FREEDOM!!!!

I think I mentioned in the past the SNP had got into a seeming bit of bother over the legal advice it received on Scotlands status if it becomes independent in the EU.

Opposition parties have levelled the most serious political accusation at Salmond there is- misleading the Parliament- if he has its a resignation issue.

This is the sixth time opposition parties have tried to get Salmond on some breach of code to have him removed- its as if they are solely focused on getting rid of him as the means to stop independence- discredit Salmond, discreet the SNP and Independence seems to tbe the thinking.
So rather than any real arguments from the Union campaign we have had attack after attack to get Salmond.
It turned out that over 30% of all freedom of information requests made last year (at a cost to the tax payer of many thousands of pounds) all came from one Labour MP trying to find something, anything to get Salmond with.

So back to the latest claim- that he misled Parliament.

Today the independent body which looks into standards in public life came to the followng conclusion on whether Salmond had deliberately tried to mislead-

'Sir David's report said there had been no suggestion that the Scottish government had sought to "mislead deliberately".
The academic said Mr Salmond was right to seek EU legal advice only after the referendum deal was signed.'- BBC

If Unionists want to keep the Union they really need to start coming up with a case for the Union- not just try to bring down Salmond and hope that will do the trick- so far, 6 investigations started by opposition parties and six times Salmond has been cleared of all wrong doing, its making h Unionists look petty and obssessed.
Its making folk start to wonder if there is a case for the Union at all- as we haven't heard one so far.

The Unionist case thus far is-
Salmond is a powermad dictator who is tricking you all.
It will split familes (not sure how)
England will have to bomb our airports as an anti-terrorist measure (no, really)
We will be shunned by every country in Europe and have no voice at all (as oposed to the voice 'veto' Cameron has in Euope?).
We cant afford to pay for our social benefits (despite putting more in at the moment than we get back out)
And pirates will steal our oil (as opposed to the English who currently steal it).

Anyone see any positives in their case for the Union? I cant. Just scare mongering and nonsense.

A rather good contrast between the Independce and Unionist sides in todays Scottish press.

First the Unionist campaign speaking to BBC news-

'Scottish Secretary Michael Moore has insisted UK ministers will not "set out a contingency plan" for independence.
Earlier this week it said moving nuclear weapons from the Clyde after Scottish independence would cost billions of pounds and thousands of jobs.
UK ministers also said they had no plans to review the future of the Trident missile programme, based at Faslane on the Clyde, ahead of next year's referendum.
Shadow UK Defence Secretary Jim Murphy said: "What would happen in the Clyde if the SNP got their way just to get rid of the nuclear submarines? What would happen to shipbuilding on the Clyde? And just what would the SNP do, if they won, about the size of the army, the navy and an air force?"
Scottish Secretary Michael Moore insisted the UK government would not enter into negotiations over the terms of Scottish independence before the 2014 referendum.'

Now Alex Salmond writting in todays Sun newspaper-

'But 2013 will be a year in which we move on from the process of the referendum debate and on to the substance.
Let’s call it the “why” of independence.
There are many good reasons for an independent Scotland.
We will explain how, by extending and completing the Scottish Parliament’s powers, we can deliver a better and fairer society for ALL the people of Scotland.
An independent country will allow us to build a nation confident in itself and its place in the world.
A country which makes the most of its huge natural resources. A country where everyone gets a fair shout and a decent chance and a country that earns its wealth and shares it more fairly.
Official statistics actually prove we’re already better off per head than the rest of the UK — and with control of our own resources will be able to build a wealthier and fairer country for all.
The referendum will ask one question, but in truth Scotland faces two choices — the first is whether to bring the powers home to govern ourselves, rather than sticking with Westminster.
And the second is — what kind of society do we want to be?
But we don’t get the second choice without making the first. The powers of independence are tools to build the country we want to be.
Westminster politicians will say this is too difficult and won’t work — and they will try to scare you.
But the campaign for an independent country will stay on the high ground of vision and confidence in the future.
And 2013 will be the year in which we spell out the opportunities that will come with Scotland completing its Home Rule journey with a Yes in 2014.'

