Scottish independence. Now the post-mortem

Not sure it would have happened at all without Salmond – I think the English politicians seriously underestimated his tenacity,I must admit I have always disliked the guy – he always reminds me of some of our old TU leaders !!

Then again – I do not trust many politicians from any background LOL

Absolutrly, Baz – however, whatever else he was, you cannot diminish the effect of Salmond’s personality on the voters. Without him I reckon you could have knocked a few percentage points off that total.

You cannot compare referenda on a single issue with broad based elections to a council or a parliament in any case.

I absolutely agree Charlie – I was just saying that by and large – the scots were voting primarily about the big issue rather than the individual politicians personalities !
Although the various ‘personalities’ are obviously always a factor in any voting !

As a Scot, Meddle, you could not have summed up the situation better. On both points!!

I wholly agree with your last point – the whole fantasy of the disconnect between the centre and the regions was dreamt up by the media and plays nicely on any quite unrelated festering discontent. And as I said earlier if the regions were so fed up with London why did they reject the proposals for autonomy so comprehensively?

Oh and the percentage of the Welsh wanting independence has dropped from 5% to 3%!! With 49% wanting more devolution and 12% wanting to scrap their assembly altogether.

But are the “feelings” and the perception actually bourne out by the reality? Why, when offered a degree of regional autonomy, did the regions so comprehensively reject it?

As for the suggestion above, Glasgow and Dundee would have to merge forming the new Scottish autonomous state of Glasdee!;)

Glasdee works for me. We would rid Scotland of most of the sectarianism, most of the violence and all of the Dundonians in one fell swoop. Just make sure the perimeter walls are nice and tall, and relatively sound proof so I don’t need to keep hearing “aye, but people in Edinburgh are so unfriendly, ken?” or “try walking a mile in my shoes pal, I graduated from the university of life…” or even the hallowed “haw mate, I need 37 p to visit ma maw in hospital ken?”.

Bliss.

As for our rulers being too far away to seriously care for our needs, I don’t agree. The internet is the great leveller here, as well as cheap internal flights and a tolerable railway system. I think the bigger issue is that Scotland plays very well at the ‘we have it harder than anybody else’ mentality, and works a lot better as the plucky underdog than as a fully fledged country.

You cannot compare referenda on a single issue with broad based elections to a council or a parliament in any case.

The simple answer is that over 50% of the voters wanted to stay in the UK…why does it have to be more complicated than that – if you talk to the Scots many will simply say that they are less unhappy with the idea of staying in the UK than they are to take the huge financial gamble on going ‘solo’.
The trouble with ‘democracy’ is that sometimes one is voting for the lesser evil rather than voting for what you truly believe in !

The reality is that voting ‘yes’ would have merely swapped being ruled by a bunch of UK politicians that you do not trust to being ruled by a bunch of Scottish politicians that you do not trust AND paying more tax/gambling with future pensions etc !

The difference with this referendum is that by and large people were voting on the subject rather than with normal elections where large numbers of voters probably vote for personalities (albeit in much smaller turnouts) !

But are the “feelings” and the perception actually bourne out by the reality? Why, when offered a degree of regional autonomy, did the regions so comprehensively reject it?

As for the suggestion above, Glasgow and Dundee would have to merge forming the new Scottish autonomous state of Glasdee!;)

The same could be said about the United Kingdom though; the regions out of step with London and feeling that a physical distance leaves them marginalised when it comes to policy.

The parallels with rural versus urban (affluent versus deprived) areas are also striking when considering the United Kingdom as a whole.

Anyway, it does seem to show that much of an independent Scotland would still be ruled by a ‘distant’ capital government with policies that did not necessarily suit the more remote regions.

Exactly.

It shows me that Glasgow should break off and form its own little country, I’m sure the Yes voters who so adamantly believe in the right to self determination would have no problem with that…

Those vast local authorities have few people in them…

…a bit like Scotland as a whole then! 😉

I’m interested in your assessment of voting and deprivation; I can see why the most deprived would tend to vote for the most drastic changes (because it is one of the classic political ‘confidence tricks’ the world over) but then voting for drastic change does not always produce the desired results…

…well, not for the most deprived anyway.

