Here’s the headline of today’s New York Times, and if you click on the screenshot you’ll go to the article:
Judging by the number of responses to yesterday’s post, there was a huge emotional (and rational!) investment in the outcome of this vote, and I was surprised. The pictures below, though, show how deeply people felt about this vote.
The outcome wasn’t as close as I thought, though. From the NYT:
With results tallied from all 32 voting districts, the “no” campaign won 55.3 percent of the vote while the pro-independence side won 44.7 percent. The margin was greater than forecast by virtually all pre-election polls.
. . . Mary Pitcaithly, the chief counting officer for the referendum, said final figures showed the pro-independence camp securing 1,617,989 votes while their opponents took 2,001,926.
The campaign had injected a rare fervor and passion into Scottish politics, debated in bars and coffee shops, kitchens and offices, and producing a turnout that exceeded 90 percent in some districts. Across Scotland, 84.6 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the referendum.
Here are the results given (in the Guardian) by council: red is no (continuing union), blue is yes (independence). Who’s the blue?
Reader Grania sent me a better map, saying “from the Economist: a more helpful map in understanding the yes and no distribution. Those areas that bordered England were more likely to vote no, as were the cities.”
I suspect that those favoring the continuing union weren’t keen to say that to pollsters; perhaps it didn’t seem “Scottish.”
What will happen now? I’m not politically astute enough to know. Britain can keep its nuclear subs in Scotland, though I don’t really know why they’re there, and there will be bad feelings all around. But I love Scotland and its resilient people, and I know they’ll come to terms with this.
The happy and the sad:
“Yes” campaign supporters in Glasgow Square last night. (From NYT: Photo Lynne Cameron, Press Association via AP):
Supporters of independence, in their plaid, mourn in Edinburgh (photo: NYT; Lesley Martin, Agence France-Presse, Getty images):
From The Scotsman story: Better Together supporters celebrate in a Glasgow pub (Photo: Agency):
More celebrations in Glasgow:
This will no doubt come round again, but not for a long time. I presume that the referendum is something that can be repeated, but with the huge emotional investment—and the fairly decisive outcome—that won’t happen soon.
Wow, that map is pretty striking! I had no idea it was that definitive. Pretty much just Glasgow and Dundee then?
I couldn’t see a happy face in Aberdeen after the polls closed. Which suggests there’s a lot more patchiness to the results than the maps show. I’m not strongly committed one way or the other (I only decided which way to vote about a month ago), and I was just following my normal round of watering holes, without making any effort to hunt out people of either stripe.
I have a mate in Aberdeen that was out of town for the day so missed the vote. He was going to vote Yes though, and was hoping, and pretty confident, that Yes was going to win. So I got the impression that there was a lot of support for a Yes in Aberdeen.
Aberdeen voted NO by 57 per cent to 43 per cent. The great thing about democracy is that you can ‘haud yer wheesht’ and cast your ballot.
In the interests of democracy we should allow Glasgow and Dundee to leave the UK. They could form a new state (a welfare state?).
For the final bit about not for a long time.
I am not so sure. If it is seen that the UK government isnt giving further powers then it may revive the campaign.
In addition there is the broader question around Europe and if the UK has a referendum on membership. If the answer is leave then again that could stir things up.
Certainly some campaigners seem to be treating is as a minor setback and looking for another referendum in the medium term.
Form the detailed breakdown
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/scotland-decides/results
the most interesting thing is that it was fairly even everywhere. The pro-secession vote was between 32% and 58% in all 32 areas, even Borders voted 33% for secession, and only Orkney was under a third.
Of course the key takeaway for all politicos is that when people get to vote on something that actually matters, the turnout is much bigger than in general elections (84.5%).
That’s a much more informative breakdown, thanks. Still seems like there may have been an urban-rural breakdown to the vote, with the more urban areas either (i) containing more young people who may be more optimistic about going it alone, or (ii) just more economically self-sustaining, so not as worried about the potential downsides. Or both, I suppose.
And yes I agree, an 85% turnout is great. Especially on such a contentious issue, it is good to see that such a large portion of the citizenry had their voices heard.
I haven’t seen the stats yet so I don’t know, but there were reports beforehand that young people were more likely to vote No because they were worried about security.
As far as I was aware from other polls it was the opposite demographic issue, older people where worried because of the security of their pensions.
I’m not sure why there would be any issue with security. They are a western european nation with only allies nearby.
I live in the north of England within 60 miles of the Scottish border and have many connections to Scotland. Early on I decided that if I’d had a vote it would have been Yes, but conversely hoped that the result would be No because it would have been a disaster for the north of England. From my perspective, we northerners are definitely Better Together – the potential loss of 40 Scottish Labour MP’s has been averted along with the very real possibility of almost permanent Tory rule in England and Wales.
I agree that England would have been vastly worse off without the Scottish vote. The country would have swung violently to the right and ordinary people would have paid a big price.
I suspect that the country (UK) is swinging violently to the right, which is why I voted to get out.
If the UKIPers get their way and look likely to get Britain out of Europe, then I’ll be looking to move out of the country. Spain probably, or southern France. Which will at least stop the wife moaning about the weather.
The entire English speaking world is swinging violently to the right unfortunately. Though in the case of Australia the conservatives had to lie through their teeth to get elected, it nonetheless happened. It’s very disturbing.
And the surprise is ?
That people were stupid enough to believe their lies. I guess I’m an optimist. Who’d have thought?
I’m flying the St. Andrews Cross today. I suppose I should put up the Union Jack instead.
But if the last century or two has shown anything, it is that being a part of the UK does not mean a loss of culture or identity at all. Fly the flag you want to fly. Fly them both.
Only if you are at sea 🙂
Blue (Yes) councils were (yes%age first)
West Dunbartonshire (54/46)
Glasgow City (53/47)
North Lanarkshire (51/49)
Dundee City (57/43)
There are a number of reasons why the Trident subs are in Scotland. Firstly there is deep water close to the Faslane base. This means that once they have left port, the subs can go deep quickly and since they are virtually undetectable, that is a big benefit. Secondly…. the Scottish weather. As everyone knows it rains a fair bit around the west coast of Scotland and the cloud cover provides some invisibility from satellite surveillance.
The cynic might also point out that Faslane is a long way from the south of England – where the people who decided to position Britain’s nuclear weapons in the west of Scotland happened to live.
The main target of the subs is/was Russia, so of course they are based in Scotland. Similarly the home fleet was based on Orkney in the world wars because that was the best place to stop a German breakout into the Atlantic.
If the main target was France they would be based on the south coast.
I thought Britain’s main target was always France. 🙂
The sub bases, and other military based in Scotland, are also there to provide much needed employment.
