgh West is apparently a marginal now, for the first time in all this while I've had the vote! How strange.

[Muirium]

The only way order will be restored to the galaxy will be if everything goes back to despair usual in May. So far, so surreal…

http://may2015.com/featured/new-ashcrof ... owns-seat/

Apparently it's not just the Liberals. Everyone's due a wipeout up here! We'll see…

[Miko]

So, it looks like something like the best possible outcome for the SNP happened. I wonder what that means.

[andrewjoy]

i would like to see how that would look if it was total number of votes and not total numbers of seats, look at all the tiny little conservative constituencies in the south and the HUGE labour areas all one seat