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VLK
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The biggest questionMost Scots are certainly proud to be Scottish, more so than to be British, I dare say. However, the recent election made it very clear that the majority of the Scottish voters do not want an independent Scotland. There is no arguing to that conclusion even though the SNP became the largest party.
Why is this? Does not the example across the Irish Sea inspire anyone? Ireland is currently the second richest country in the EU after Luxemburg in terms of GDP per capita.
Why are the Scots afraid of taking care of their own affairs?
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Jimbo
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Re: The biggest question | VLK wrote: | Most Scots are certainly proud to be Scottish, more so than to be British, I dare say. However, the recent election made it very clear that the majority of the Scottish voters do not want an independent Scotland. There is no arguing to that conclusion even though the SNP became the largest party.
Why is this? Does not the example across the Irish Sea inspire anyone? Ireland is currently the second richest country in the EU after Luxemburg in terms of GDP per capita.
Why are the Scots afraid of taking care of their own affairs? |
IMO it's a lack of self confidence and a lack of confidence in their fellow countrymen after 50 years of Labour spin that we're dependent on others for what we have.
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Economist
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Re: The biggest question | VLK wrote: | Most Scots are certainly proud to be Scottish, more so than to be British, I dare say. However, the recent election made it very clear that the majority of the Scottish voters do not want an independent Scotland. There is no arguing to that conclusion even though the SNP became the largest party.
Why is this? Does not the example across the Irish Sea inspire anyone? Ireland is currently the second richest country in the EU after Luxemburg in terms of GDP per capita.
Why are the Scots afraid of taking care of their own affairs? |
You most certainly can argue with that conclusion. I, nor anyone I know has ever been asked whether we'd prefer an independent Scotland or not. Indeed you could argue that no party was offering independence at this election (the SNP only promised a referendum on the subject, amongst a whole host of other pledges to do with governing the domestic affairs of Scotland.)
We need to have an open an honest debate about independence in Scotland. I suspect we will get this, in the not too distant future with a new administration committed to publishing a Government White Paper on the issue. Whether it gets voted on or whether legislation will follow it, remains to be seen, but it will be a hugely significant step forward. When it comes to independence and the arguments for it, I think the playing field has just become a lot more level.
I don't think Scots are afraid of running their own affairs, just they are naturally risk averse, which is normal, for human beings. The Unionist Parties, to their extreme detriment, played on this natural risk aversion during the election campaign in quite shocking ways. Some of the nonsense and lies spouted about independence and repeated ad nauseum by people, who quite frankly should know better, just showed how debased the argument had become on the Unionist side. Sadly, many people did fall for that.
There isn't any great desire to continue the Union in Scotland (or indeed, more significantly, England) for that matter. I've had conversations with many normal folk (ie people that are not particularly nationalist or unionist) on the issue of independence and all I hear is "I'd like for Scotland to become independent"....but......"we just simply cannot afford it", "there's only 20 years of oil left", "what if we were invaded", "we won't have any voice in the world" and so on. All total and utter nonsense, but it is telling to see how far those, quite frankly, dense arguments have penetrated the national psyche. My own mother, who is a rational and intelligent woman, was convinced that if the SNP won this election and Alex Salmond got in he'd have to bring back "military service", which for whatever reason she is completely against. So she didn't vote for them, but is quite in favour of an independent Scotland (provided we don't bring back compulsory military service  )
And let's not forget the majority of the polls conducted over the last 6 months or so, asking whether people favoured the Union or independence, showed, in most cases, more in favour of independence than against (Indeed, I believe that goes for the last decade as well.)
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Maol.Chaluim
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Re: The biggest question | VLK wrote: | | Most Scots are certainly proud to be Scottish, more so than to be British, I dare say. However, the recent election made it very clear that the majority of the Scottish voters do not want an independent Scotland. |
No it didn't. Two thirds voted for Unionist parties - not the same thing as voting in favour of the Union. Because Jack McDonald and Nicol Steven don't appear to know the difference between a referendum and a general election, doesn't mean the electorate as a whole doesn't.
| VLK wrote: | | Why are the Scots afraid of taking care of their own affairs? |
Years of histerical anti-independence propaganda; "businesses will leave", "you'll be taxed to your eyeballs" are two examples from the recent election campaign... Repression of Scottish identity and culture by the educaction system; pupils punished, often physically, for speaking Gaelic or Scots until relatively recently; very little Scottish history taught in schools until relatively recently (my Mum, for example was taught about all the kings and queens of England from 1066, but she didn't know William the Lion was when I mentioned him to her once). How many people here got most of their knowledge of Scottish history from self-study? As Michael Fry said, "studying the union is bad for your unionism".
