RISE NOW AND BE A NATION AGAIN !

so long as i can get into the place ride its superb countryside take in the amazing views and blether with the wonderful people , then i couldn't give a flying fuck :thumb2
 
Wee Eck

I take it you are talking about the democratically elected Scottish Government that in 2011 won an absolute majority.
 

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Good comment on that Herald article....

These "sporting Estates" are strangling and suffocating rural and highland Scotland. 250 years of deliberate under use and under-funding have almost ruined once productive inhabited land. These estates sit idle growing no more than grouse ticks and deer, employing a bare minimum of staff to facilitate a bogus industry which produces didlly squat for the Scottish economy, whilst holding vast tracts of manageable land in perpetual stagnation.
In Perthshire recently there was an £11m estate up for sale which employs 2..yes 2 people. The lies that are told about how important these estates are to rural communities are akin to the too wee too poor too stupid scenario of the independence debate, say it often enough and some fool will believe you.
My vision of an independent Scotland would ultimately in time see these estates broken up. There would still be plenty of room and scope for those who would feel the need to display their superiority complexes by shooting wee birdies with big guns, as above 2000 ft, the land is not suitable for much else. The lower slopes and pastures however could in the future be broken up in to much smaller parcels of land enabling small business and housing, and most important of all PEOPLE to return to our glens to create a growth that would result in our rural populations becoming sustainable and diverse, as at the moment all we have is a whole lot of nothing. If you own a wee bit of land you can create a business, Land as they say is power, and the Scottish public at the moment is being denied power not only through being dictated to by London through the form of the block grant, but they are being denied access and power over land use through the presence of these huge idle estates. .
 
strange how things change in a year...

the general election results in Scotland show the following:

Labour 1,035,528
LibDem 465,471
Con 412,855
SNP 491,386


The SNP got approx. 20% of the vote, only about 80,000 more votes than the hated tories. Approx 2 million people voted for parties that are pro union. I hope the 17/18 year olds make the big difference to the votes that Salmond and Sturgeon need.

I do hope the result in the referendum is an overwhelming majority for whoever the winner in the referendum is, otherwise there will be a sizable minority with a big chip on their collective shoulders.

I for one don't doubt that Scotland could be a success on it's own and good luck to the Scots if that's what the vast majority want. I do feel saddened that 300 years of history of a successful union is being put aside for the vanity of politicians and some closet anti English racists. At least all that world cup anti English flag waving I've witnessed mightl have an air of sincerity about it after independence.
 
Toddy said:
These "sporting Estates" are strangling and suffocating rural and highland Scotland. 250 years of deliberate under use and under-funding have almost ruined once productive inhabited land. These estates sit idle growing no more than grouse ticks and deer, employing a bare minimum of staff to facilitate a bogus industry which produces didlly squat for the Scottish economy, whilst holding vast tracts of manageable land in perpetual stagnation.
In Perthshire recently there was an £11m estate up for sale which employs 2..yes 2 people. The lies that are told about how important these estates are to rural communities are akin to the too wee too poor too stupid scenario of the independence debate, say it often enough and some fool will believe you.
My vision of an independent Scotland would ultimately in time see these estates broken up. There would still be plenty of room and scope for those who would feel the need to display their superiority complexes by shooting wee birdies with big guns, as above 2000 ft, the land is not suitable for much else. The lower slopes and pastures however could in the future be broken up in to much smaller parcels of land enabling small business and housing, and most important of all PEOPLE to return to our glens to create a growth that would result in our rural populations becoming sustainable and diverse, as at the moment all we have is a whole lot of nothing. If you own a wee bit of land you can create a business, Land as they say is power, and the Scottish public at the moment is being denied power not only through being dictated to by London through the form of the block grant, but they are being denied access and power over land use through the presence of these huge idle estates. .
Click to expand...

