FREEDOM!!!!

A friend of mine had a visitor from the east coast of Scotland today and he speaks a dialect called Doric- heres a doric poem about the weather forecast (no really) as an example.



If its any consolation I understood les than half of what my mates friend said!

Small country, small population and the east cant understand a word the west says, no one knows what the highlanders are on about most of the time and dont even start on the islanders!

Thank goodness we all speak English, then.

*runs*

Technically that was a dialect of english Eldo!

You queer northerners and your incomprehensible dialects!

Doric is east coast- the teuchters are up north!!

My first girlfriend was from Kent and she greatly influenced the way I see the UK, so you're all northerners to me.

Edit: Actually, I think she referred to everyone from York on up as "northerners".

Aye that sounds like the English.

She used to sing "Northerners, huh? What are they good for? Absolutely nothing!" to the tune of War by Edwin Starr.



Still cracks me up thinking about it, and now I'm getting nostalgic.

You must realise Eldo when an english person not from the north of england refers to northerners they mean their fellow english- Scotland doesnt even feature to them.
Mrs Figg is a northerner to english living below the midlands. I'm foreign!

I won't repeat what she said about Scotland, then.

No best not Eldo- your not really far enough away to be safe you know!!

A bit of referendum news- which has been quiet of late.
Another seeming mistake by Cameron being quiet if you ask me. Its obvious why the SNP have been quite happy to stay quiet over the summer- Jubileee and Olympics, Union Jacks flying everywhere, people spurring on team GB- but surely that was someting for the Unionists to use?

Anyhow onto the news.

'Downing Street confirmed that the UK government was discussing plans to give 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland a vote in an independence referendum.'

Now previously the scottish government voted in principle to reduce the voting age to 16 in Scotland for everything. And it will become Scottish Law once it has been put before the Parliament as all parties have already agreed to it in principle, so tricky to turn round and say no now.
Further complicating this however everyone knows that support for independence is strong among the 16-18 year old group.
So the Unionists know if they allow it it will it will increase the likelyhood of the SNP winning. But if they dont allow it they are going back on their own publicly stated positions and voting records, and it will look shamelessly like delibrating excluding a group out of fear they will vote the 'wrong way'- and thats not likely to wash.
I may have said before Salmond is a very good politician. He is so many moves ahead here its laughable.
He got the parliament to make the pledge on the voting thing at least two years ago and to repeat it since in debates.
At the time the others fell for it because it was a vote winner with the university voters and increased membership to their parties on campus and at grassroots level and there was an election coming up. Labour well still in power at that point.
But this was the Salmond endgame all along.

'The official spokesman of Prime Minister David Cameron said it was hoped First Minister Alex Salmond would take part in talks about the plans.
The spokesman explained: "What we need to do is to have those discussions as soon as possible. The next step is for the first minister and the Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore, to meet so they can have those discussions. We have not taken any decision."
He added that the government was not considering giving the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds in UK general elections and he denied that making the change for the referendum established a precedent.
The next step is for the first minister and the Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore, to meet so they can have those discussions.”
The spokesman said: "You are doing two different things. One is a referendum about the independence of a nation, which is irreversible. The other is the election that decides the government for the next four to five years. It is quite a big decision - independence is irreversible.
"We are talking about separating Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. It is a significant decision."


Just to be technical about it independence is not irreversible- unlikely maybe. But there is no reason at some point in the distant future if the countries wanted to join again they could not vote to do so on both sides.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I may have said before Salmond is a very good politician. He is so many moves ahead here its laughable.

Breaking News: previously unseen photograph of Alex Salmond found.

There is "no way" Scottish Water will be privatised by the Holyrood government, Finance Secretary John Swinney has said.
He made his pledge after the director of CBI Scotland, Iain MacMillan, called for the organisation to be sold off.
"There is no way the government will privatise Scottish Water.
"I think that is essentially the general and settled view of the people in Scotland that they want their water industry, which of course is an enormous economic asset to Scotland.
"There is a very direct economic impact by having a clear and appropriate governance framework in place that keeps Scottish Water in the public sector, delivering for the people of Scotland."
Business lobbying organisation CBI Scotland supports the privatisation of Scottish Water because the government does not receive any Barnett consequentials by keeping it in public ownership.'