Très drôle.
“I thought Britain’s main target was always France.”
Except when it was the Spanish, the Dutch, the Prussians, the Scots, the Danes, the Vikings, the Normans… depends how far you go back.
(But not apparently Portugal – “In 1373 the Kingdom of England signed the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, the oldest alliance in the world still in force.” That surprised the heck out of me. Didn’t stop the British sinking a few Portuguese ships when they formed part of the Armada under Spanish control… )
Bah! Britain & France are frenemies. Britain is allowed to make fun of France and vice versa but no one else is. Like siblings – they can pick on each other, but they defend one another if someone else picks on one of them.
Well, for the last century or so, anyway. Before that I can recall a few little misunderstandings like Hastings, Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, the Nile, Trafalgar, Waterloo… 😉
(Don’t get me wrong, I like the French and I love Paris. Not least because all the pedestrians on the streets look so casually stylish. I have no idea how they do it).
But just to emphasise how tangled European history is, I was visiting Devils Bridge in the Schollenen gorge below Andermatt (in the middle of Switzerland) – a marvellously dramatic location – and I was bemused to see a huge memorial carved into the rock to the Russian(!) troops who died fighting Napoleon.
As someone who lives in the South of England, less than 5 miles from both the AWRE (Atomic Weapons Research Establishment) and the Burghfield Common nuclear warhead plant, I would suggest that the cynic is perhaps trying too hard.
Cynicism aside, bonetired is right. Given the perceived need for a nuclear deterrent (yes, I know this is questionable), where better? And what would the alternatives have been if the Scots had voted Yes? The only place in the UK with facilities that even approximate those at Faslane and Coulport is Devonport, which is home to conventionally-armed, nuclear powered submarines, and a refitting base for Trident; but does not replenish the latter’s missiles or warheads. Any move to create such facilities there would no doubt be welcomed with open arms by the 250,000 inhabitants of Plymouth.
Separatism often goes hand in hand with a distasteful sort of exceptionalism. An oft-heard cry in Catalonia is “Spain is robbing us.” Which is perfectly plausible in terms of the level of corruption in the country, but what it doesn’t take into account is that corruption is also perpetrated by Catalan politicians at the expense of the Catalan (and Spanish) people, as evidenced by the Pujol scandal.
I think there’s no doubt we’re all better together. Union means, or should mean, working for the common good. The union of European nations has meant, at the very least, the longest peacetime we’ve ever had on this continent.
Separatism often goes hand in hand with a distasteful sort of exceptionalism.
We tried telling that to the rest of the Empire but they would insist in running their own countries
There’s a difference between inclusion and exclusion. Spain (the PP, to be precise) gets it terribly wrong by deriding Catalonia and saying they must stay, all at the same time. That’s wife-beater’s syndrome.
What I mean is we should all try to work together as equals and with respect.
What is going to happen now is that there is going to be an almightly row in parliament about the extra powers promised to Scotland by the main national parties over the last few weeks as a bribe to shore up the No vote.. They are going to be held to ransom by Tory MP’s eager to negotiate some form of devolved powers for England in return for supporting the extra power promised to Scotland, which include the stipulation that Scottish MP’s are excluded from voting on English matters. The Scots, meanwhile, have got Cameron by the nads over the timetable he’s proposed for further devolution. Just to complicate matters further, there’s a general election coming up in May of next year which Labour are (or rather, were) on course to win, but Labour may now struggle to hold on to their Scottish MP’s who rely on many of the people who actually vote Yes in the referendum and now feel very disillusioned and may well abandon the party. In a nutshell, the leaders of both main parties are f**ked. Meanwhile, the shadow of the anti EU/anti immigrant UKIP wing nuts looms large ready to gobble up disillusioned right and and left voters in England and Wales.
Still it shows that you can have a very contentious debate (84% turnout!) yet nobody rioted, nobody bombed anybody – all kudos to the Scots for that.
+1
Something for everyone to be very proud of! This is what a civilized society is all about.
I do see on our TV news tonight there were scuffles in Glasgow. Though one spectator apparently commented: “This has got more to do with the Old Firm [Rangers and Celtic football clubs] and tribalism than the referendum.”
If true, I guess it proves that Scotland and England still have more in common than differences. 😉
Over half the Unionists polled yesterday feel this resolves the question at least for the next generation, over half those voting for independence (including me – I’m actually in the sample) feel this will come up again in less than a decade – my answer was within 5 years.
No chance. The SNP will be hammered at the next Hollyrood elections. They were only returned last time because folk thought to give Labour a bloody nose. We’re not going through this agony again. Not in my life time and hopefully not in my children’s either.
It’s only agony because we lost
My Friday pub (in the heart of the university district – with a full squad of the Home nations, a brace of Red Clydesiders, and occasional passing Germans, French, Croats and … I forgot someone probably) came to the same timetable.
The betting was strong that the Cons will renege on their promises. The hint is in the name. And that’s likely to bring the subject back in closer to the 5 years mark than the decade.
What’s the only chance for post-independence England (and Wales, of course) to avoid eternal Con government? That’ll be the coming schism in the Cons over Europe. And that is likely to get really nasty. We squashed the Nazi element back underground in the early years of Thatcher, but they’ve never gone away, and seem to be on a resurgence. I don’t envy the brown-skinned parts of my family, living in Little Eng-ur-land. And the Eastern European parts are not showing any signs of hanging around longer than they need to either.
If Eng-ur-land is lucky, the Cons will schism over Europe, allowing a Centre-left block to maintain some sort of sanity. But it’ll be close. I’d be planting the sleeper agents and button-pushers into UKIP even now, if I were a strategist. Which I’m not.
Seen from the perspective of a mere fan of Scotland from across the water (Lewis Grassic Gibbon, piobaireachd, Glenlivet, et al), it would seem that the Tories are apoplectic about the last minute concessions made by Cameron to sway the vote. I would love to hear what the posters from the UK think regarding Parliament post-vote. By the way, is there an equivalent to to “anglophile” for Scotland?
Thanks, Ian, for that overview. I was probably typing when you posted.
Texas secessionists are using the Scottish referendum as a new rallying point for their own movement.
I sincerely doubt the US federal government will be as liberal on the issue of peaceful secession as the Canadian, UK, Czechoslovavian etc. goverments are or have been. The issue probably wouldn’t even make it to a floor vote in Congress.
But assuming it did, Texas is going to have the same problem that the Quebecois faced. If you claim Texas gets to secede by vote without the greater geopolitical unit getting to vote on it or being able to say no, then you have to accept that your argument and logic also allows subunits within Texas to secede from Texas following the same rules. And I expect a number of counties or cities will do exactly that.