When you consider that it's been going on for the past few centuries, it's easy to understand why.
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Jimbo
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Re: The biggest question | Maol.Chaluim wrote: |
Repression of Scottish identity and culture by the educaction system; pupils punished, often physically, for speaking Gaelic or Scots until relatively recently; very little Scottish history taught in schools until relatively recently (my Mum, for example was taught about all the kings and queens of England from 1066, but she didn't know William the Lion was when I mentioned him to her once). How many people here got most of their knowledge of Scottish history from self-study? . |
You're absolutely right. In my time at school if you spoke Scots it was only in the playground. You daren't do it in the classroom. As for history? Well I was taught about the Norman Conquest, Alfred the Great, Magna Carta, how 'WE' won at Agincourt, Henry VIII, Charlemagne & Danelaw. Oh yes, and how the Scots were defeated at Flodden. I grew up thinking McBeth was a fictional character dreamt up by Shakespeare. It wasn't till my late teens that I found out otherwise. Probably the same kind of curriculum Gordon Brown had shoved into his head and that's probably where he gets Britishness (or maybe not) and his misconception that Magna Carta was an British charter and that Agincourt was a British triumph.
Yes, and all of my knowledge of Scot's history comes from self-study. There is no Scottish history book I will not read, it is a subject I am addicted to.
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mac
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Me too, Jimbo - started school at Murrayburn in Edinburgh, then Royal High and was never taught Scottish history at any level - what little I have come to learn and love has been through my own endeavor.
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An Dà Shealladh
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It has been suggested upto 40% of Labour voters favour independence.
Many voters are set in their ways. They will always vote Labour, Lib-Dems etc.
Just because the unionist Party's took a certain percetage of the vote at the elections, doesn't mean their voters ALL favoured the union.
I know the unionist Party's will put it over that way, but it simply isn't true.
If it were true, the unionists would have had a referendum years ago and finished the SNP for decades.
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Anthropos
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Re: The biggest question | Maol.Chaluim wrote: | | Years of histerical anti-independence propaganda; "businesses will leave", "you'll be taxed to your eyeballs" are two examples from the recent election campaign... Repression of Scottish identity and culture by the educaction system; pupils punished, often physically, for speaking Gaelic or Scots until relatively recently; very little Scottish history taught in schools until relatively recently |
Your first point is a good one, and it has been going on a lot longer than the recent election campaign, and it has been propagated by both Labour and Conservatives over the decades. However your second point about the “repression of Scottish identity” is precisely the sort of ignorant victimhood nonsense that a good education system would be countering.
| Maol.Chaluim wrote: | | (my Mum, for example was taught about all the kings and queens of England from 1066, but she didn't know William the Lion was when I mentioned him to her once). How many people here got most of their knowledge of Scottish history from self-study? As Michael Fry said, "studying the union is bad for your unionism". |
I think you are misunderstanding Fry here, he was not saying that the union had been bad for Scotland, but that it had now ceased to be beneficial, he certainly isn’t one of the “300 years of oppression” fantasists whose posts you can read on these forums.
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Anthropos
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Re: The biggest question | Jimbo wrote: | | about the Norman Conquest, Alfred the Great, Magna Carta, how 'WE' won at Agincourt, Henry VIII, Charlemagne & Danelaw. Oh yes, and how the Scots were defeated at Flodden. I grew up thinking McBeth was a fictional character dreamt up by Shakespeare. It wasn't till my late teens that I found out otherwise. |
I’d be very curious to know when and where you were schooled, but my experience was very different. I was taught absolutely nothing about English history at school. We did some stuff about Egyptian Pharos, but the first serious subject I was taught was the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, and I had the good fortune of hearing the romantic mythology of Bonny P Charlie refuted before I had ever gotten to hear it.
That said, I did no Scottish History for the Higher History course, then the main subjects were The Rise of National Socialism in pre war Germany, and the Liberal reforms of the 19th century. Both of these were taught from a left wing perspective with the punch lines being that political extremism was bad, and that lack of state power was also bad.
