Warney600, Thanks for investigating. Derby would be fine - it's only a short drive or train ride, so do let me know when anything takes place there. I'd love to come up to Scotland - I'm long overdue a visit - so as and when I do I'll let you know. Whereabouts are you exactly? I'll check out the website again too.

To add a bit of an international dimention, at the time of the 45 Britain was involved in the War of the Austrian succesion. The war involved all the major powers of Europe, with France, obviously, on the opposeing side to Britain and is one of the reasons why the French provided assistance to Prince Charlie.

PS going to school in Scotland in the 80s we were taught about Wallace, Bruce (with more emphasis on Bruce than Wallace), the Covenanters, Darian etc. Wallace was supposed to have been an 'Old Boy' from my school!. Though by Higher the history currilcum was 19th century British and European History and history ended in 1919 so no ww2.

quote:

Originally posted by Bretwalda:
I mean no offence to you or any other Celtic brethren out there; England will survive with or without Scotland or Wales, but I doubt the reverse is true.

I have to disagree, Scotland could survive quite well on her own. She had many resources that would be able to pay to sustain her as an independent nation (and no I do not mean the oil, that has all been stolen now )

quote:

Originally posted by Bretwalda:
(she is Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, not Scotland)

Scotland has never had a queen called Elizabeth, so she is Queen Elizabeth I of the UK. She could also call herself Elizabeth I & Elizabeth II when in Scotland, or vice versa when in England and Wales, but not Elizabeth II of UK.

quote:

TheWitch

Posted 23-04-06 17:37
quote:
Originally posted by Bretwalda:
I mean no offence to you or any other Celtic brethren out there; England will survive with or without Scotland or Wales, but I doubt the reverse is true.


I have to disagree, Scotland could survive quite well on her own. She had many resources that would be able to pay to sustain her as an independent nation (and no I do not mean the oil, that has all been stolen now)

The North Sea Oil was taken out of the North Sea by Private companies, who then paid taxes to the British Government.

Who exactly are you accusing of stealing the oil?

Warney600, Thanks for the info - I actually signed the Wallace petition some time ago.

Bretwaida. In 1952 the anger in Scotland was rife amongst the student body of which I was a part then. We could not understand why the authorities did not acknowledge that the Queen was only the first Elizabeth of Scotland
We also had a number of police snooping round to see if they could find the Stone of Scone the first time it was "liberated". They would stop cars on the road, order the occupants out and search the car. This happened to me on a couple of occasions. We were made to feel like criminals,
especially as both times it was late at night.
Not the best way to foster good public relations. The Union was sorely tested and undermined by actions like these.

Thanks to all for a really good post.

Pepinouska, Grim. How to win friends and influence people - not! Sounds like you were treated really badly. I suppose there is no reason why the queen could not be styled Elizabeth I and II a bit like James I and VI (or VI and I as I imagine you'd prefer!) This has been a really intersting thread with generally mature comments if from differenet perspectives (this is what's made it good of course!)

Bretwanda
Will let you know the details and I stay in Govanhill in Glasgow
As for the oil hope this helps and the McCrone report is worth reading

http://www.snp.org/policies/northseaoil/

It never fails to raise a smile when Scottish Nattionalists start going on about "their" oil. The fact is that oil doesn't even belong to Britain. It belongs to the multi-nationals who invested the money in exploration. It's they who sell the stuff and get to keep the profits, They simply pay Westminster licence fees for the rights to do so.

During the Thatcher era most of the revenue from North Sea Oil was used to meet the increased bill for unemployment benefit. What was the unemployment rate in Scotland at the time?

quote:

Originally posted by Fil2:
It never fails to raise a smile when Scottish Nattionalists start going on about "their" oil. The fact is that oil doesn't even belong to Britain. It belongs to the multi-nationals who invested the money in exploration. It's they who sell the stuff and get to keep the profits, They simply pay Westminster licence fees for the rights to do so.
During the Thatcher era most of the revenue from North Sea Oil was used to meet the increased bill for unemployment benefit. What was the unemployment rate in Scotland at the time?

Fil2
I see that you read the McCrone's report(By the British Goverment By The way) then

A report written 30 years ago at a time of great optimism when it was widely predicted that North Sea oil would make us all wealthy. Note that McCrone does say the resource would have to be "properly managed" and also includes many "coulds" and "mights".