I’ve raised exactly the same question with regard to the Shetlands and other Isles. There’s no logic against it, and the economic arguments (half the oil reserves are in Shetland waters, compared to about 1% of the population) are powerful.
That said, every Shetlander who I’ve broached the subject with has shrugged off the question – “we like being Scottish.”
The claim that Shetland could secede from an independent Scotland (or from the UK for that matter) is complete nonsense. A referendum for secession would have to be agreed by the governing state. This was the case for the Scottish referendum which was given legal standing by the UK government. Without this consent it would have been meaningless. A referendum organised by the Shetlanders would have no standing in international law. The population of 22,000 would also find it difficult to mount armed resistance to the UK (or Scottish) government.
Legal matters have nothing to do with the logic of the situation. There’s nothing to prevent the Shetlanders seceding except the law. And laws can be changed.
The close associations over the years between Shetland and Norway suggest a natural realignment. It has long been pointed out the if Shetland is closer to Oslo than it is to London, it’s not much better for Edinburgh (about 100km difference.
“Legal matters have nothing to do with the logic of the situation. There’s nothing to prevent the Shetlanders seceding except the law. And laws can be changed.”
Sometimes it’s best not to double down on the idiocy. The law would have to be changed by the governing state. Maybe they could get Putin to organise their referendum.
By the way, is there an equivalent to to “anglophile” for Scotland?
Grounds Keeper Willie perhaps?
The opinions I was hearing in my part of central England were for the Scots to get on with their vote and then live with it. I think it became a bit tedious for many people because the campaign went on for months. We’re not used to a year long election campaign like you in the States.
In a way I was waiting for a Yes vote to see if Cameron would have gerrymandered a pro-England referendum for the citizens of the Faslane area, sent in a few troops in odd uniforms and taken back the area, a bit like the Crimea. Won’t happen now. Not yet, anyway.
I’d guess “Albaphile” would work.
Hopefully Cameron keeps his word and follows through on what he’s promised. Since I live in a country where one province has had very close referenda in my lifetime, I know that trying to understand and implementing strategies to address the disenfranchised group is must!
woops, sub.
Diana, who is disenfranchised, and in what way?
They all have the vote, and this time Salmond extended to franchise to include 15 and 16 year olds in the now forlorn hope that the newly enfranchised youth would leap at the chance for Independence – they didn’t!
Yesterday for the first time in decades 84% of those enfranchised Scots used it. (The normal % is 30 or less).
Salmond is a typical politician, evaded all the major questions regarding the currency, inflating the amount of oil that can be extracted from the North Sea, and how he cold responsibly have a programme that could spend three times as much money as he had. Plus as a newly independent country he would have had to join the Euro, if they had let him into the EU.
In truth he was like a blind man playing hide & seek on a cliff top hoping that he wouldn’t tumble over the edge.
I was using the meaning of “disenfranchised” not as the withholding the right to vote but in its secondary meaning of feeling marginalized. Typically, when a group of people put a lot of energy into separating, there is a lot of feelings of marginalization taking place.
Yes, the Scots are so “marginalised” that for the 13 years of Labour government after 1997, the two highest governmental posts in the UK – Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer – were both continually held by Scots (yes, Tony Blair is a Scot, by birth and education). Not to mention the numerous high offices held by Scots in virtually every British government of the past century.
As someone who has lived in Scotland for nearly 25 years, I cast my vote for No, but was so worried about the result I couldn’t watch any of the goings-on during the night. I turned on my TV at 0800 this morning, and found to my relief that we’d dodged a bullet. Salmond’s version of “independence” would have been a catastrophe for Scotland, and had his side won, I’d made up my mind to leave. Thank Ceiling Cat that sanity has prevailed.
Well, it’s clear they aren’t happy. Whether they are disenfranchised or not, they surely feel they are. It’s the same with Quebec – they have a Federal party, the Bloc Québécois which represents only Quebec, only residents of Quebec can vote for those candidates (they don’t have people running in other ridings) and its function is to protect the interests of Quebec and Quebec sovereignty.
Canada is also officially bilingual (though in practice, it doesn’t look as good as it could be) which means government signs are in French and English, you need to be bilingual to hold many Federal jobs and of course all Federal party leaders speak and debate in both languages.
Still, there are many in Quebec who are unhappy and feel left out. If they say they are unhappy then I believe them and clearly it isn’t about politics, but something else.
“If they say they are unhappy then I believe them…”
Okay, but it seems to me that the key issue is whether they are right on being left out. If they are being left out, then they have a legitimate grievance. If they aren’t, then feeling that way isn’t much of a secessionist leg to stand on.
It isn’t hard to know what is that something else. Take 7 millions of people who share a language and a culture that are different from the majority and it is nearly inevitable that a political movement will propose sovereignty as a natural option. Especially in a French/English context…
Ironically, the separatist movement in Quebec hit an historic low since the beginning of the ’70s, but the attachment to Canada too…
10 years of conservative government is probably the cause. But Trudeau should fix that next year…
I think PET was going the right way with bilingualism. It is a shame he couldn’t have gone further, but the government has only so much money. I wish all schools in Canada were immersion schools. That way the Québécois would not feel that they were foreigners in their own country when they travelled.
The concept was noble but in reality, why a Canadian whose grand-parents were born in Ukraine would need to learn French if he wants a job in Saskatoon? I understand everyone in Canada isn’t bilingual like everyone at Lac St-jean doesn’t speak English… and a lot of separatists understand (which I’m not) that. The idea of an independent Quebec isn’t fuelled by resentment against the rest of Canada like it used to be, for some good and bad reasons. It has more to do with culture now. Canada changed a lot within the last decades and if Quebec used to play a major role in the country, we don’t feel that we have a lot to do now, probably because most Quebecers don’t recognize themselves in the right-wing government that is in place for 10 years now
By the way, I was referring to Justin Trudeau, the son of PET!
Yes, I know which Trudeau you were referring to.
I wasn’t talking about making French mandatory for jobs. I think that is impractical. I would rather change the culture and have children immersed in French during school so that suddenly everyone seems to know both languages. Of course, this has its limitations as well – such as where are you going to get the French teachers?
Maybe not immersion in all subjects. I tutored quite a few “victims” of French immersion Math. There’s not really enough vocabulary to make it worthwhile and just enough vocabulary to confuse the bejeezus out of the weaker Math students…
Yes, I think in immersion schools Math is typically taught in English. I imagine some get tortured with French rules.
When I was in university we all panicked when my professor decided to teach tricky grammatical rules for German in German (yes, it was a German class) but he just laughed at us and told us to relax. It actually all worked out.