What this basically means is Scottish Water is nationalised so money goes from the Scottish government to it- but the Scottish government gets its money to spend allocated by Westminister.
So although Scottish Water makes money, it makes it more for the Treasury, as we dont get an equal amount back in the Barnett consequentials; by which how much money we do get is calculated. Barnett amongst many others things also doesn't include anything from Scottish Waters or off our coast, a huge assett- any profit made there also goes to the Treasury, not to the Scottish Government whose only available means of increasing any revenue at all would be through a minor allowance in tweaking some taxes.
The SNP won't privatise it because if they get an independent Scotland it will be making us money, even more so as water is always needed in England- so far the problem is cost effectively getting it there, but we are not bad at engineering.

Swinney also went on to say in regard to public sector pay-

'That he remained hopeful the government could move into "a period of modest pay increases" in the public sector for 2013/14, having had two years of pay restraint.
He added: "I'm working to deliver that because I think you have to strike a balance in many of these decisions between the exercise of restraint and actually recognising the difficulties that families are facing because of that self-same restraint."

Nationalist water is popular in Scotland- we have good clean water and rarely have drought and never for any length of time on the rare years it does happen. Water we are not short of and our nationlaised water is as much a matter of pride here as the NHS.
This and if Swinney can deliver on a pay increase in the public sector as promised won't do the indepedence argument any harm.

'People in Scotland are drinking less alcohol, according to an NHS report analysing retail sales.
The amount of pure alcohol sold north of the border fell by 4% between 2010 and 2011, it said.
However, alcohol sales remained 10% higher than in 1994 and 20% more alcohol is sold per adult in Scotland than in England and Wales.'- BBC

A fall of 4%! I shall have to do my national duty and increase my own buckie consumption by 5% then- its only right.

Not to worry petty, Northumberland county council have you covered. The Tories on the council want an advertising budget to persuade you to visit on booze cruises once the minimum price per unit comes in.

(seriously there was a huge row about it with opposition claiming it is incredibly irresponsible and the Tories insisting it us good sense).

Northumberland are inviting drunken Scots in?! My how times change.

1st Day of the new Scottish Parliament today and the SNP announced their plan for the year- big headlines are the Referendum Bill and Same Sex marriage Bills.
There will be 15 Bills in all including a Children and Young Peoples Bill- which says will guarantee 600 hours of pre-school nursery care for three and four-year-olds, and looked-after two-year-olds, and represents a 125-hour increase on current provision.
They also announced that £18m will be spent on "high-quality, co-ordinated and accessible" support for families.
"With the powers we do have, we have managed to secure free university education, offer the best free early learning and childcare package in the UK and guarantee a training opportunity to every 16-19 year old who is not already in education, employment or training."- Salmond


The opposition rather bizarely have all taken the same line on the SNP announcements:

"If he'd been prepared to be radical, we'd have been prepared to work with him.This legislative programme was largely an uninspired mix of re-announcements and technical bills which show a government out of ideas."- Labour

"This is the legislative programme of a government that has run out of steam, run out of ideas and which fails to live up to the ambitions of Scotland's people."- Conservative

Odd way to describe a Parliamentary Bill that seeks to redefine what marriage is and disolve one of the oldest politicial unions in the world.
I dont think there has ever been a Parliamntary Bill in lviing memory that contained potentially more radical ideas.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:"With the powers we do have, we have managed to secure free university education, offer the best free early learning and childcare package in the UK and guarantee a training opportunity to every 16-19 year old who is not already in education, employment or training."- Salmond

Everything here sounds great, but the bolded part especially intrigues me. Has the Scottish Parliament already passed such a law? If so that sounds great, though I'd be curious to learn more about it.

I'm also glad to hear that they're moving forward with the same-sex marriage and referendum bills. It sounds like the SNP is still hard at work.

Yeah the apprenticeships schemes were part of their manifesto at the last election and are now in place.
I dare say what sort of schemes you get offered varies depending where you are in the country, some will be more usuful than others no doubt. But in theory they have done what they said, people in that age group are either in training, education, employment, an apprenticeship or a scheme to improve their skills.

"It sounds like the SNP is still hard at work."- Eldo

Thats why they got releected with a massively increased number in a global recession.
However it does not directly translate to support for independence- they have convinced people they can govern capably but not yet that the uncertanties of independence outweigh the devil you know.

Given the mess that the national parties have made with their Scottish affiliates (Labour in 2011 stands out in recent memory) I could see plenty of people voting for the SNP simply because they're competent even if the individual voters are ambivalent towards or opposed to independence.

Thats certainly seems to be the case- the Snp got about 2/3 of the poll at the scottish election but support for independnece is about 1/3.

Will the independence referendum need a simple majority of >50% or a supermajority of the voting public? Or have they not figured that out yet?