Norway has a similar population to Scotland (half a million less) but hasn't become a major power in europe despite having access to North Sea Oil (3.5 million bbls exported daily). Norway does of course have one of the highest per capita GDPs in europe, but by no means the highest, but this is offset by the high cost of living in part caused by oil money.

Fil2
Taken from another site but hope it helps you

This isn't just about opinions, it's about evidence. So here's some;

Norway has topped the UN's quality of life index four years in a row.
Iceland and Luxembourg have the highest per capita GNPs in the world.
Ireland and Iceland have the highest growth rates in Europe - from being light years behind, Ireland is now richer than Scotland, in spite of having far fewer, in fact, collosally lesser, natural resources and a weaker education system.
Every country in the EU that didn't have a deficit last year was, without exception, small and northern.
Countries following the Anglo-American socio-political model have without exception higher crime, more prisoners, greater social injustice, more division, less sense of community and, crucially, weaker growth and lower quality of life indicators than every Scandinavian country, who in case you need reminded are small, independent, northern and following the kind of social liberal model we could have.

Can't you see what's going on around you? If all these small independent Northern European countries can be so successful, few with anything like our resources and any with much worse infrastructure difficulties, what in the name of God's green Earth could possibly lead you to believe that companies would relocate out of Scotland if we got independence? All evidence would point to the contrary.

quote:

Originally posted by warney600:
Fil2
Taken from another site but hope it helps you

This isn't just about opinions, it's about evidence. So here's some;

Norway has topped the UN's quality of life index four years in a row.
Iceland and Luxembourg have the highest per capita GNPs in the world.
Ireland and Iceland have the highest growth rates in Europe - from being light years behind, Ireland is now richer than Scotland, in spite of having far fewer, in fact, collosally lesser, natural resources and a weaker education system.
Every country in the EU that didn't have a deficit last year was, without exception, small and northern.
Countries following the Anglo-American socio-political model have without exception higher crime, more prisoners, greater social injustice, more division, less sense of community and, crucially, weaker growth and lower quality of life indicators than every Scandinavian country, who in case you need reminded are small, independent, northern and following the kind of social liberal model we could have.

Can't you see what's going on around you? If all these small independent Northern European countries can be so successful, few with anything like our resources and any with much worse infrastructure difficulties, what in the name of God's green Earth could possibly lead you to believe that companies would relocate out of Scotland if we got independence? All evidence would point to the contrary.

According to GERS, in 2003/04, the latest year for which data is available, government expenditure was £45.3bn against a Scottish tax take of £34bn giving a deficit being funded by England of £11.3bn. The oil tax revenue in that year was £4bn giving a notional deficit for Scotland of £7bn.

Obviously if independant Scotland would no longer receive this subsidy from England and given the already increasing pressures on the EU budget it seems unlikely that the EU would make up the subsidy.

Thus the first few years of an indepandant Scotland would see either a huge increase in taxes or a massive reduction in government spending.
.

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2409432005

Many of those small northern countries have high crime rates and/or high unemployment. Some, like Ireland, have been receiving considerable subsidies from the EU (as a result Ireland has had high inflation and the greatest number of days lost to strikes in the EU).

Crime rates. Top ten.

The malaise in many central european economies has been caused by their membership of the Euro. The SNP favour joining I seem to recall.

Please dont quote the Scorsman as I would not even use that Unionist rag to wipe by arsxe

As for crime rate I think you will find ours is not that great at the moment so getting Independence can only improve it, It canny get any worse

PS If we are such a burden on Englands resources why are they so keen to keep the Scots part of the Union as canny work that one out

we have 30 to 40 years of oil left - the north sea is only half empty - and it's not impossible they'll find more.

This windfall can secure Scotland's future for generations. But of course westminster want it for themselves. What is remarkable is the extent of the lies told over the last 30 years.

I remember around in the 70s. First they said it wasn't Scottish oil - wrong - international law is clear. Then they said it was going to run out after 20 years. Wrong again - as anyone who knew anything about it realised. So then they went into overdrive, aided and abetted by Scottish politicians who's personal career is more important to them than their country - and produced screeds and screeds of lies telling the Scots how they were subsidised , and had been for generations.