French immersion math? Ouch! That’s just making it doubly difficult.
(And I say that as someone who likes maths and is currently trying to brush up his French…)
Having taken some French refresher classes a short while ago, I’d say French immersion doesn’t suit everybody (and not me). I prefer to know what I’m supposed to be doing and having to try to decode the instructions before I can attempt to carry them out just left me floundering. It’s just too much all at once. It probably works better on students whose french is already reasonably fluent.
You may be unfamiliar with what we mean by “immersion”. In Canada, there are French Immersion schools that kids go to from the beginning of their education (typically). It’s probably the most natural way of learning a language and it’s done at a time when language learning is easiest. This is funny & even I watched Passé-Partout – why I don’t know, maybe nothing else was on.
Hilarious! Love the look on the mother’s face:-)
( both my kids hated French:-). Where did i go wrong?
A propos of an earlier conversation about counting en français, we ran into a couple from Québec today while hiking in Beaver Valley north of Toronto. I asked them what came after cinquante, soixante…and they said soixante dix, quatre vingt, etc….So they count like the French and not like the Swiss:-). They probably thought I was nuts to ask such a question after giving them directions to Hogg’s Falls ( which they had to repeat several times because they left off the H:-). Oggg’s Falls…
And speaking of French Nath, it does get confusing as the French ( and Germans, and probably other Europeans?) use the comma and decimal points in the opposite way that we do in English. And $3.50 becomes 3,50$…
I strongly disliked French classes (which I took for just two years IIRC, at grammar school in UK, then my family moved to NZ where I don’t think we had them). I thought they were a complete waste of time because anyone who mattered in the world spoke English. I was of course juvenile at the time, and maths-science oriented.
Somewhat to my surprise a few years back, I found I could recall a surprising amount of French, so now I’m very pleased I took those long-forgotten classes.
I loved French when I was briefly exposed to it with a teacher that taught us temporarily for some reason. Later, when in Grade 6 (the age non-immersed, anglophone Canadians start taking French) – Year 7 for NZ I believe, I started to dislike it simply because I had a terrible teacher who hated kids. She’s yell “Ça suffit!” all the time and was always in a bad mood. I also disliked it while in high school on and off depending on the teacher.
In general, I find all modern romance languages more difficult than germanic ones. It’s just a preference my brain has.
Hi Dave,
I agree with you. I thought one of the best articles was by Ewan Morrison who was involved in the yes campaign before switching to no, ” The Yes movement started to remind me of the Trotskyists – another movement who believed they were political but were really no more than a recruitment machine. I know because I was a member of the SWP in the late 80s. As a ‘Trot’ we were absolutely banned from talking about what the economy or country would be like ‘after the revolution’; to worry about it, speculate on it or raise questions or even practical suggestions was not permitted. We had to keep all talk of ‘after the revolution’ very vague because our primary goal was to get more people to join our organisation. I learned then that if you keep a promise of a better society utterly ambiguous it takes on power in the imagination of the listener. Everything can be better “after the revolution”. It’s a brilliant recruitment tool because everyone with all their conflicting desires can imagine precisely what they want. The key is to keep it very simple – offer a one word promise. In the case of the Trotskyists it’s ‘Revolution,’ in the case of the independence campaign it’s the word ‘Yes’. ”
I think it took on the form of faith. You had the recipe of the Holy Book in the form of the ” Scotland’s future ” which most probably never read and which to anyone who read critically was woefully vague. Salmond was the priest issuing rhetoric, obsfucation and apologetics. I had a yes supporter tell me ” take a leap of faith ” when I tried to point out some of the difficulties in their plans. Some folk were imagining they would become oil sheikhs but the £ 6000 million annual tax from North Sea oil would only be £1200 per head for 5 million people in Scotland.
Also you had Elaine C.Smith saying things like ” Independence if not a magic pill ” which was probably her way of defending her faith from the attack of ” You are acting like you think independence will be a magic wand ” i.e she does believe it will be a magic wand but doesn’t want to admit it to herself.
But maybe that is a bit insulting because with so many different aspects in the complex debate there was ample scope for each person to focus on different carrots and sticks.
http://wakeupscotland.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/ewan-morrison-yes-why-i-joined-yes-and-why-i-changed-to-no/
Fair enough, but I agree with Dave. My Father’s family emigrated from the Inner Hebrides, via Glasgow and the Gorbals (then probably Europe’s worst slum) to West Yorkshire at the beginning of the 20thC; and on my Mother’s side I am Irish. I just happened to be born and brought up in England from 1946 onwards; so I declare an interest.
At the present time the grant paid by the UK Government to the Scottish Parliament is in excess of £1,000 per capita more than is available to the English. Still there are those in Scotland who whinge about unfairness.
What many of the Scots hanker after is some form of Utopia but the disingenuous comments made by the SNP do them no favours.
In a way I wish they had won their independence but I would feel very sorry for those over the border.
I’m just glad that it turned out the way it did.
“At the present time the grant paid by the UK Government to the Scottish Parliament is in excess of £1,000 per capita more than is available to the English. Still there are those in Scotland who whinge about unfairness.”
You’re only looking at one side of the equation. Don’t you think tax collected is significant?. A geographical share of North Sea Oil revenues would mean Scotland contributing about £1000 a year extra in tax to the UK exchequer.
UK economic policy since Thatcher has been geared towards the London ‘off-shore’ financial businesses. Scotland, like the other highly industrialised areas of the UK, has suffered while London and the South East rides the financial bubbles.
Scotland receives less ‘subsidy’ (when revenues are taken into account) than any other part of the UK – apart from London and the South East.
Not so, I only mentioned one side of the debate, there is a difference.
You also have to consider, and finally I hope that the ‘highly intellectual occupants of the Palace of Westminster’ finally have the balls to sort it out, and that is the Midlothian question. Not that either The Ed Miller Band groupies or Nick Clegg’s rump are happy about the possible outcome.
But, yes, of course tax collected is important and most of the money that isn’t collected in Scotland is paid from the tax paid by the residents south of the border; and I don’t mean Mexico way!
“But, yes, of course tax collected is important and most of the money that isn’t collected in Scotland is paid from the tax paid by the residents south of the border”. Im not sure what point your making. It’s certainly the case that 90% of the population pay (approximately) 90% of the tax.
marginalized=my side lost
I will reserve judgement until I hear what you would have to say about the marginalization of the other side if you had won.
Margaret Thatcher made the Conservative Party too toxic for Scotland. So politics there became a war between old and new labour; SNP taking on the mantle of old labour.
