back to article Scot Nationalists' march on Westminster may be GOOD for UK IT

The Scottish National Party had an astonishing election night. It previously had six Westminster seats; it now has 56 of Scotland’s 59 MPs, some elected on swings in excess of 30 per cent, with most of its seats gained from Labour. It already runs the Scottish Parliament as well as 11 of Scotland’s 32 councils, although some in …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Nukes

    "One non-starter SNP policy involving technology is its vehement opposition to a new generation of Trident nuclear submarines based on the Clyde."

    We really should look at relocating these anyway, as at some point it may happen that the do get enough power to prevent them, so should plan a new base now.

    And as they are so opposed to it, they should also be completely removed from any bidding process to build anything, and I mean anything to do with it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nukes

      "We really should look at relocating these anyway"

      I'd agree with all the points you make, and add another one, which is simply to question whether we need a submarine based deterrent, and would be better served by cheaper distributed land based (final) solutions?

      Submarines have low serviceability (which is why we need three or four to maintain one on station) and this makes them expensive. With no maritime patrol capability courtesy of the last "strategic" "defence" review, we've no way of knowing that they aren't already routinely tailed by foreign powers, dramatically reducing the invulnerability claims of the boat jockeys. And the original Cold War mk 1 theory of deterrence and MAD has been proven to be cobblers in Ukraine. First of all, the Russians no longer have an ideological drive to invade Western Europe. And if they were to nibble off bits of Poland or the Baltics, would we all want to die a nuclear death over those bits of Eastern Europe?

      All we need these days is a deterrent capable of wiping out a second tier attacker with one or a handful of nukes, who wouldn't have the capability to plaster the entire UK, but might consider that they could wave a stick at London. And that potential retaliation could be delivered by cruise missile, land launched ICBM, or internationally based air launched cruise missiles.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "MAD has been proven to be cobblers in Ukraine"

        ... well, if Ukraine had kept it's "share" of ex-Soviet nukes, you might be right. But since Ukraine isn't a nuclear armed state, one can hardly say that its current difficulties are due to a failure of MAD, however else you might describe them.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "MAD has been proven to be cobblers in Ukraine"

          "... well, if Ukraine had kept it's "share" of ex-Soviet nukes, you might be right. But since Ukraine isn't a nuclear armed state, one can hardly say that its current difficulties are due to a failure of MAD, however else you might describe them."

          Au contraire, the point being made was that the UK and US guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty. When the civil war broke out in Ukraine and Russia made a land grab, despite their guarantees and their nuclear arsenals, the UK and US decided to do nothing - they weren't going to risk a war to defend the crooks in Kiev. It is precisely because the UK, US and Russia have nuclear weapons that the Russians (correctly) surmised they would not end up in a major international conflict. Even if Ukraine had nuclear weapons, would that have stopped Russia? I doubt it - either through forcible neutralisation, or by a calculated gamble that Kiev don't want to die.

          So I come back to the issue, where's the value to the UK in a full fat submarine launched deterrent? In particular, the underlying principle of MAD was detente, which is only possible if you have a full suite of escalating conventional military and tactical nuclear options before your strategic deterrent. Our conventional military forces cannot field a single aircraft carrier, have no naval surface forces above the scale of a destroyer, comprise a bare handful of antiquated Tornado strike aircraft and some new build but ancient design concept Typhoons. Our army has a tiny handful of attack helicopters and collectively the military have trivial numbers of transport helos and transport aircraft (of which the newest are currently grounded). The army has been reduced to a size where the Horseguards outside Buck House are probably imposters employed by Crapita, or carrying Equity cards.

          I think we should retain nuclear strike capabilities. But we don't have the capabilities necessary to support MAD via detente (that only ever really worked against a major, imposing enemy, rather than numerous, diverse, rapidly changing threats), and we can't afford to replace Trident. So it seems that we need to cut our cloth according to our circumstances and yet still offer our military the equipment it needs to do the duties we ask of them. I simply don't see a new submarine launched ICBM system as being a good "investment", compared to a cruise launched system that could be deployed in a greater number of submarines, launched from ships, silos or air-launched. And that would leave a lot of money for conventional military kit, rather than disappearing into the coffers of large defence contractors.

      2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: Nukes

        There is an argument to be had about the utility or otherwise of a nuclear deterrent to the UK. Currently Government policy is that we should have such a capability. The A in MAD stands for "assured". Current state of the art is four ICBM boats so that at least one can be at sea, on station, ready to launch at all times.