And the sad thing is that independence will result in rural Scotland...ie most of it....being run by the urban majority, who have, as you so ably demonstrate, absolutely no idea how the rural bits..ie no street lights....works at all. All these people you want to return to the glens....what will they do? Precisely what business do you imagine they'll start? There is a primary school oop north whose entire roll is gamekeepers kids....who pays those gamekeepers? The 'diddly squat' of which you speak is....actually was, the figures are now out of date and will no doubt increase with a new examination...£240 million generated by field sports. You just string together a load of clever...but completely meaningless...bits of mumbo jumbo....'strangling and suffocating'...'bogus industry'...'perpetual stagnation'... 'shooting wee birdies'.... 'lower slopes and pastures.....broken up...enabling small businesses and housing' and attempt to present it as a cogent argument! My advice to you is carry on, because crap like this will defeat the independence campaign all on its own.

You complain of 'deliberate under use....deliberate underfunding' Do you suppose a future Scottish Government will be able/want to spend more? How will you inhabit and make the land productive? Do you suppose little happy families will move up to summer sheilings with their cattle in the summer, to frolic in the sun, while their plots of tatties and barley ripen? Move down to the coast for the winter, into the glens? Onto those lower slopes which you have broken up for housing and small businesses? I'd laugh if it weren't so sad....I get the distinct impression you actually believe in your own bunkum!!

You've got absolutely no idea, my friend. You display a complete ignorance of Scotland outside Bishopton. You'll need to do better than cutnpasting the CND Agenda and presenting it as fuel for your fire.
 
Blackal said:
The practicalities would seem to dictate (at this moment, anyhow) -that Sterling would be maintained. Of course, I'd want a contingency in case "England & Co" went down the toilet..............

Al
Click to expand...

But Wee Eck had an opportunity to explain the practicalities in his much vaunted, and completely useless, White Paper. He didn't....because he doesn't know!!!
 
Herald Article

Thanks for your comments Gerrarddwatts, good to read another view.
:comfort
 

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Throughout this whole 'debate', you have yet to present your own opinion, relying instead on cutnpaste. You've been told how sterile your argument is, several times, yet still you persist. You're done.
 
Toddy said:
These "sporting Estates" are strangling and suffocating rural and highland Scotland. 250 years of deliberate under use and under-funding have almost ruined once productive inhabited land. These estates sit idle growing no more than grouse ticks and deer, employing a bare minimum of staff to facilitate a bogus industry which produces didlly squat for the Scottish economy, whilst holding vast tracts of manageable land in perpetual stagnation.
In Perthshire recently there was an £11m estate up for sale which employs 2..yes 2 people. The lies that are told about how important these estates are to rural communities are akin to the too wee too poor too stupid scenario of the independence debate, say it often enough and some fool will believe you.
My vision of an independent Scotland would ultimately in time see these estates broken up. There would still be plenty of room and scope for those who would feel the need to display their superiority complexes by shooting wee birdies with big guns, as above 2000 ft, the land is not suitable for much else. The lower slopes and pastures however could in the future be broken up in to much smaller parcels of land enabling small business and housing, and most important of all PEOPLE to return to our glens to create a growth that would result in our rural populations becoming sustainable and diverse, as at the moment all we have is a whole lot of nothing. If you own a wee bit of land you can create a business, Land as they say is power, and the Scottish public at the moment is being denied power not only through being dictated to by London through the form of the block grant, but they are being denied access and power over land use through the presence of these huge idle estates. .
Click to expand...

This gets better all the time. It sounds like Mugabe's plan in Zimbabwe. How will the Scottish government come by this land that they are going to hand out to the poor urban dwellers. They can't afford to buy it unless they raise taxes and as soon as they start that the big tax payers will move out. If they are just going to take the land Mugabe style how do I know they are not just going to take my house to give to more deserving people. Perhaps not while I am still alive because they would still have to look after me but what about when I die. After all in the world that Eck and his mates live in all property is theft. I congratulate Toddy for his honesty about what the future holds for an independent Scotland. I just wish the SNP were as honest about their intentions.
 