This is where claims like ‘Scotland is the sixth (or fourteenth) wealthiest country in the world’ are never helpful.

Except that it’s all academic really isn’t it?

But the amusing conclusion to be drawn from your, probably accurate assertion, is that the most deprived were actually voting for inevitably greater deprivation.

Slightly deceptive since it shows votes cast against land-mass; it would be interesting to see one of those maps that scales the land-mass to the size of the population.

It would look about the opposite to what is shown. Those vast local authorities have few people in them. With the exception of Edinburgh being fairly staunchly ‘no’, that map looks a lot like a population density map of Scotland. What would be a lot more interesting would be to compare the voting with deprivation. I wager that more deprived areas voted predominantly yes, whilst less deprived areas voted no. This is obscured slightly by the fact that remote rural areas are viewed as deprived as their access to services is fairly poor, whereas the occupants may well be wealthy land owners… watch this space.

This image strikes me…

Slightly deceptive since it shows votes cast against land-mass; it would be interesting to see one of those maps that scales the land-mass to the size of the population.

Anyway, it does seem to show that much of an independent Scotland would still be ruled by a ‘distant’ capital government with policies that did not necessarily suit the more remote regions.

And all that dark to slightly paler mauve area north east is the Salmond heartlands!! Oh dear…….:dev2:

This image strikes me…

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Polls are notoriously unreliable LOL
The other possibility is that some ‘No’ voters were saying ‘yes’ to the pollsters just for an easier life because in some areas the ‘yes’ enthusiasts were a little er intimidating !!

As I posted previously we are all better off with some form of ‘UK’ – the financial costs and risks of splitting the union are immense !
If it happens again though – I would suggest that the ‘No’ campaign get better spokesmen than ‘Eyebrows’ and Broon – they would almost have driven me to a yes vote ; )

Beats me! Perhaps a case of sore loser, but the conspiracy theories are already circling. I think the poster saw the loudly vocal minority of Yes voters as being reflective of the general voting intentions of the Scottish public.

Err….so what?:confused:

The green ink flows on my Facebook feed this morning;

STAY HOME FOR THAT? SOMETHING REEKS IN SCOTLAND!
REALLY THINK THEY DID THAT JUST TO STAY UNDER THE QUEENS THUMB?
NOW THE WAY THEY STACK THEM….THE MACHINES EVIDENTLY DON’T SCAN….JUST TALLY THE STACK WHEN THEY PUT THEM IN LIKE A DOLLAR BILL MACHINE AT A BANK

MASSIVE BALLOT FRAUD IN SCOTLAND
IN SO MANY WAYS….BEING EXPOSED FOR YOU
THEY TRY TO EXPLAIN SOME AWAY….BUT I ASK DOESN’T COMMON SENSE TELL YOU THAT SOME OF WHAT THEY CALL NORMAL THINGS…WOULD BE IN THE OTHER DIRECTION TOO?

LIKE WITH RON PAUL….SHOWN MASSIVE PUBLIC YES VOTE SUPPORT AND WAY MORE BLUE AND WHITE AND BANNERS…YET MAGICALLY VOTED NO….I THINK NOT…I WOULD DEMAND A REVOTE…HAND PAPER BALLOTS…NONE OF THE NORMAL VOTE SUPPOSED OFFICIALS COUNTING THEM..AND NO GOVT OFFICIALS NEAR THE ONES THAT DO…AND FORCE THEM ALL TO SUBMIT TO POLYGRAPH BEFORE AND AFTER!

THIS JUST A TEXT FROM A POST OF HAPPENINGS IN GLASGOW…MY POST IS THE CAPS AND MY COMMENTARY OF IT….
YEAH YOU TELL ME HOW THIS HAPPENS? SOMEONES RIGGING THE GAME…GLOBALISTS CAN’T HAVE THEIR KINGDOM FALL…SEEMS ALSO YOU SEE NO INDEPENDENT NON MSM SOURCED REPORTS AT ALL