Scotland in or out.

Quoted from moosey_club

Salmond so gracious in defeat....."the people have rejected independance.....at this stage.....and i accept that"  
There is no "at this stage" you got your way,  you had your campaign, ...they voted...you lost....fck off.

Think we should just refer to Scotland as Northern England from now on.  

The Fishy strikes again.....are we now in charge of Scottish politics??  

Quoted from LH

Aaron Ramsey  

Yeah forgot about him!

Quoted from Doctor Sanchez

I did write that when I was extremely drunk and did get carried away with some things.  But you just answered it yourself in your response, in a union of 4 countries, in the Commons where national interests are debated, there's 533 representing England interests and 59 representing Scotland's interests (just pinching your figures, I don't know what it is for Wales and NI but obviously less).  Of course in the Commons it shouldn't matter where they're from because it's a UK government.  However they are elected to represent their local constituencies in that government so naturally there'll be some bias towards their homes.  I know it's just one of the flaws of democracy and there'll always be a part who get left out, or at least feel that way.  I can't help but tthink some sort of devolution of all powers of the individual national interests to England, Scotland, Wales and NI may help.  Therefore keeping a much smaller Westminster parliament, with equal representation regardless of population size, to debate UK-wide interests.  Whatever happens from now on I'm just hoping something positive comes out of this for all of us.

Yeah me too Doc. I think party interests will put a stop to that though.

Deliberately didn't get involved in this debate on here as I was too busy with the real life issues affecting us all north of the border. For those who take their politics at least semi seriously rather than swallowing all the guff about "they get more out than they put in" guff, here's my view on things for what they're worth - and don't forget I'm a Welshman with a Grimsby accent living in Scotland!

Labour are toast for disgracefully sharing getting into bed with the Tory tw@ts. They'll be a sad and sorry minority rump come the 2015 General Election, and absolutely deservedly so - they couldn't see a Tory trap that a frigging blind man wouldn't have walked into. Strangely enough, the Tories might even benefit with the SNP eating into the Labour vote.

The SNP are, quite remarkably for a party that tasted defeat, now a genuine mass movement that has seen it's membership rise from 25,000 to over 80,000 in less than 3 weeks, and it's still rising (though I doubt it will end that way) For 6 glorious months, bar the awful BBC and Westmonster parties treating us all with utter contempt, we've had the most vibrant political debate that I can ever remember. It's been great to see tens of thousands of folk who'd never voted before getting involved.

It's not inconceivable that the SNP will get a huge swing in percentage points and votes in the General Election and actually become the deal breakers / brokers in Parliament. Would love that, if only to stick it up to all those who tried to stick it up to the Tories and Labour, but also the threat of UKIP. Watch this space...and if you get the chance of a bet on the SNP and the number of seats they're likely to have go for at least 30, compared to their current 6.

Good post John,

BUT

When we change the voting process in Westminster the bloody Tories will get all their bills through,

Labour will have less MP'S because only English and Welsh + N.Ireland Mp's will be able to vote on non Scotish matters,

I can see Scotland pressing for another referendum in another 5 or 10 years ,

Then I think they will win.

Labour (and more importantly the millions of ordinary people who they're there to serve) will pay the price for dropping PR (proper PR) in the late 90s when there was a chance to do something about it.

They cosied up to Paddy Pantsdown and made favourable noises about progressive politics and electoral reform, then when they got the landslide in 97 they thought they didn't need PR so ditched the issue.

Demographics have been heading slowly in favour of the Tories with the southward drift of the country. Now the genie of English votes for English issues is out of the lamp, we'll be locked in to Tory majorities under first past the post. So well done Tony Blair.