Come on Toddy. Tell us your opinion about how the land of the sporting estates will be taken over in the peoples republic of Scotland. Will they be bought and with what, or will they be grabbed? Is there any truth in the rumour that the first head of state to visit after independence is to be Kim Jong-un?
 
May I inject a semi-serious question into this debate??

Whether an individual intends to vote 'Yes' or 'No' in the referendum is, I suspect, at present largely determined by gut feel and a whole load of life experiences/prejudices.

The issue to me is what form will Scotland take after a 'Yes' vote when we have had another election and the new Government sets about making Scotland fully independent.

The GB Monarch will be "Head of State", but what baggage will that bring with it??

Will Scotland be like The Isle of Man, or like Australia (or some other former member of the UK family) ???

A quick search for 'Politics in the Isle of Man' and 'Politics in Australia' brings some interesting results from Wikipedia:

An introduction:

The government of the Isle of Man is a parliamentary representative democracy. As a Crown Dependency, it is not subordinate to the government of the United Kingdom. That government, however, is responsible for defence and external affairs and could intervene in the domestic affairs of the isle under its residual responsibilities to guarantee "good government" in all Crown Dependencies. The Monarch of the United Kingdom is also the head of state of the Isle of Man, and generally referred to as The Queen, Lord of Mann.[1] Legislation of the Isle of Man defines "the Crown in right of the Isle of Man" as being separate from the "Crown in right of the United Kingdom".[2] Her representative on the isle is the Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man, but his role is mostly ceremonial, though he does have the power to grant Royal Assent (the withholding of which is the same as a veto).


The politics of Australia takes place within the framework of a federal constitutional parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. Australians elect parliamentarians to the federal Parliament of Australia, a bicameral body which incorporates elements of the fused executive inherited from the Westminster system, and a strong federalist senate, adopted from the United States Congress. Australia largely operates as a two-party system in which voting is compulsory.

There is obviously more, but I won't post it all here to save Gerry's blood pressure :augie.

The main difference in these two examples is that the UK Government is responsible for the defence of the Isle of Man, whereas it isn't responsible for the defence of Australia (thankfully).

So, if Scotland is to be like Australia . . Who is going to protect the country as Scotland won't have:

Air Force,
Army,
Navy,
Border Protection Agency,
Fishery Protection Service

So are there any plans to provide these before the Russians and Spaniards deplete the fish stocks, Greenpeace take over the oil rigs and we all start speaking Romanian or Polish ???

Remember . . Scotland only has a population of 5.5M and the Shipbuilding facilities are owned by BA Systems so providing the necessary infrastructure may be a challenge!

Also . . Only a small percentage of that 5.5M are Taxpayers.

Ho Hum.

Bob.
 
Compare the population with Norway, Bob - Their offshore installations seem fairly well free from hijack and occupation?

Al
 
Could that be because Norway is in NATO?? That which will be refused to Scotland because the government won't permit NATO to keep it's submarines here? Or will we see yet another Salmond flip-flop?

Thanks for your concern Bob....in fact I was determined to stay out of the debate on here because my perspective is based on my own interests and my job, and will be very much in a minority, and won't get the approval of most on here....but there was so much twaddle to be rebutted.

I, and most of the rest of rural Scotland are in dread of being ruled by an urban majority who, as we have seen on here, have absolutely no idea about the way of the world in the geographical bulk of Scotland.

The political regime as it exists now in Holyrood has no competent checks and balances.

They said they didn't need a reforming house because of the committee system, and the importance they would place on the consultation system.

So what happened?

They sent the Anti-Hunting Bill to a Committee. The committee said leave it alone, no need for change. What did Holyrood do? Ignored the committee completely..although the legislation was so incompetent it made absolutely no difference to fox control in Scotland. I was at Holyrood for that debate; the debate was a farce, they voted on blocks of amendments rather than discussing each one properly, and removed from me completely any notion that Holyrood could be trusted to run a raffle, let alone the country. What I saw was a total travesty. Even today, Tricia Marwick, who might be expected to support Holyrood, says the committees are failing.

