FREEDOM!!!! [2]

Well in fairness to him we did have the red white ad blue thing before you even had a country, so you did steal form Britain in the first place.

I suppose I should be at least happy Cameron has stopped trying to pretend that Scotland only exists on the good will of the English taxpayer and has moved to how the rest of the country would be 'deeply diminished' if we left and that it "matters to all our futures"- I assume from that he means Westminster will have less influence and therefore lose power, and politician hate that thought, and they wont have free access to our bountiful natural resources or anywhere to keep their nukes! I suppose in that sense they would be diminished.

But dont worry England we have faith you can be an independent country!

Good old Ealing Comedy....When an unexploded WWII bomb is accidentally detonated in Pimlico, an area of London, it reveals a treasure trove and documents proving that the region is, in fact part of Burgundy, France and thus foreign territory. The British Government attempt to regain control by setting up border controls and cutting off services to the area. The 'Burgundians' fight back... quoted from IMDB.[url=http://www.imdb.com/search/title?plot_author=Stephen Parkin <stephen@spcap.demon.co.uk>&view=simple&sort=alpha&ref_=tt_stry_pl]
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They had a thing did Ealing for bowler hatted 'men from the ministry'   

Question where is David Cameron delivering this speech from?-



If you answered Glasgow then you were wrong- its todays speech form the Olympic Stadium in London.

So why does his podium say Glasgow Uni on it?

Good question, but could it be because if people only see the picture on a newspaper or tv they might get the impression he actually bothered to come to Scotland to speak to us?


As to the content of the speech- well lets just say since the start of this Cameron has accused Salmond of wrapping himself in a saltire (Scottish flag) and appealing to patriotism and the heart and not the head- and then he gave a speech which addressed none of the issues which have led to this point and told us not to vote yes for the sake of the Queen, Sherlock Holmes, and the Union Flag.

shame you cant jiggle the vowels ? Cameron would then spell Moronic

It still shocks me that he is your prime minister. He just seems devoid of any of the skills necessary for the job.

And he didn't even win the election..

Has the fact that he was speaking from Sotchi been reported anywhere?

Now, did someone say red, white and blue?   

YOU think its odd hes our Prime Minister ??   How do yer think I feel ? Dazed & confused thats how   The bloke is a numpty, got where he is due to "family connections", he is a true,blue,arse licker ! & I wouldnt give him the drippings off my snotty nose in winter !



 

The current UK government, Conservative and Liberal democrat coalition came third and fourth in the General Election in Scotland (out of a choice of 4).

And its this political imbalance that has eroded any sense in Scotland that we have a say or any influence- yet instead of meaningfully addressing, or even acknowledging such a problem exists he wants us to vote no for the sake of Eastenders?

Yes, and even with how incredibly unpopular Gordon Brown was he still couldn't wint the election.   That says it all to me.  

I said earlier that he reminded me of the main character from the Peter Cook film The Rise and Rise of Micheal Rimmer. Which is a story of a man who walks into and takes over a PR agency and ends up as a Conservative Prime Minister. Quite poignant 30 years later.

I havent seen that Blue- Ill need to check it out.


Here's the longest version of Camerons speech I can find-



To address a few points he raises- why should collaboration between two independent countries not happen?
The UK currently works with partnership with lots if other countries- they have a joint defence deal with France and all sort of collaborative stuff with Ireland.

He has the cheek to bring up Lossiemouth in relation to fighter pilots- a base his government closed and moved to England!

He talks about the Scottish regiments, famous names like the Highlanders and the Black Watch- which he disbanded and created a single Scottish regiment in their place- in the stroke of a pen doing away with hundreds of years of proud military tradition in the regiments and hitting morale and recruitment in the process as well as plunging areas which had economically relied upon the military for centuries into work less wastelands.

Salmonds response on BBC News-

Whole speech- audio only-

Im sorry Petty, I just cant listen to that dipstick    Cameron even sounds like a smarmy, two faced, conniving,back stabbing, sucky-uppy- git !! He makes me feel fooking SICK ! Ive tried to listen to his crappy speech, written by crap heads but, it certainly was a labour of....(I cant say 'love') Hes doing his upmost to sway people, I can hear a tremble in the old vocal chords tho !