        Like most military capability you train and equip to defeat the most violent, biggest, baddest enemy and other roles can be undertaken with ease. "All we need these days is a deterrent capable of wiping out a second tier attacker with one or a handful of nukes...." is a surrender to Putin's Russia and an invitation to attack Poland, Estonia etc, who, unlike the Ukraine, are NATO members with treaty guarantees.

        PS. I call Godwin on your "land based (final) solutions".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Nukes

          "Like most military capability you train and equip to defeat the most violent, biggest, baddest enemy and other roles can be undertaken with ease"

          This, my son is self evident rubbish, and I can't believe you typed it. No matter how many SSBN's we have, they make not one jack of difference to the conflicts that the UK (and allies) have been embroiled in fairly continuously for the past few decades. And in a budgetary constrained environment, if you splash your cash on a sea based nuclear deterrent, you find (as the clowns found out at the last SDR) that you can't afford the strike aircraft and attack helicopters for your wars of choice. You can't afford a decent highly mobile army with tactical and strategic transports. You can't afford the maritime reconnaissance fleet upgrade to police your own waters. You can't afford aircraft for your carriers.

          Precisely because we tool up for Armageddon with Russia, we find that we don't have the resource or equipment to do other roles "with ease".

          1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

            Re: Nukes

            Ledswinger,

            The first sentence of my post was "There is an argument to be had about the utility or otherwise of a nuclear deterrent to the UK." I made no comment about whether having a strategic deterrent is a good or bad thing for the UK. If we have one it must fulfil the requirements of deterring. I see no "self evident rubbish" in saying that it should be built to deter Russia rather than, say, Argentina. A strategic deterrent that only just deters Argentina will be a bit rubbish when Russia decides it wants Eastern Europe back.

            Traditionally the funding of the nuclear deterrent was a Treasury responsibly, not the MOD's. This was to avoid just what we see now, the expensive strategic capability preventing the deployment of effective non-nuclear forces by sucking the defence budget dry.

            Brown or Balls decided to change this previously effective funding split. (Not all they got wrong.)

            The need for a strategic nuclear deterrent is a political, not a military, decision. I don't know but I think it is by no means certain that, left to its own devices, the MOD would maintain the missile submarines.

    2. Just Enough

      Re: Nukes

      Good luck finding an area of England with a deep enough inlet and happy to host nuclear reactors and warheads.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nukes

        "Good luck finding an area of England with a deep enough inlet and happy to host nuclear reactors and warheads."

        The Thames is ideal, tad of dredging required, but far from impossible. Probably St Katherine's Docks, after 1 or 2 minor tweaks. Nice and central, I'm sure the sailors would love it, there's a starbucks, a tesco express and a slug and lettuce.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nukes

        "Good luck finding an area of England .... happy to host nuclear reactors and warheads."

        Come off it, a few short years back nuclear armed strike aircraft (and indeed the Nimrods) dotted the English countryside, with the weapons routinely carted across the country for maintenance. And before that we briefly had land launched ICBMs, then a large fleet of V bombers scattered at stations across the green and pleasant land. The Yanks kept a sizeable fleet of nuclear weapons on UK soil. The nuclear powered attack submarines routinely berthed at the English naval ports, even Derby was graced by a submarine nuclear reactor for development purposes.

        The only people who had a problem were CND and the hippies of Greenham Common.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nukes

        Carrick Roads has enough depth, though clearly some serious construction work would be necessary; that's going to be the case anywhere. Furthermore, Cornwall has lots of granite in which to build the weapons storage when these become obsolete.

        1. Muscleguy

          Re: Nukes

          The problem is not depth for the submarines, they are actually fairly shallow draft vessels when surfaced. The problem is access to sufficiently deep waters into which they can disappear shortly after leaving their berths. Such exist just off the West Coast of Scotland.

          The need for this rules out the entire North Sea coast, far too shallow. It rules out any Irish sea coasts such as Cumbria or Cymru (even if PC did not represent a further threat). It also rules out much of the Channel. The Cornish peninsula offers the only alternative but there pretty much every usable harbour has a fishing village on it. So to base the subs there at least one and probably several (the subs need the maintenance base and the rearming base to be separate for safety reasons, Faslane and Coulport respectively atm).