Beneath the mantle of civic politics lies the old SNP: Nationalism daubed blue in warpaint. Yet Salmond wanted Queen and Pound to go with the North Sea. The truth is that with the promised new powers Scotland will have it all. They have won all the independence that really matters.
In so doing the Labour Party have lost England.
As a Londoner I want the independence that Scotland has. We are 8 million to their 5. The next mayor should be looking to achieve for London what Salmond has achieved for Scotland.
Has Britain ever had a Scottish PM? In Canada most of the PMs in my lifetime have been French – even Mulroney (you think his name is Irish but he was from PQ). I have been annoyed with the non French ones so far. I also like when they go to the US and the US presidents look at them funny when they speak French – okay only W did that.
Plenty … In fact the last PM before Cameron, Gordon Brown, is Scottish. Tony Blair was Scottish born. Going further back Ramsay MacDonald, Campbell-Bannerman and Balfour were also Scottish born. There were others who had strong Scottish connections – for example Home and Macmillan.
Other PM’s have represented Scottish constituencies whilst being PM … Gladstone.
Churchill at one point represented a Scottish seat – Dundee ( although not PM at the time)
We have also have had a Canadian born PM: Bonar Law
Update: but only one Welshman – Lloyd-George but even then he was English born!
Sub
As an American, my primary reaction is “85% voter turnout! Crazy!”
Terrific isn’t it? One authority had 91%.
I think that’s everyone’s reaction the the Western world, except in those places where voting is enforced by law.
I thought it was low for such an important voting.
Sweden’s turnout for parliament (not for EU, which is abysmal and closer to 50+ %):
2006: 81.99 %
2010: 84.63 %
[Sw Wikipedia]
Sweden seems to be more civic minded than a lot of Europe/US/Canada, then.
Like our host, the Professor, I spent some time living in Scotland while studying. Given my extremely anecdotal feelings, I’d say a major reason for the “no” vote was quite simply the Queen. In my experience (this was fifteen years ago, roughly) everyone over the age of 40 hated the English and loved the royals. It must be a Balmoral thing.
Royalty worship is in the English blood. The jubilee a couple of years ago was virtually ignored in Scotland. In England they had street parties everywhere.
The English feel so hated that 370,000 choose to live here. There is a dislike of the English ruling class and in football matters we are duty bound to support the opposition. (Also, the NO side won by 283,000. Do the arithmetic and thank g-d for the English.)
There’s no shortage of republican sentiment here. Just not enough to have a realistic chance of even getting to a referendum, let alone winning it. It’s very much a battle that has been explicitly shelved in favour of more achievable targets – such as independence.
That said … there’s always the chance of one of them doing something mind-bogglingly silly and knocking a few percent off their support. So there is hope for getting rid of them. But not a lot – Brenda runs a pretty tight ship on the PR front.
As René Levesque said after the failed 1980 Quebec referendum, “À la prochaine!” (“Until next time”)… which was 15 years later …
As I mentioned elsewhere, there was really only one important issue in this election, and this is it.
I think the map says the opposite, right?
The two border districts are Dumfries/Galloway and Borders. They voted heavily against – by around 66% to 34%. Orkney and Shetland ( northern island districts) also voted heavily against. Edinburgh had a 22% margin.
The YES did best in areas where unemployment is high: Dundee and around Glasgow.
I am relieved. I don’t think the promoters of independence realized the potential costs to a newly independent country of having potentially as much as 49% of their population who were against independence. What would this have meant? Migrations south? Businesses closing? Brain drain? It surely would have had an impact on a country of only 4.5 million. I am amazed that this vote was simple majority.
Likewise I don’t think supporters were really aware of the costs of setting up a duplicate government, or anticipated the peroid of turmoil while it was being done. Government’s role was very small when we went independent. Even after independence it wasn’t easy.
I think those costs were seen as insignificant compared to the gains.
Gains?
From my perspective independence was all gains no losses.
Likewise I don’t think supporters were really aware of the costs of setting up a duplicate government, or anticipated the peroid of turmoil while it was being done.
There would be economies of scale in having one World Government.
A dictatorship would have even more.
My wife and I once sat next to a Scottish couple in Paris. They were from an isolated island community somewhere and we truly could not understand their Scottish accent, so we spoke to each other in French.
This brings up the following joke:
An English doctor visits a hospital in Scotland. The last ward
he visits has three patients with no apparent infirmities.
The first one says:
“Fair fa’ yer sonsie face,great chieftain e’ the puddin race.”
The second patient declares :Some hae meat, and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it, but we hae meat and we can eat and say the Lord be thankit.”
The third patient announces “We sleekit cow’rin tim’rous beastie, o what
a panic’s in thy breastie. Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi’ bickering brattle. I wab be laith to run and chase
thee wi’ murdering prattle.”
The English doctor asks the Scottish one if that is the psychiatric ward. The Scottish doctor says “Nay,its the Serious Burns Unit.
Readers should check out Nature 513, 11
September, 2014, pp. 151 – 152. The article
points out that Scottish researchers are more
productive than those in the UK as a whole,
and many other countries.
Hahahahaha:-)
I have an Indonesian friend who is completely thrown off by any accent other than Canadian or the northern US. She even struggled when we conducted calls with our counterparts in Atlanta. You can forget about any Aussie co-workers. I had to be the Aussie whisperer for them. 🙂
I had the same problem with some guys from Newfoundland who were not from the city. They were staying in the campground I worked at as a student because they had summer jobs in Ontario. They’d talk to me and laugh and laugh and I had no idea what they said.
I also met a couple from Andorra when I was in Australia. The man, who could speak several languages, couldn’t understand our Australian tour guide so I actually had to translate what she said from Australian English to Canadian English. 😀
We did our (poor) versions of New York City, Cockney, Scottish accents for a German friend. She didn’t understand a word of any of it. (Northern tier USian here.)
Makes me feel less bad about understanding NOTHING of Bavarian or Quebecois French*.
My cousin in Sweden needed to deal with engineering companies in both the UK and USA. He had (I kid you not) an English – American / American – English dictionary. It was fun to read.
(* I listen to the CBC French service and the announcers are clear as a bell — very standard French. And then a person speaking Quebecois comes on and — nothing.)
Bavarian dialect not Bavarian version of French! 🙂
Now Bavarian French would be something…
Hee hee hee! 🙂
Kinda frothy…
I know a person from France who has a hard time understanding Quebecois French.
Sadly and stupidly, we were taught France French in school. If you go to Quebec & speak that way, it’s worse than speaking English to them!
Wow, it surprises me that “metropolitan” French offends them. It’s pretty standard. And much more useful that speaking an obscure dialect (that the rest of the world has a really hard time understanding).