Nope, cant do it, hes a w****r !

Well cant say as I blame you- as someone with a vote however I feel I have a duty to hear all sides so I heard him out.

And it seems thats not the whole speech anyway- weirdly on youtube it said it was 38 min long, when I posted it here it says 14!

You did more than I could do, & your absolutely right, as a voter, all sides should be heard & weighed up, Maybe IL come back to it & listen when I feel more co-operative ? Until then, I still think hes a w****r !

So do I!

But then Salmond can be quite the arsehole too, the difference between them has been that Salmond has been a competent, successful leader in Scotland, and Cameron is just hopelesss.

I think Alex Salmond comes across so well because he is genuine in the things he believes in. The Alex Salmond you see in the media is a real person, with real beliefs. That's not tro say he doesn't have his faults political and otherwise, but they are a lot easier to forgive when they aren't constonatly tired to be hidden.

Him and Cameron are polar opposites in that regard really. Nearly all Cameron is or says has it's basis in PR and spin.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Salmonds response on BBC News-

A bit of a strange method of interviewing when you try to intersperse all these little "facts" in such a way the interviewee has to constantly pull you up on it and point out that these aren't absolute thruths at all. Quite the opposite.

The thing about Cameron declining the debate is he can more than easily do that while saying it's not his place to tell the Scottish people what to do. But now that he has come out and actively supported one side, that defense rings ever so false.

This is why the BBC have been accused of bias.
The fact she doesnt even seem to know who the heads of the YES and NO campaigns are says it all.   

And yeah Cameron cant really say he wont debate because its a matter for the Scottish people and not him, and then make speeches like this and use tax payer funds to use government institutions to interfere in the debate.
Its untenable.

Yeah, it was a strange interview. And he even thanked her at the end.

And sadly Camerons actions seems most tenable, at least in his own mind. Hopefully the voters will realize that it's not though.

Good piece from the Financial Times-


'To understand why Scotland might soon vote for independence one has only to listen to the way the English talk about the 307-year-old union at the heart of the United Kingdom.
The dominant strand of English opinion says that Scotland would drown in the attempt to go it alone. Instead of seeking separation, Scotland should count its blessings for England’s unbounded generosity.
From the Labour left to the Conservative right, self-proclaimed English unionists hum the same insulting tune: outside the union Scotland’s future would be one of impoverished irrelevance.

Measured against the effort to frighten the Scots into voting No, however, Mr Salmond’s optimism is beguiling. The SNP has discarded narrow, anti-English nationalism in favour of an expansive view of Scotland’s role as a small and open European nation. This brand of nationalism does not demand rupture with England, but asks for a relationship of equals between good neighbours.

Many Scots will have noticed the contrast with an England turning in on itself – a nation gripped by moral panic over immigration, lashed to the mast of perpetual austerity and, if David Cameron’s Conservatives have their way, quite likely to turn its back on the wider world by pulling out of the EU.

English politics collides with the broadly social democratic consensus in Edinburgh. The SNP wants to attract more smart students and skilled workers from overseas; the UK government is locking them out. Mr Salmond spies opportunity in Europe, the English see conspiracies.

What do the Tories promise for a second term? More cuts in public services, a bar on immigrants and a vote on leaving the EU. This is not Scotland’s agenda."- Financial Times


I think its starting to slowly dawn on the ruling English elite that they might not have the best tactics for dealing with Salmonds vision of the future and that the underlying reasons we are in this position are about a political deficit and difference in direction, not some nationalistic anti-english jingoism.