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Nukes

            base them in Devonport as the facilities are already there and arm them in Falmouth its only 80 miles or so

      4. smartypants

        Re: Nukes

        Barrow would probably be fine,wouldn't it?

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nukes

        we'll take them down in Plymouth we already refit the sub's

    3. albaleo

      Re: Nukes

      And as they are so opposed to it, they should also be completely removed from any bidding process to build anything

      What does "they" refer to in your comment? The SNP, those who voted for the SNP, or anyone in Scotland including engineering companies who couldn't give a toss about the SNP. Your comment smells of xenophobia, whether intended or not.

    4. Lemon 67

      Re: Nukes

      "And as they are so opposed to it, they should also be completely removed from any bidding process to build anything, and I mean anything to do with it."

      That seems reasonable as long as we don't have to pay for any of it.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nukes

      So we can look forward to the streets of London being filled with drunken and heavily tattooed Scots carrying cans of Super Tenants and bottles of Buckfast and yelling incomprehensible gibberish?

      So much like any evening near a London mainline railway station then...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FPTP flattered the YeSNP last week. They got about 35% of those eligble to vote, same as in the indyref. So yes about a third of Scots are malcontents who think Braveheart is a documentary, but that'll never be enough to swing it for secession.

    1. STGM

      The BBC indicates they got 50% rather than 35%:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results/scotland

      That said, a good deal* of 'no' voters voted SNP this time because people seem to be sick of the growing disconnect between the electorate and those chosen to represent them. I agree that secession isn't realistically on the cards though.

      * for a given value of 'good deal'

      1. Richard 26

        50% * 71.1% turnout ~= 35%, although arguing from abstentions is somewhat dubious.

      2. jabuzz

        50% of a 77% turnout is 35%. The number of votes cast for the SNP in the election was about the same as those that voted Yes in the independence referendum, and that was *BEFORE* the collapse in the Oil price.

        Personally if I was David Cameron I would ram fiscal independence down Sturgeons neck. I would have it coming into full force in April 2017, which is slower than Salmond wanted, because he was going for *FULL* independence in May 2016. When faced with the reality of devastating cuts to public spending and/or massive tax rises that fiscal independence would bring the SNP might just not do as well next May. Of course if the SNP did not win next May you could back peddle on it :-)

        Business taxes is the difficult one, we know the SNP plan is to have a lower rate than England so they can leach taxes from England by getting multinational corporations to relocate their headquarters to Scotland. Two solutions to that in my view, the simpler one is just match anything the SNP do and play a game of chicken that Scotland will loose. The more complex one is say force companies with a profit over say £1m to make up the difference lower Scottish taxes based on percentage of turnover generated in the rest of the UK removing the benefit of a multinational relocating to Scotland to avoid tax and sinking the SNP's taxes plans before they get out of harbour.

        The other thing I would do is ram another independence referendum down the SNP's throat. When the loose for a second time they are going to have a hard time calling a third for decades, by which time there should be no oil left and their economic plans will be in complete tatters.

        1. Teiwaz

          Careful on trigggering earthquakes

          Stirring the pot in Scotland causes quakes over the irish sea (personally I think they'd be better as a part of Scotland than the rest of ireland as the cultures are closer related even taking into account the sectarian divisions).

          If both Scotland and north ireland go, there's nothing preventing first the welsh and later the north of england to begin clamouring for more 'devolution'.

          Then what's left might as well be Belgium, 'cause it sure won;t have as much clout left.

          (that's belgium as in Zaphod Beeblebrox's 'belgium' mostly).

          1. Cari
            Meh

            Re: Careful on trigggering earthquakes

            "If both Scotland and north ireland go, there's nothing preventing first the welsh and later the north of england to begin clamouring for more 'devolution'."

            Gosh yes, we wouldn't want those uppity Welsh getting more control over what happens to and in their country, when Westminster already has their best interests at heart.

            So long as we don't need to be subsidised by the rest of the UK disproportionately to our own contributions, what's the problem? Ditto Cornwall & North England to be honest.

        2. Teiwaz

          Marching on Westminter

          You do know that the phrase 'March on Westminster' is figurative?

          What this means is they are not actually going to be coming down you street anytime soon with 20,000 or so kilted yaksmen and bagpipes to raid your home of porridge oats.

          So you can stop building barricades and planning war.