Agreed!
I think it’s because they know you are probably a Canadian anglophone and in their minds, you didn’t bother to learn the Quebecois language.
They are ‘more french than the French’. I took French classes to brush up a short while back, we had a series of very pleasant young French women as teachers, one of whom came from Canada, and “except in Canada” became a standing joke. For example, the French for ‘weekend’ is le weekend – except in Canada 🙂
Canada is the only country where they use Arrêt as the stop sign in Quebec. Everyone else in the whole world* uses Stop. I’ve even seen it in Cyrillic and when you sound it out, it is stop. Mon Dieu!
The irony that there is a desire to remove French words from English is that there are lots of French words already embedded in English because of 1066.
*slight hyperbole
I mean move English words from French. Jeez – I haven’t had coffee yet and I’m wearing glasses instead of contacts. Or maybe it was the French part of my genetics fighting with the English parts.
I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
“there are lots of French words already embedded in English because of 1066.”
More than that, I’d guess that English is a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. I don’t know what the relative proportions are but 50-50 wouldn’t surprise me.
Re the Stop signs, the first time I noticed that (it was on Google Streetview. I had booked to pick up a car at Lyon Part-Dieu station and – my first visit to France for 50 years, and my first ever experience of driving on the right, so I was ‘reconnoitring’ my route from central Lyon to the autoroute. It worked, too) – anyway, I saw this sign on Streetview that said ‘STOP’ and I did a double-take. It still amuses me.
While fluent in French and having lived in a French-speaking area for years, I have the same problem with Québécois. A few years back I used to hang out in Baltimore with friends of my wife from Québec City and to this day I have no clue what they were talking or laughing about. And I am not the only one: occasionally they will show some random programs from Québec on one of our local French-speaking channels, and funnily enough they’re always shown with French subtitles.
Do you live in a French-speaking part of Maine or something?
Suisse Romande, i.e. French-speaking Switzerland.
That’s pretty close to Parisian French, I believe. Switzer Deutsch(sp?) perhaps a different kettle of fish.
Schwytzerdütsch. As for Romand, it used to be quite different from Parisian French, but most of the local variants have died out (something that didn’t happen in the German and Italian parts of Switzerland). It still differs in some small ways (e.g. septante, huitante, nonante etc. instead of that silly “proper” French way of counting).
Thst’s right. I do remember now that you don’t say quatre-vingt dix…who ever thought that one up!!?? Am I correct that in Quebec they also say nonante, etc.?
Yep. French. First you translate the number, then you have to do some quick mental arithmetic to figure out what it means. Gotta love it 😉
Maybe the French kids can do their times tables : uh four times twenty plus seventeen…
Just a thought, if ‘Get Smart’ screened in France, was the delightful Agent 99 known as ‘agent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf’ ? Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it…
It does NOT come trippingly off the tongue…
Maybe they’d shorten it like we do the Van Doos.
😀it would still be a mouthful…
Septante ,huitante,nonante are also used in Walloon…
“random programs from Québec on one of our local French-speaking channels, and funnily enough they’re always shown with French subtitles”
That is hilarious! 🙂
I think some Guy Ritchie films could use English subtitles ( esp when Brad Pitt is doing fake Irish traveller dialect:-)
Heh, cute.
“Right, so I’m Scottish now. That means I can really complain. And blame the English for everything”.
– The Doctor
Scottish – and with a Scottish accent.
cf. David ‘Gor Blimey Mary Poppins!’ Tennant
I’ll just quote from an article by George Monbiot:
I suspect most “no” voters followed the natural bias towards the status quo.
And I suspect the English might also vote for independence for England, given a choice, and let Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland go their own sweet way.
You could try looking at the evidence. http://tinyurl.com/krt69wf
“English people’s views on Scottish independence are revealed today by an authoritative study….
“The Future of England Survey found that people south of the border are overwhelmingly against Scotland leaving the UK, with 59 per cent saying they would like the Union to stay intact and only 19 per cent favouring separation.”
What George Monbiot describes is pretty much what happened to Scotland just over 300 years ago, when it joined the UK. Of the alternatives he describes, economically ruinedjust about sums it up.
Sorry about the late reply, I’ve been away for the weekend.
I saw no point in changing,the Scotish people made the correct choice. As one Scotsman said “To many of my fellow Scots have spent to much time watching Braveheart”
BTW I was born in Glasgow and now live in the US
so… you live in a country that governs itself. That must be nice.
I would judge people in such affairs by whether, having won independence, they would have asked for a redo every seven years. Just to make sure the will of the people is being followed.
In fifty years of voting I have never managed to vote for a winning candidate in a major contest.
You are very generous towards us USians!
I think it is somewhat telling that in the picture of the man with a “Vote No” t-shirt he is drinking what appears to be a budweiser . . .
I too was surprised to see the Bud, but only because I thought they had better taste than that across the pond. What is the significance of a “No” voter with a mass-produced American beer?
More of the same . . . all the way around
I guess it is better than if it was Pabst. We Milwaukee types are annoyed that it was just sold to the Russians.
Well, there’s always Riverwest (their Eastside Dark is quite good) and Sprecher (which now makes a hard root beer and hard ginger beer). The microbrews are the only decent Milwaukee beers left.
True facts, those. I’ve been boycotting Sprecher since they produced a special batch following the Walker recall election that was named to honor him (it was a root beer named for his campaign slogan).
We have quite a few good micro-brews. And even more when you consider the rest of the state’s offerings.
It was just a local quixotic hope that Pabst could somehow find its way home to Milwaukee after the corporate fiasco that was its demise several decades ago. The beer itself is just your generic lager. I wouldn’t touch the stuff myself.
I liked Sprecher when they started (quite a lot actually). But recently, I don’t like their offerings anymore.
Andthe Walker thing puts me off entirely. I detest him.
I was not aware of the Walker root beer. In my voting ward, he got only 152 votes in the recall out of 1,785 cast. In this summer’s primary, he only got 6.
Out of curiosity, where are you located? (I’m on Milwaukee’s East Side, a rather liberal bastion.)
With those numbers, I’m guessing you’re in Madison.
@GBJames: No, I live in Riverwest, where aging hippies go to die. It’s probably the bluest part of Milwaukee. I’ve been a poll worker for many years, and in that time only twice have Republican candidates gotten more than 100 votes – Walker in the recall and the Republican opponent to Clarke for Milwaukee County sheriff in 2012.
Ah… across the river from me, so… “Howdy, neighbor”.
I’m always very comfortable on your side of the stream and frequently enjoy a fish fry at one of your local establishments… Stone Fly Brewery, for example.