Since then there has been massive blunder after massive blunder, Holyrood itself, trams, bridge.

Kenny Macaskill...yes the one who let a convicted mass murderer out of prison to live out his life (months and months) in the bosom of his family....sensed votes in airgun licensing. Notwithstanding the fact that all the examples of wrong doing were already illegal in existing substantive legislation, he embarked on a programme of the much vaunted 'consultation'. The results of the consultation were emphatically against change. But oh no, this doesn't suit the bold Kenny; he say's he's going to legislate anyway. Votes you see....and a contrived division between Westminster and Holyrood.

They introduced a horrendously complex....and expensive...registration scheme for knife sellers. Most of them just packed up. Apart from Tescos, or any other supermarket, where you can buy any size knife you want. Well for the moment anyway, I read last week that Sainsbury's aren't going to build any more stores in Scotland, because of wee Ecks supermarket tax, and fears about what will happen in the vote is yes.

The Scottish Government has a legal obligation to protect native creatures, for example severely threatened migratory fish. Despite being presented with reams and reams of scientific evidence, they persist in encouraging both the highly polluting salmon farming industry, and the enormously damaging mixed stock coastal netting. In fact, the Greenland fishing interests, who over the past thirty years have been signing up to accords to reduce their own fishing efforts to protect the reducing stocks, have now said 'hold on a wee minute, we've agreed to leave the fish so you boys can either poison them or net them, that doesn't work, we'll start netting ourselves'

Again today, European high heid yins have reiterated the fact that Scotland will have to re-apply to join the EU. Do you really think that the european apparatchiks will allow Scotland to join without joining the euro?

Pretendy parliament about sums it up.
 
gerarddwatts said:
C

Thanks for your concern Bob....in fact I was determined to stay out of the debate on here because my perspective is based on my own interests and my job, and will be very much in a minority, and won't get the approval of most on here....but there was so much twaddle to be rebutted.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry about speaking up on that account :)

Without any undue :arselick: here, your views and real-life experience on the hunting and shooting of the ikkle fwuffy animals up there made me change my attitude a fair bit recently :beerjug:

There seems to be such a lack of reality based, genuine reasoned opinion on the subject in hand......it's either pie in the sky blatant bullshit with gaping holes in the reality factor on how those pies are going to be made, let alone kept up in the sky, contrasted with thinly veiled but no doubt sincerely felt anti-English sentiment from others.

The more that sensible people speak up and give proper, grounded arguments either for or against the vote, the better IMO...and that's speaking as a FEB with no agenda involved at all......how the fuck anyone north of the border is supposed to make a rational decision on something so critical is beyond me at the moment :blast
 
Blackal said:
Compare the population with Norway, Bob - Their offshore installations seem fairly well free from hijack and occupation?

Al
Click to expand...

I guess Norway have their own Navy. They certainly have their own Army - the standard NATO ammunition used in the 5.56mm SA80 'Bullpup' rifle was developed by the Norwegians and is different to the 0.223" American 'Armalite' round that the gun was originally intended to use.

Anyway . . I just don't know enough about the proposals & the likely future shape and Operating Model of the country to make a decision at the moment.

I have lived in Scotland for 42 years, was born in the South of England and have lived in a number of places including Germany. I think of myself as a European. Despite some vague & unsubstantiated family legends about being descended from the Sinclairs I am fortunately free of zealous Scottish Nationalistic feelings. My Maternal Grandmother's family were Dutch and I am 6'2" and when I had hair it was red - so I guess there's some Norse there as well.

In my case, decisions have to be based on fact rather than feelings.

This topic will arise time and time again over the coming months, it should be interesting.

Bob.
 
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