          1. Platelet

            Re: Marching on Westminter

            I new they'd never really walk 500 miles

      3. Salamamba

        35% vs 50%

        BBC stated 50% support for SNP from those who voted. On the approximately 70% turnout, this would be 35% of those eligible to vote.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yup, the more I look at the events of Thursday / Friday morning the more I think that FPTP is not providing anything approaching democracy. On a constituency level, of course, works brilliantly, the candidate with the most votes wins. But that simply doesn't translate itself to a fair way of populating a legislative body. Still, I'm pissing in the wind here, it's suited the Tories perfectly. So it's staying.

      1. M7S

        @ Hadvar

        In the interests of some balance: with three successive parliaments and some pretty large majorities during that time, I failed to notice Labour implementing any significant changes to the electoral system if they felt that the future of our democratic system should be enhanced and ensured. Perhaps banning hunting (just as an example) or the three thousand or so other new criminal offences codified were more important.

        Also now they've only got around 8% of the vote, calls from the Lib Dems for PR are few of late. If we had PR, or something approaching it, the likelihood would be a Conservative/UKIP coallition, with UKIP being about one in four of the ruling coalition. Would those criticising the Conservative party and its electors consider this a more palatable alternative?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @ M7S

          Hiya, yep, I hear you. PR would also vomit some odd stuff, like smaller parties having a proportionate amount of seats, but possibly a disproportionate amount of 'power', due to deals being done etc. It's a pickle.

          However. For me, looking at the raw figures, it's really hard to justify.

          SNP 4.7% share of vote = 56 seats in parliament.

          UKIP 12.6% share of vote = 1 seat.

          All these points are moot. Parties who benefit from FPTP historically normally gain a majority. Therefore they wont change it.

          1. arrbee

            Re: @ M7S

            Obviously there are many people here who weren't around 20+ years ago when the SDP/Liberal alliance got over 25% of the vote, but just 23 seats.

            I think its safe to say that the effects of the FPTP system have been known for a while.

          2. SolidSquid

            Re: @ M7S

            SNP only had candidates for 59 seats, UKIP was campaigning for 624. Even if they only got 5% of the vote in each of those regions, this would swamp the SNP who got an average of 50% of the vote across all of Scotland.

            A more useful number would be the percentage of votes per seat they got. While it's not entirely accurate (population count varies between different regions a bit), 650 seats at westminster means around 71,423 voters per seat (based on an electorate of 46,425,386)

            UKIP got a total of 3,881,129 across their 624 seats, which would average at 6,220 votes per seat

            SNP got a total of 1,454,436 across their 59 seats, which would average at 24,651 votes per seat

            So yeah, per seat ran the SNP got a couple hundred short of 4 times the votes which UKIP got in the regions they ran in, it's just that UKIP ran in more places, giving their "total votes" an artificial boost if you use the total electorate as your metric of success

        2. Nigel Whitfield.

          Re: @ Hadvar

          @M7S

          I don't find UKIP particularly palatable, but I'd rather we had a proportional system, which would very likely require rather more consensus on a lot of matters - there are quite a few areas where the stated policy of the fish people is not in line with the Cons, after all.

          I also tend to the view that you may as well give people rope, and see what they do with it. So what if we have UKIP MPs? If they turn out to be the same quality as the people they send to Brussels, they will be spectacularly ineffective, and very likely a one parliament wonder. They could surprise us and turn out to be diligent constituency representatives - in which case, if people vote for them, what's the problem?

          @arrbee:

          I think even more than the case of the SDLP, this election has highlighted the problems in the current system, not least because there are more extra parties. But also in the way the election is fought in a tiny number of marginals.

          The Labour vote share was, in fact, up by 1.4% over 2010, yet they still lost 27 seats.

          The Conservative vote was up by half that, 0.7%, and they gained an extra 24.

          In essence, the Labour votes were in the 'wrong' place (as were those of others), while the Tories did better and targeting the seats they needed to win.

          In my local seat (Hackney North), the Labour share was up 7% at 62%; also remarkable was that the Greens went up to 14.6%, just 0.1% behind Con. But those increases for the two left of centre parties made no difference.

          PR has been something that, certainly, SDLP/LD types have wanted for ages, but I think the raised profile of three extra parties this time round - SNP, Green, UKIP - has opened the eyes of many more people to the flaws in our system.

        3. Triggerfish

          Re: @ M7 S

          I can see your point with a UKIP and Cons coalition, however I think with proportional representation you might find people becoming more interested at grass roots level and people might feel more motivated to vote for candidates.