Q. Why is American beer like making love in a canoe?
A. It’s f’ing close to water.
Only the big boys:
Miller
Bud
Coors
and their clones.
A horrible remnant from Prohibition.
Try Ommengang’s offerings (“Upstate” New York).
I know:-). There are some excellent smaller breweries in the U.S. We even buy great stuff in Utah: e.g. Polygamy Porter- why have just one?
But the joke still resonates…I hated beer in college in the U.S. Didn’t learn to appreciate it until fairly recently.
It is a great joke!
“Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl” IIRC?
That’s okay – Canada sold one of its steel companies to the US to avoid selling to the Russians and they immediately bankrupted it and skirted the rules by making a different Canadian corporation or such then told the pensioners they’d be taking back some of their pension.
It could be worse.
May I remeber you that Budweiser is originally a Czech bier produced in České Budějovice (a town called Budweis in German) since 1785 ? Budweiser means “from Budweis”.
In Europe, “Budweiser” is the name of this czech bier, and the American one is labelled either “Bud” or “Anheuser-Busch B”, except in the UK where both can use the name Budweiser.
I sincerely hope for this guy on the picture he is drinking the czech one…
sorry, beer, for you englsih speakers 😉
Lager!
Wow, it’s surprising that the Orkney Islands are so red. I guess that guy feels strongly about the union.
Wouldn’t that be on account of his sheep though?
They tend to stick together…
I visited the Orkneys a few years ago. They don’t really consider themselves Orcadian before they’re Scottish. They’re also a bit annoyed at getting a few hours of Scots Gaelic language TV everyday when the islands have never spoken Scots Gaelic.
Sorry – that should be: They really consider themselves Orcadian before they’re Scottish.
I set off for a holiday on South Ronaldsay tomorrow morning. Most people should be in a good mood, I suppose.
Enjoy! I’m jealous. For our next family vacation, I’ve been lobbying to tour from Edinburgh through Inverness to the Orkneys, but my wife’s pushing for Rome. No doubt we’ll reach a fair compromise and go to Rome.
You’re doing it wrong. Vaguely acquiesce to a European holiday and tell her you’ll take care of it. I let my wife decide where we would spend our belated honeymoon. She chose “an island”. Well, she never explicitly mentioned tropical beaches, so I booked ourselves a few weeks in Iceland, riding horses and watching whales… She loved it.
A reply to myself assuming my other message gets approved at some point: But of course a big part of the reason for an independent country to resist losing independence is also the desire to maintain the status quo.
With results tallied from all 32 voting districts, the “no” campaign won 55.3 percent of the vote while the pro-independence side won 44.7 percent. The margin was greater than forecast by virtually all pre-election polls.
That might look like a huge margin in the USA where you are used to two way battles but our current UK government was elected on a much smaller percentage (36.1%) of a much smaller turnout (65.1%).
Far more Scots voted to leave the UK than voted for the current government.
Actually my statistics were for the whole Uk.
The only Scot who accidentally voted Tory in 2010 hasn’t yet come forward.
Over 400,000 Scots voted Tory in 2010.
Indeed, plenty of Scots vote Tory, its just that they get stuffed by first past the post, like the Lib Dems and UKIP do in England and the Ulster Unionists do in Ulster.
My best mate was one of them. He’s dead now, so I can reveal his secret.
That’s about 1 in ten of the electorate. No wonder there are so few Tory MPs. There would be more under a PR system, but that’s not the system we have, because that would substantially alter Westminster politics.
The conservatives don’t do well in Scotland but at least they have a kick boxing lesbian as their leader.
The current UK government is a coalition. I think that in your state of prejudice you forgot to add the Lib Dem votes to your figure.
I wonder if Cameron will simply fail to live up to his promises or try to extort some concessions in exchange for what has already been promised. Which is probably what the Tories are hoping for.
Ol’ Cam seemed pretty desperate in the weeks leading up to the vote, like a guy who knows his girlfriend is considering breaking up with him. Promises made in such a state can be rather tenuous.
Nobody I know believed a word of Cameron’s. He is, after all, a politician.
I was amazed how little historical perspective was brought to the debate on either side. No one seemed to remember that before the union in Scotland and England had spent fully eight centuries at each other’s throats, from Brunanburh to Dunbar. The sheer waste of lives, treasure, and effort that went into competing with, undermining, and backstabbing each other is staggering — and people wanted to go back to that? Many may think it’s a remote possibility that things would get that bad. I’d content that those ancient battles only seem so distantly unimportant now precisely because three centuries of union has successfully prevented their repetition. And ethnic squabbling isn’t exactly unknown even today, even in Europe, between neighbours who speak the same language — as inhabitants of the Balkans know only too well. Avoiding that possibility is quite a good enough reason on its own to have voted no.
How much of that happened after the crowns were united under James, though?
Quite a lot, most notably the battles of Worcester and Dunbar.
The Scots Covenanters started the “English” Civil War by rebelling against the King, then after he’d been defeated they prolonged it by allying with him. Odd bunch.
I highly recommend “The Steel Bonnets” by George McDonald Fraser (author of the Flashman novels) for one part of this story.
And here’s a perspective from an interested party north of another border: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/an-open-letter-to-scotland/article20579017/
Salmond resigns – the good news just keeps on coming.
Yeah “good news” that the only democratically elected leader in the “UK” is gone.
They elect the party, yes? So won’t the new leader of the SNP be the first minister? I understand you’re sore, but Salmond had staked his leadership on the vote. And it’s not like losing the vote means his government is overthrown.
If the result was unexpected, it is often because there were relatively many undecided on a background of even outcome. They tend to be uncertain and so conservative, predicting the result here.
Edinburgh was an, expected I think, exception to other cities “yes”.
In other news, an Ig Nobel prize has been awarded for research on how bananas become slippery.
OK, OK – the separation voting is way more important. Sorry, the post-election thread was so grave. It’s a celebration (of democracy)!
But how about these then, pertinent to WEIT?
***Chimp Jesus is toast; Catholic Church, your sinning soul can’t explain that!***
“Another winner this year was the study that examined the brains of people who see the face of Jesus and other figures in slices of toast. The work won the neuroscience Ig.
…
The Toronto scientist explained that this type of pattern recognition was hard-wired, and even chimps experienced it.
“The face you are going to see is determined by your personal expectations or beliefs,” he added.
“So, for example, Buddhists might not see Jesus on toast, but they might see a Buddha on toast.””
*** In Soviet Russia, you own cat! ***
“PUBLIC HEALTH: Jaroslav Flegr, of Charles University, Czech Republic, and colleagues for investigating whether it is mentally hazardous for a human being to own a cat.”