I only took up Scottish History again at university, and those who taught us there (not in Scottish History specifically I might add) had no problem being open about their left wing bias if they had such a bias, but unlike school it was expected that we would be adult enough to think for ourselves in historical matters rather than being spoon fed a particular view as in Higher History. Talking of which:
| Jimbo wrote: | | Probably the same kind of curriculum Gordon Brown had shoved into his head and that's probably where he gets Britishness (or maybe not) and his misconception that Magna Carta was an British charter and that Agincourt was a British triumph. |
I think you are being unfair on Gordon Brown, whatever his flaws he is certainly one of the most intelligent people in politics and he is not certainly not some Automaton whose views were “shoved into his head” at a young age. He was considered to be one of the best students Edinburgh University ever taught, and any historical errors are not the fault of ignorance or previous teaching.
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VLK
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It is interesting to notice how this oil-argument always jumps up in these independence-debates. For one thing, it is by no means certain that the North Sea-oil would be Scottish property if Scotland left the Union, for another, the overall dependance on oil is decreasing all over the world as alternative energy has been developed. Do you think Norway would be a poor and bancrupt country without its vast oil revenues?
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Dave Coull
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VLK wrote
> the recent election made it very clear that the majority
> of the Scottish voters do not want an independent Scotland.
No it didn't.
> There is no arguing to that conclusion
Oh, yes, there is !
I would argue with this conclusion for two reasons
The first reason is that this was a PARTY POLITICAL
election. In a party political election, people are voting
for political parties. People vote for a political party
for all sorts of different reasons. The "family tradition"
reason is much less powerful than it used to be,
but it does still exist. My landlord lives in a castle
(yes, really) and some of the trees in the grounds
of his estate sprout "Vote Tory" posters around election
time. On the other hand, there are still some working class
families with a tradition of voting Labour. But even apart
from tradition, people may decide, on balance, to vote
for one party rather than another because they like
a particular party's policy on education, or law and order,
even though they don't agree with them on the constitution.
The second reason your conclusion is wrong is precisely
because this was an ELECTION. It was a means of deciding
which politicians got the job of representing you in parliament.
Sometimes people make a decision to vote for candidate
X rather than candidate Y for no better reason than
because they like the look of them. They may agree
more with Y's policies, and yet vote for X because
they like X's face, or X's personality.
There is considerable evidence from opinion polls
to suggest that, in a referendum, nearly half of all
Labour voters, around one third of Liberal Democrat
voters, and about a quarter of Tory voters, would
support independence. Now of course you might
be able to point to other polls which suggest much
smaller percentages of support for independence.
And of course you could be right. But there is really
no question at all that SOME of those who vote Labour,
or Tory, or Liberal Democrat, would back independence
in a referendum. And regardless of the percentages
suggested by opinion polls, there is really only one
way to settle which way the majority would vote
in a referendum, and that is to have a referendum.
The ONLY way to establish what the people of Scotland
really think on independence is through a referendum.
In a referendum, you are not choosing a political party.
Nor are you choosing which politician you like better,
or at least dislike the least. All you are doing in a referendum
is saying "yes" or "no" to a question. To the question
"Should Scotland be independent?", for instance.
No, it is not true that in the recent election
a majority of Scots voted against independence.
And yes of course it is easy to argue
against that unwarranted conclusion.
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wisnaeme
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'
Good post" Dave Coull".
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Economist
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| VLK wrote: | | It is interesting to notice how this oil-argument always jumps up in these independence-debates. |
It is usually Unionists that whinge a great deal about oil these days.
| VLK wrote: | | For one thing, it is by no means certain that the North Sea-oil would be Scottish property if Scotland left the Union, |
It's not really about being the "property" of anybody, but it is pretty much certain that the majority of revenue of the oil resource would accrue to the Treasury of an independent Scotland.
Indeed, it could be argued that might not be as beneficial as it sounds. Scotland could get itself into a "resource curse" type situation that hinders the economic restructuring that is needed in Scotland oil or no oil, independence or no independence. I mean, we could get into the situation that Goldfinger Brown and others have gotten into recently (where NS oil, is balancing the books). Even the great Thatcherite miracle itself was firmly suckled to the teat of the North Sea Oil subsidy, much, much more so than Thatcher or her proponents would ever wish to acknowledge.
| VLK wrote: | | for another, the overall dependance on oil is decreasing all over the world as alternative energy has been developed. |
Yes, and in European terms, Scotland is at the forefront of such advances too.
| VLK wrote: | | Do you think Norway would be a poor and bancrupt country without its vast oil revenues? |
No, I think Norway would be as rich as countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland which are in its immediate hinterland.
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