Spot the difference- if the Unionist strategy is to keep trying to scare folks and trying to bully them the English have learnt nothing about the Scottish character in all the years of Union at all.
There either is no postive case for the Union (and surely there must be) or this is a delibrate strategy, but one I cannot see succedding.
The more Westminister tells Scots we cant do it on our own the more likely we are to try it.

I, of course, will only vote for Independance if they bring back the Stuarts.

Surely there are some non-douchey Unionist politicians and you just haven't posted anything about them here. Surely...?

this thread:

Some interesting comments from Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives- this might be the most honest assessment Ive ever heard from a Tory!

'Delivering a speech in Edinburgh, she said she was proud of her party.
But Ms Davidson warned the Tories are letting themselves down if they keep ducking the problem.
The party currently has 15 out of 129 MSPs and, despite being in government at Westminster, have only a single Scottish MP.

Ms Davidson, who was elected Scottish Tory leader in November 2011, said in her speech: "I'm proud of our past and I believe passionately in our future.
But to continue to duck the hard questions about our lack of electoral success would be to let ourselves down."
the leader also argued that the Tories' problems could not purely be put down to "poor marketing", adding: "We need to admit something to ourselves - however hard it may be - that the Scottish public did indeed get our message, that they heard us very clearly.
And in far too many cases they simply didn't like what they were hearing, or what we were offering."
Ahead of the independence referendum, Ms Davidson - who campaigned for the leadership with a pledge to oppose further powers for Holyrood - argued that the Scottish Conservatives as a party "struggled to accept" that the people of Scotland wanted a stronger voice.
She said: "Uncomfortable though it may be to admit, too many of our fellow Scots whose values we share simply don't trust our motives. When it comes to Westminster elections, they see us as London's party in Scotland not Scotland's party in London.
When it comes to elections to the Scottish Parliament, they want to vote for a party that will put Scotland first, and too few truly believe that of us."
Ms Davidson said too many see her party as "a brake on the aspirations of Scotland and not a torch-bearer"


So now she has correctly identified their problem I wonder what she will do about it?

I looked Ruth Davidson up on Wikipedia just to learn a little bit more about her, and the first thing that I noticed was that she's only 34 years old, has been active in politics only since 2009, and was elected leader of the Scottish Conservatives after being an MSP for only four months. Anyway, my question is: how the hell did the Scottish Tories get to a place where they chose someone with practically zero experience as their leader? Did the older members of the party really fuck up that badly?

For all I know Ms Davidson might be a fantastic leader, but I have to be a little skeptical about a party whose leader has been a legislator for less time than I've been a forum admin.

Well you can gather how badly the Scottish Tories have been doing by the fact they only have 1 MP in all of Scotland, and they are the party in rule.

She is talented, but definetly inexperienced- an experienced leader would never have admitted all that in public where opposition parties can use it against her.
And she is right, its not they aren't getting their message across- its that people dont like the message.
The previous leader of the Scottish Conservatives was Annabel Goldie- one of the most respected across party and by the people MP's in Scottish political history- and she did no better at the polls either despite her personal ratings always remaining high.
If Annabel Goldie had been SNP we'd be independent by now.

How autonomous from the UK-wide Tories is the Scottish Conservative Party? Doing a bit more reading, it appears that the 2nd-place finisher for leader wanted to split off and form a new, pro-devolution conservative party in Scotland.

It will certainly be interesting to see if the Tories adjust their strategy as the referendum gets closer. I'm rather excited for the whole campaign, myself.

How autonomous is a tricky question- officially they are completely automonous- in practice what this has meant so far is Ruth Davidson attacks the SNP on a particular party line, then Cameron concedes that point to Salmond out the blue and makes her look an arse- thats happened a lot in the last couple of years.