          You might have an unpalatable coalition this time, but I would wonder what would happen the next election when people actually start feeling like their vote can make a difference.

      2. Richard Jones 1
        Flame

        Suited The TAW*s well enough in 2005

        FPTP suited Blair and Gorgon Brown well enough in 2005 when they got what was it 35.2% of the votes yet a rather good for them (and possibly bad for many others) majority by getting 55.2% of the seats. So did that reflect 'the will of the people'?

        *= Tax And Waste party

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "FPTP is not providing anything approaching democracy"

        In general I agree, although if you take a more MP-centric view of politics it is less clear.

        However, proportional representations systems tend to come with top-up MP's from party lists. And

        "candidates" on those lists who are well connected with their party hierarchy can find themselves happily ensconced and repeatedly returned to Parliament, irrespective of how the actual voting public regards them.

        If party lists were designed so as have residence limits (eg only two terms), or if top-up MPs were chosen (eg) from the pool of unsucessful electorate MP's with the most personal votes I might be more forgiving. But, as far as I know, party list schemes never are.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "FPTP is not providing anything approaching democracy"

          Just look at the Italian systems... they are designed so parties bosses and their entourages always get a seat, and others need to be puppets if they want one. In Italy the system changes more or less every ten years, but it is always designed to favour the ruling party, and its top members. No risks here to lose your seat, or to have to resign after a defeat... and very little control, or no control at all, like in the past system, about who you vote. Keep your system, may not be the best, but there are so many worse ones...

    3. Just Enough

      I'm not a supporter of SNP, but it's exactly your kind of attitude and stereotyping that wins them votes.

      1. El_Fev

        Yeah and its the SNP attitude of "Oh the poor scots people , downtrodden the nasty english" is why the Tories won. Most english are sick and tired of whining SNP bitches. You tried to fix the votes to win and still lost..DEAL WITH IT

        1. SolidSquid

          I honestly have never heard any of them say that. They complain about how Westminster manages things and that the policies quite often benefit London at the expense of the rest of the UK, but they include cities like Liverpool and Manchester getting a raw deal in that. There seems to be some strange narrative about how the SNP, and Scots who supported them, hate the English, when really they just disagree on the politics of Westminster.

          Also I'm not sure how coalition = fix the votes, even if it's an informal coalition

    4. Teiwaz

      Turnout was quite high in Scotand

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32624405

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/the-one-map-that-shows-how-nonvoting-would-have-won-the-general-election-if-it-were-a-party-10238290.html

      (no figure for N.I. - dammit - that would have been interesting)

      The number of seats they would have achieved if a more proportional system would have been less, as would have most of the other parties that fared well. With the Lib dems in the doldrums, the only person crying about that just now is Mr Farage.

    5. John 110

      Discontented, surely

      @ J J Carter

      "FPTP flattered the YeSNP last week. They got about 35% of those eligble to vote, same as in the indyref. So yes about a third of Scots are malcontents who think Braveheart is a documentary, but that'll never be enough to swing it for secession."

      I think I see why Scots might be discontented...

      <aside>

      malcontents implies that they might not have anything to be discontented about...

      </aside>

      1. Gordon 10
        FAIL

        Be Careful what you wish for.

        I agree with John 110. To jabuzz and the others on this thread, if you treat people as the enemy then they will behave like one. Politically messing with the SNP is acceptable. Materially screwing over the entire Scottish electorate and taking the Union to the brink is crass stupidity. Hopefully call me Dave is smart enough to determine a reasonable cut off between the 2, unlike half the commentards on here.

        People seem to forget that Scotland joined the Union reasonably voluntarily due to a number of push-pull factors, anyone who seeks to create divisions to undo that unnecessarily should hoik themselves off to a desert island with the racist loons from UKIP.

        1. LucreLout

          Re: Be Careful what you wish for.

          People seem to forget that Scotland joined the Union reasonably voluntarily ...

          No it didn't. Scotland joined the union because it was basically bankrupt after the folly of the Darien Scheme.

          with the racist loons from UKIP

          Come again?

          I don't vote UKIP and am unlikely to do so - Conservative voter right here - but I utterly fail to see why lefties bang on about their being racists when there seems scant evidence for that position. Care to explain your view? From where I'm sitting, the SNP seem considerably more racist (against the English) than the SNP are against, well, anyone.

