The Scottish problem - a solution?

[tigger3]

I've been thinking about politics (add own funny reply here) & as I'm now living in Scotland it's come to my attention that up here (barring the constituency of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale) we all hate the tories! So here's my suggestion, why not exchange/transfer Berwick-Upon-Tweed, it's about the same size but just over to the East a bit more, well on the other coast. Also it's got history of being Scottish before, quite a few times actually. Also it's football team plays(?) in the Scottish leagues & they didn't vote tory either.

This way England can be tory & then Scotland can have another election but without the tories in the ballot? There's already a Scottish parliament building, so everything is set up.

Anyone see any flaws in this? Or pros an cons?

Tig3 (lions the brave)

[BBK]

Agreed on one condition - you take any Scottish MP's currently working in England and have them in your own parliament.

[TwoPlAnKs]

Put it this way: when Ireland was outperforming the UK (with about 60 years of being the poorest country in Western Europe post-independence brushed aside) all the Scottish independence people wanted Scotland to go independent to be as good as them. They were proof that small celtic countries can do well.

Now, looking at the ghost-estates of new build housing in Ireland and the queues round the block for Christmas temp jobs in Marks and Spencers, with 15% unemployment, they've quietly shut up about Ireland and focussed entirely on Norway, another low-population country. Failing to note of course that Norway's economy is based entirely on natural resources.

Even the SNP admit that we are poorer than England unless you include North Sea oil - that has a decade left at current production rates before it goes into decline. Salmond also seems to think that all oil companies will just relocate to Scotland as he complains they are putting their earnings from the North Sea through London just now as their offices are there. I can't see huge multinational companies moving away from London for no apparent reason, and if his future for the country is based on the money they bring he can hardly give them huge tax breaks to encourage it.

It's a half-baked idea come up with by people who have watched Braveheart, and using the current divide in politics to try to encourage more independence is a bad idea. We might not like the current Tory government, but in future England will move back to another party and all will be well again.

The existing Scottish parliament also means that we have very little to care about anyway - they decide on huge amounts of stuff for us anyway and are run by SNP/Labour currently. Westminister doesn't have much power here, so the vote doesn't affect us much anyway and it's not worth getting too upset about it.

The existing Scottish parliament is really something to be proud of - Proportional Representation, loads of successful coalitions, no scandals, it puts us in the same league as almost every other country apart from the UK (Wales, Ireland, Poland, Canada, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Finland to name a few, all countries with PR and coalitions running OK and making Cameron's "ZOMG HUNG PARLIAMENT OH NOES" campaign look stupid.)

[TwoPlAnKs]

I've just had a funny thought. If, hypothetically, the British government fucked up completely and left England in ruins but the local parliaments in Scotland, Wales and NI all did really well, then all the little countries would probably think the real government had done well and vote them back in.

I wonder if that is what has happened with us voting Labour now. I also wonder if Scotland will turn into a bunch of Tories if they mess up now.

The Lib Dem plans for a federal Britain are brilliant here. They want to make 4 parliaments, one for each country, each with the same devolved powers. That's fair to English people unlike the current system, and allows the Westminster government to focus on federal issues without having to run strange dual-campaigns for both the full government of England and the partial government of the whole of the UK at the same time.