Yes I think one of the reasons she won the leadership contest was because her opponent wanted to dissolve the Scottish Tory party if he won on the basis it was in Scotland a 'tainted brand'.
If I was being more cynical I would say they gambled that a female lesbian Tory leader would help to soften their image as the 'nasty party' who hated minority groups.
If so it didnt work as people here couldnt care less what sexuality she is, its her being a Tory is the problem!

This is fascinating (more so to Brits Im sure) but the last 10 minutes or so are particularly interesting in light of current Scottish politics, devolution and independence.

Some brief background- in the late 1970's Scotland got a referendum on devolution and voted against it.
However the bar was set so high in terms of majority needed for it to count that it was almost impossible to win- which is why,only a decade later when this interview was conducted 80% of Scots still wanted devolution.

Watch from 43 mins in for the devolution bit.

Maggie Thatcher: stonewalling like fuck.
EDIT: It gets more interesting when she starts to talk about the possibility of breaking up the UK.

NB This is probably my American bias speaking, but it's hilarious to listen to people getting into it with such delicate British accents.

Well Thatcher didnt start out sounding like that- she was voice coached to make her sound softer.
By the end of her term she was doing odd things like using the Royal 'we' to speak of herself- a major thing as the we referred to when the Queen uses it is the nation and herself indivisable as Head of State- for Thatcher to use it was seen as a bit nuts as well as dillusional.

And yes she was right- devolution is the first step to independence- the SNP have always thought so anyway.
Its also worth noting by the point of that interview, although you might not guess,there were daily riots in the streets of major cities, unemployment was through the roof and she had destroyed the UK manufacturing base.
And just as importantly she funded the closing of our manufacturing and the many years conversion over to a service industry using Scottish oil money to keep thousands unemployed and on benefits.

Also, every time I hear about Thatcher I think of this song from Billly Elliot the Musical.

I appreciate the perspective of someone who lived through her Prime Ministership, but don't get me wrong, I have very little regard for Thatcher. I find her interesting, though. Growing up she was probably the only British PM I'd ever heard of, and only in the context of her being a woman. As a result, I heard the most about her from left-leaning women (who made up a substantial portion of the adult figures in my life at the time) who didn't know much about Thatcher themselves. As I went through my Anglophile phase and learned more about British politics though, I started to think less and less of her. It's quite strange looking back how I just sort of assumed she was a feminist/progressive figure.

I'd never heard of her using the royal we before, that's either incredibly ballsy or just plain loony. Possibly both.

Both was the general consensus.

This was what was going on in the streets just after the poll tax she talks aboutin that interview was brought in.



This had already happened. (sorry about music couldnt find pure news footage)

Thatcher using the Royal 'we'.

Yeah, I had to look up a video of her using the royal "we" just to hear it myself.

The poll tax riot video is intense. For me, personally, it's really strange seeing video of that (or, say, the Rodney King riots) taking place only a few years before I was born. When I was younger I basically took it for granted that widespread social disturbances of that sort were a thing of the past. I know now they're not, though in the U.S. at least I have a hard time imagining people caring enough to go out in the streets in such large numbers again. But who knows.

I'm sort of rambling so I'm not sure what my point is. I sort of had an realization a few years ago talking about British history with my mom and she just casually mentioned the Troubles. I was like three years old when the Good Friday Agreement was made, but for her growing up that violence was something that was regularly in the news, even 3000+ miles away.

Yeah I was a kid during the later part of it and was in my late teens before it ended (possibly a bit older).

It was a time when, putting aside all the regular violence and killings and weekly riots in Northern Ireland itself there were many terrorist attacks on mainland UK.
They even nearly got Thatcher- but in the end did her a PR favour by her just surviving it.

An interesting side note to Ruth Davidsons speech reported in todays Mail-

'The controversial speech is likely to cause further ructions within the Scottish Conservative and, although all the party's MSP's were invited to attend the speech in Edinburgh,only two turned up.'