*** Rudolf the Raindeer sees red ***
“ARCTIC SCIENCE: Eigil Reimers, of the University of Oslo, Norway, and colleagues, for testing how reindeer react to seeing humans who are disguised as polar bears.”
I’ll take my scotch and go now…
“So, for example, Buddhists might not see Jesus on toast, but they might see a Buddha on toast.””
9 out of 10 people can’t tell margarine from Buddha.
ROTFL!
Hazardous for whom? The hoomin or the higher life form?
So, it seems that the 300 year “tradition” will continue and, for now, there is “no true Scotsman.”
I have a BA in French and used to be quite fluent but have a hell of a time understanding quebecois. Can’t watch the movies sans soustitres, though have little problem with French French or African French( which is very Parisian). Have some French African aquaintances at my gym who speak very “understandably”.
Indeed. Serious Quebecois is unintelligible to me. And I generally understand even Provencals(es) quite well — even on the phone.
I once ordered some magret de canard ( duck prosciutto) over the phone to a small town in Quebec. My daughter dropped in during the conversation and was doing the WTF eye-rolling. I did get what I intended to order, but I would not have staked my life on not receiving 50 lbs of whale blubber.
It is normal for several reasons. First, the french quebecer accent didn’t really changed since the last centuries. Some linguists say that this is how french sounded back in the 1800’s. Until recently (1960’s), French-Canadians were mostly a nation of cheap labor and peasant people, not much educated, so that could be a reason why our accent is quite different from other french speaking nations.
Another reason is that we are surrounded by english speaking people. That influenced our way of speaking. Quebecers can pronounce the english “th”, something that a native from France can hardly do. We have more “twang” in our accent than Europeans because we absorbed the “twang” that can be heard in English. French is more square than English but not in the French spoken in North America. You bet that when Jack Kerouac speaks in French (go check in Youtube), no European will understand him, and it is even hard for a Quebecer today. But you can notice how his English “twanged” his French to give you an idea…
So that explains the twang ( for twang there most def is). Très intéressant:-)
My (British school) schoolboy French hasn’t had any real problems in West Africa – presumably the Parisian accent you mention. I’ll have to watch out for the Quebecois if I’m back in Newfie.
Glaswegian French, on the other hand, is difficult.
Glaswegian English is hard enough:-)
I agree, and I’m from Glasgow!
That sounds right. I had forgotten where I’d heard it quite a while back, but MP at the Hollywood Bowl makes sense. Wasn’t John Cleese hawking albatrosses?
Yep.
I’d forgotten the maid’s uniform🐯
Someone posted video taken from a Sky news broadcast showing a table heaped with ballots, and they said it was the no votes. This was from Dundee, and the table did have a sign hung from it saying NO.
The guy zoomed in and you could see that two of the ballots on the top had been ticked yes.
Even the SNP deny that that was ballot rigging. She was simply ordering the papers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/19/scottish-referendum-vote-rigged_n_5847854.html
I found a link to a tweet from that page, where @YesDundee clarified the ballots were just resting on the no table until the ballots were counted.
I laughed at the replies that it was, ‘like that money resting in fr teds account’.
To the girl crying in the pic – it’s not like you can’t say you’re Scottish anymore.
There was an ominous fog over Cenral Scotland during referendum day, 18th Sept. I googled to find British battles fought in the fog. It is an interesting coincidence that the Battle of Alnwick in 1174 was fought in the fog. Alnwick castle was used as a stand in setting for Hogwarts castle in the novel, ” Harry Potter “, written by J.K. Rowling who supported the Better Together campaign.
William I, the Lion of Scotland, was trying to enlarge his kingdom southwards but was opposed by Ranulf de Glanvill and about four hundred mounted knights of Henry II, who set out from Newcastle and headed towards Alnwick. They reached Alnwick shortly after dawn after becoming lost in heavy fog. There they found William’s encampment, where the Scottish king was only protected by a bodyguard of perhaps sixty fighting men. At the sound of alarm, William rushed from his tent and hurriedly prepared to fight. The English force charged and the Scottish king and his bodyguard met the charge head on. The fighting did not last long. William’s horse was killed beneath him and he was captured. William I was held in Normandy. Ranulf de Glanvill went on to fight the holy war in Israel with Richard the Lionheart, capturing Acre ( near Haifa ) . Richard demanded the ” True cross ” of Christ and some captive Christian soldiers in return for the release of captive Saladin forces. When the demands weren’t met, Richard ordered 2700 of Saladin’s muslim forces to be beheaded. When Saladin found out he responded in kind.
Strangely, there were 6 young Arabic men from Dubai walking past my house yesterday, they said they were enjoying the cooler weather. Today a car in front of me had a number plate with the letters FOG. Of course I put this down to coincidence or me focussing on unrelated events to link to a common thread.
See Wikipedia about Battle of Alnwick and The massacre of Ayyadieh which occurred on 20 August 1191. Also see David I of Scotland who minted the kingdom of Scotland’s first silver coinage from silver mined near Alston on the South Tyne river.
A substantial number of people lost their votes because of the fog. It stopped a substantial number of offshore workers from getting home in time to vote. That’s a pretty split constituency though.
Our own English Battle of Barnet was fought April 14th 1471 in a fog…
Does that explain the dreadful haircut?
The only people who would have profited from a split are the same people who always profit, the ruling class. Once in charge they are at liberty to run the place for their own benefit and they inevitably do. The ordinary people get nothing out of it. Unless the country has been the victim of the most egregious oppression regular folks will be no better off. If the rulers will let you have a vote, you don’t need it.
Reminds me of Ireland.
Quote from a normal worker in Dublin five years ago: “I never got anything out of the Celtic Tiger: increased rents and cost of living maybe”.
Northern Ireland is run by a clique of far-right, Masons/Orangemen (viz. Scotland) who have their teeth into UK grants available “to sustain the Peace Agreement”: Britain’s Sicily
Can I please borrow some space on WEIT to offer a light-hearted adjunct to the “Better Together” discussion, (especially a propos accents) :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGQItvUBhG4
PS Hope the link works but if not it refers to the hilarious Stanley Baxter sketches from years ago entitled “Parliamo Glasgow”. Memo to self to buy some incontinence pants!
Found a watchable version. That is HiLARious!!!
Oops, sorry Prof. Ceiling Cat et al – inadvertently broke Da Roolz. Had just intended to copy & paste a Youtube link but didn’t realise that the video would embed automatically into these comments boxes. Apologies for bad manners & any inconvenience.
Darn- my browser doesn’t recognize it…
I was disappointed as an Englishman as I thought we should have a chance to leave rhe union!
Vote UKIP. I think they’re heading in that direction.