          1. SolidSquid

            Re: Be Careful what you wish for.

            Actually Scotland joined the union because the nobility bankrupted themselves (the Darien Scheme was a private venture, not a state one) and were offered the chance to sell out the country in exchange for their debts being expunged and a seat on the House of Lords. This being before we were a democracy, the nobility were able to do this without public support (the nobles who supported it themselves estimated about 75% opposition by the Scottish population and there were riots across the whole country as a result)

            1. LucreLout

              Re: Be Careful what you wish for.@SolidSquid

              I quite agree with your post - that it was a private venture among the nobility rather than a state scheme, but that doesn't alter why Scotland joined the union, only to who derived the most direct benefit - the reason remains, bankruptcy.

              I'd like to see an indepentant Scotland, but I fear that would take a 20 year cross party plan - fiscal independence cannot be achieved in any shorter time, regardless the SNP figures. Politicians of all hues are somewhat shorter sighted than a 20 year plan would allow. And, in fairness, the toxic vitriol against the English during the referendum was unacceptable and has eroded the goodwill that would be required from England.

              1. defiler

                Re: Be Careful what you wish for.@SolidSquid

                "And, in fairness, the toxic vitriol against the English during the referendum was unacceptable and has eroded the goodwill that would be required from England."

                It was entirely unacceptable. And it was also by a very small minority. The rest of us got on with our days, and on referendum day turned up, voted, and went to work quietly. I didn't want to hear the big "YES" party going on in The Meadows in Edinburgh - it was distracting me whilst I was trying to get stuff done. I also didn't want high-profile campaigners on either side to be subject to some of the hatred that arose (whatever you think of JK Rowling, for example, there was no excuse for some of the crap hurled her way).

                Some of us up here in Scotland were pointing out throughout that the YES campaign's plans seemed to rely a lot on the goodwill of England (in particular), which may not be forthcoming given the expense that would be incurred if we dropped out of the Union.

                So I'm not surprised that many in England are bored of it, or repelled by the nastiness. Still, two points to be made here:

                1) Unlike some muppet's suggestion above, there are about 5.5 million people in Scotland. Not 3 million.

                2) If we did leave the Union we wouldn't be subjected to nineteen-sixty-fucking-six football pish *every* *fucking* *four* *years*. You think England's bored of Scotland going on about something?...

                1. LucreLout

                  Re: Be Careful what you wish for.@defiler

                  1) Unlike some muppet's suggestion above, there are about 5.5 million people in Scotland. Not 3 million.

                  I made reference to fewer than 3 million, as an approximation the YES share of the referendum vote, not the population of Scotland.

                  2) If we did leave the Union we wouldn't be subjected to nineteen-sixty-fucking-six football pish *every* *fucking* *four* *years*. You think England's bored of Scotland going on about something?...

                  Try being German and you'll be getting "Two world wars and one world cup" instead. Unfortunately, English football sucks, and we're unlikely to win anything of note in the whole of my life.... all we have is the songs of yesteryear. So yeah, you'll be getting those either way.

                  I hail from a "border town" of sorts, one which prior to the referendum would likely (given a free choice) have voted to go with an independent Scotland. Post referendum, at my last visit, I'd not heard so much anti-Scots sentiment expressed, so if the goodwill has gone from there, it's unlikely to be found in abundance as far south as I now reside.

                  Rather than expecting to rock up at Westminster and start "wagging the dog", the SNP "tail" would be better served by turning up with some humility and good graces, and seeking to repair some of the damage they have done. With independence will come competition, and England has more people, better infrastructure, deeper pockets, and a history of winning; Scotland would need a lot of goodwill to avoid an embarrassing and destructive bankruptcy. And that goodwill will have to be earned, not demanded.

                2. Kubla Cant
                  Mushroom

                  Re: Be Careful what you wish for.@SolidSquid

                  If we did leave the Union we wouldn't be subjected to nineteen-sixty-fucking-six football pish *every* *fucking* *four* *years*.

                  I haven't the slightest idea what you're trying to say, but the ranting tone and foul language seem to be an example of exactly the kind of toxic behaviour you are deprecating.

                3. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Be Careful what you wish for.@SolidSquid

                  If we did leave the Union we wouldn't be subjected to nineteen-sixty-fucking-six football....

                  So you not beating England in decades, and you never qualifying for anything much is our fault now?

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