Not a good sign.
But then she got elected to leader only a year ago standing on a platform of true Tory, Unionism and in her words regards devolution,that the latest powers granted to the Scottish Parliament was "a line in the sand" seems now to be out the window.

We in Canada kind of like the iron lady.Who knows why. But then we had one prime minister who was best friends with Castro and used to hang out with him and one who grabbed a ner do weller by the neck himself , and his wife chased somone who broke into the residence with a knife without any help from the guards, where they were I don't know.Anda first lady who was caught in the coset smoking weed.

We in Canada kind of like the iron lady.- leelee

Yes,but you didnt have to live under her iron rule!

That's right and Castro too. But we liked her hair and her shoes

I think Britains attitude to Thatcher is best summed up by these clips-

Cameron has fired the opening shots in the real debate on Independence.
The No 10 webpage (the govt webpage basically) has put this up on it-

'Next year Scots will be asked to make a huge political decision: whether to stay in the UK or to go it alone. As Britain’s Prime Minister I’ve always been clear that this is a decision for people living in Scotland to make. But I do care passionately about the outcome – and I will make the case for the UK with everything I’ve got. For me that case comes down to two things: heart and head.

It’s about heart because our nations share a proud and emotional history. Over three centuries we have built world-renowned institutions like the NHS and BBC, fought for freedom and democracy in two World Wars, and pioneered and traded around the world. Our ancestors explored the world together and our grandfathers went into battle together as do our kith and kin today – and this leaves deep, unbreakable bonds between the peoples of these islands.

But the case for the UK is about head as well as heart – our future as well as our past. I have no time for those who say there is no way Scotland could go it alone. I know first-hand the contribution Scotland and Scots make to Britain’s success – so for me there’s no question about whether Scotland could be an independent nation. The real question is whether it should – whether Scotland is stronger, safer, richer and fairer within our United Kingdom or outside it. And here, I believe, the answer is clear.

Britain is admired around the world as a source of prosperity, power and security. Those glorious Olympics last summer reminded us just what we were capable of when we pull together: Scottish, English, Welsh, Northern Irish, all in the same boat – sometimes literally. If you told many people watching those Olympics around the world that we were going to erect barriers between our people, they’d probably be baffled. Put simply: Britain works. Britain works well. Why break it?

Of course there are difficult challenges to face and tough choices to make. There always are – in government and in our everyday lives.

These wouldn’t disappear if Scotland broke apart from the UK. But those arguing for separation want to force you to make another choice – to choose between Scotland and Britain. I say why should you be forced to make that choice?

Our United Kingdom is four nations united for the common good of all its citizens. With its own Scottish Government and Parliament within the UK, Scots can take important decisions affecting their daily lives: decisions about what their children are taught at school; the way in which hospitals provide care; and how public transport operates across the country.

Scots can take all of these decisions and more to meet the specific needs of Scotland – and they can do so without losing the benefits of being part of the UK and having a full say in its future – economic strength and opportunity, international influence and national security.

Scotland within the UK has a system of government that offers the best of both worlds. Why swap Scottish MPs, Scottish Cabinet Ministers and Scots throughout UK institutions, for one Scottish Ambassador in London?

So what should happen from here until the vote? I know those arguing for independence are already preparing their separation transition plan, as though they’ve got this in the bag, but to me that is wrong. It’s like fast-forwarding to the closing credits before you’ve been allowed to see the movie. The Scottish people still have many months to think about this decision and they are hungry for facts, evidence and expert opinion to help them make up their minds.

As one of Scotland’s two governments, the UK Government has a duty to help inform people with hard facts. So we’ll be providing expert-based analysis to explain Scotland’s place within the UK and how it might change with separation – and our first paper is published tomorrow. We don’t shy away from putting facts and evidence before the Scottish people. We want you to scrutinize, challenge and form your own opinion.

This must not be a leap in the dark, but a decision made in the light of day.

This big question is for Scotland to decide. But the answer matters to all of our United Kingdom. Scotland is better off in Britain. We’re all better off together and poorer apart.'




And we are off!