I did have a point by point bash to your reply earlier up the line Jason, but I'll forego it, as you're banging on about us English as if we are STILL the enemy and it wears exceeding thin and reedy. This is also true of the welsh nationalists over the years too. As far as I can see, You've all had years and years to 'revolt' or whatever to go independent and haven't bothered until now. A good time would have been when the commonwealth was starting to break up in the mid to late fifties. But maybe the seeds were indeed sown when all the Tories were kicked out of Scotland fifteen years or so ago, and that's where the momentum comes from, as mr Salmon is a typical opportunist politician if nothing else, but all in all it's not about being independent , it's about sticking it to we English plain and simple, as I said above. The 'pro European' schtick comes as I said from The friendship between Scotland and France certainly since the claret wars as the three of us have always kicked lumps out if each other. The last century being the first one in fact where England and France haven't gone to war together. But what gets me is the sheer ungratefulness of your attitude. Scots have always been at the forefront of the unions defence, and their part acknowledged, as the welsh and Irish parts are too. We've also suffered in England at the hands of useless Scottish born politicians like Blair and especially Gordon Brown. With Cameroon being the latest to admit it. As I said I don't mind if you stay or go, but it's to the Islands deficit if you do and it will be missed. As to your other points: I don't care about Nuclear subs and bases at all. Let's have them. And take back the warship building jobs that have been given to the Clyde from Portsmouth. No worries at all. You will still want the UK to protect you if anything big kicks off, and you know that we English will do so as we will protect our northern borders. It's just that over the recent past, Scotland has had a reasonable deal, with England even giving extensive lebensraum and jobs to all your émigrés here without question ever. So we're not the 'big bad' country you're painting as. And just remember, your own country will not be a new Eden, however many 'Eves' you have to do it.

I dont know why you think there is anything anti-English about this.

It is about addressing a democratic deficit and a widening difference in how we see the future.

I have english family members (some of whom are voting Yes incidentally and they are certainly not anti-English!).

I thought the FT piece summed it up perfectly when it said-

"The SNP has discarded narrow, anti-English nationalism in favour of an expansive view of Scotland’s role as a small and open European nation. This brand of nationalism does not demand rupture with England, but asks for a relationship of equals between good neighbours."

It has nothing to do with hating the English it is to do with not having a full voice in the democratic process- it is to do with having a system where two parties who come third and fourth in an election, out of four, still end up as the government over the country.

And its to do with direction, Scotland has a broad consensus social democratic outlook whilst in England every party has moved further to the right of centre consistently for decades now (since Thatcher in fact), and as that gap has increased and increased so too has dissatisfaction here at how the UK democracy operates and how little a voice or say Scotland has in that process and how we are therefore railroaded into policies which otherwise would never pass here (a good current example is the bedroom tax which was made law here without the support of a single Scottish MSP).


As to Europe Scotland does yes have a long history of association particularly (but not exclusively) with France, we also have close historic ties (and family ones) with Scandinavian countries.
But the main reasons for not being anti-European is that its a good idea in common areas such as fishing (and Scotland has most of the UK fishing waters) to have a framework to manage stocks ect through the EU fishing commission, its far from perfect but its the sort of thing thats better to have some agreement in than not.

But in the list of reasons for voting YES 'sticking it to the English' doesn't even make the list.

I did find it  interesting how your view rather reflects the dismissive, arrogant view mentioned in the FT piece as one of the major reasons we are at this point in the first place-

"The dominant strand of English opinion says that Scotland would drown in the attempt to go it alone. Instead of seeking separation, Scotland should count its blessings for England’s unbounded generosity." - FT

"what gets me is the sheer ungratefulness of your attitude."- Feanor

Also you said- 'We've also suffered in England at the hands of useless Scottish born politicians like Blair'

Now imagine for a moment you had suffered Blair all those years despite England never having voted for him once- and you have the Scottish position under Thatcher and the current government.
With Blair you only have yourselves to blame, he only got into power in a landslide because England voted for him. Had England voted Tory and all of Scotland for Blair- we'd still have got a Tory government- thats the problem.
And he only got England to vote for him by moving Labour to the right.
You can trace the falling away of the Scottish Labour vote and the rise of the SNP vote to Blair- we hated him even more than you because after suffering 17 years of Tory rule we never voted for when we did finally get a Labour government it turned out just to be Tory in disguise.

As to a blow by blow rebuttal from you, please do, as I said above as I have a vote I feel I should listen to as many voices in the debate as possible. But we should be dealing in facts (where there are any!) and on evidence not on some perceived slight against England that does not exists, its not what this is about at all.

It's quite interesting to see how some opninions seem roughly divided on national lines. Alex Salmond seem to be an example.

Well, as long as it doesn't mean War.