The MCrone report highlights the utter brass neck of these people and the gullibility of the Scots themselves. While Donald Dewar was saying that Scotland could be Independent but we would be like Bangladesh, he knew full well the bonanza that was coming out the North Sea and flowing to London.

The last argument they have left is - what will you do when the oil runs out? Well - that's an argument they should ask themselves because the billions have been wasted by Westminster - who still pretend they're a world power.

Norway - the best country to live in the world according to the UN - answers that last question. 10 years ago they top-sliced their oil revenues and put it into a FUND FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS. The interest from the fund now exceeds their oil revenues. In other words - their revenues are secure. We could do that.

I can recall at the Dunfermline by-election canvassing an old miner who was going to vote labour - never any point trying to change these guys minds. But he did say he wished Scotland could be Independent but knew we couldn't ( I wish I had a pound for everytime that's been said) He didn't believe the oil was ours - it was the American's who owned it and if we became Independent they'd just take it away. Why does GB get the money now then I asked him? That's the reason Blair crawls to the yanks he said. Now the old guy was sincere - believed every word he said but it's all nonsense. Where did these notions come from?

If we don't grab our chance the first time we can, future generations will look back on us as the most gullible Scots in the history of our country. These people will by then know the true extent of the fibs as all the government files will have been released.

Right now we still only know half of the story - but there's no doubt British Intelligence was used to under-mine the campaign for Independence.

It's not Westminster that wants to keep the oil to itself. It's the Scots Nationalists. They're the selfish ones. Besides have you ever looked at a map of the north sea gas and oil fields? Not all of the ones in the UK sector lie close to Scotland, in fact the first oil was brought ashore at Teeside and Bacton (East Anglia) remains the main terminal for gas coming ashore. Perhaps you'd like those too?

http://www.acorn-ps.com/nsfields/nsfields.htm

Oil production from the North Sea peaked at 6 million barrels a day in 1999 and is expected to have fallen to a third of this by 2020. Sorry, but the area has been fully surveyed now and the possibility of finding further reserves are quite small. The more depleted the fields become the more expensive and difficult it's going to be to extract what remains.

I think the reason why the Scots have never voted for independence is that they know which side their bread is buttered. Your own Parliament admitted that even if all UK North Sea oil revenues had been allocated to Scotland in 2003-4 they'd still have had to borrow £4.4 billion.

Blaming British Intelligence for your failure is really pathetic.

your argument on scotland not voting is unfounded our executive is not ours it is english led as in we have no power
ps if we are that much of a burden to the english why do you insist on a united kingdom when we do not require one

quote:

Fil2
Posted 25-04-06 14:49
A report written 30 years ago at a time of great optimism when it was widely predicted that North Sea oil would make us all wealthy. Note that McCrone does say the resource would have to be "properly managed" and also includes many "coulds" and "mights".

Norway has a similar population to Scotland (half a million less) but hasn't become a major power in europe despite having access to North Sea Oil (3.5 million bbls exported daily). Norway does of course have one of the highest per capita GDPs in europe, but by no means the highest, but this is offset by the high cost of living in part caused by oil money.

Scotland bankrupted itself by trying to build the panama canal:

Darién scheme

England then financially supported Scotland.

It then waged war with England in the Jacobite rebellion.
England (after brutally putting an end to the catholic highland rebellion), then helped to build Scotland back up.
My point is Scotland is perfectly happy taking money from England and yet it wants to keep all the oil!

quote:

Originally posted by warney600:
your argument on scotland not voting is unfounded our executive is not ours it is english led as in we have no power
ps if we are that much of a burden to the english why do you insist on a united kingdom when we do not require one

Maybe the SNP should field some candidates in London

Dr Jones, what was that about England trying to build Scotland back up after the Jacobite rebellion? That was the Highland Clearances that was!
Just a few hundred thousand Scots despatched to all corners of the world, so the land was clear for sheep, the pursuit of wild life, and whatever it was that the generally absentee landlords got up to. OK I know some of them were Scots, but no way would I describe this
act as building up Scotland. Read John Prebble's book on the subject.