I'm from Doncaster. Near Rotherham. For years and years people listened to people who said the same when they were trying to report Pakistani grooming gangs for sexual abuse. It's starting not to wash any more and about time too
The RAF in Scotland is basically just Lossiemouth, as far as I am aware, since the closure of RAF Kinloss in the defence spending review. At one point they were going to close both, I think.
Most of the insults I've heard have come from the YES camp with their constant heckling and obstruction of anyone who dares speak out for the NO camp, especially anyone with an English accent living in Scotland, so casual racism (if you want to call it that) seems to be quite prevalent in this campaign and not from the English side.
The UK does not need Scottish Independence. What is needed is wholesale constitutional reform of the UK - maybe some form of federal system, to break this Westminster-ruled, London-centric approach to governing the UK.
Will Scotland then create it's our air force to protect it's interests or rely on the RAF? Who pays for the Scottish defence? When the oil runs out it's hard to pay for new military kit when the only source of export is whisky and short bread. I believe in the UK and find it strange that a nation wants to leave a well established union yet wants to join the EU that nearly collapsed a year or two ago. It's either a very brave or very stupid person that votes for such a major change when no one knows what the consequences are of that vote.
One thing, if the benefits system is to be better in Scotland than the remainder of the UK, all the illegal immigrants will want to go up there. Top result.
My old dad always said the best thing about Scotland was the road out of it, but he was stationed there in the 2nd ww on a Lanc RAF base. I kind of think 'united we stand, parted we fall!' Do not understand a lot of the intention but read that a lot of company's have had millions wiped off shares and moving from Scotland to England if vote is YES. England has put more money into the Scottish economy than have received taxes from them, so it says in the papers, so do we get our taxes reduced (bet no). I also feel expats should not get a vote and benefits of money from the state, ie fuel allowance. Only my opinion but not worth much as I cannot vote on the Scot ref.
I think we should hold a snap English referendum this week, get out first, keep all the good stuff and leave the scots, welsh and northern irish to sort themselves out.
The only poll to show the independace vote winning is being "promoted " by Rupert Murdock and his press I believe it was the same pollsters who forecast the libdems would get more votes than the Tories in the last election ( allegedly)
Scotland exports as much as a quarter of its electricity and has about 43 percent of the U.K.’s wind power capacity. About 13 gigawatts of power projects are on the drawing board currently in Scotland, about 15 percent of total U.K. capacity.
I don't believe enough thought has gone into how the currently shared institutions will be re- organised for Scotland. The BBC is a good example. Scotland will be the same as Ireland in that it is no longer etitled to BBC programmes as paid for by the licence fee, they will have to have a seperate broadcaster who pays for BBC programmes as the BBC charter doesn't cover foreign countries. The BBC would probably have to be re- organised itself. In a similar way the independent television act covers the UK only so STV would have to re negotiate rights to ITV programmes such as Coronation St etc in the same way RTE does in Ireland. The situation is very complicated as there are so many cross border agencies etc. Scotland could end up losing out on a number of advantages they currently have being part if the UK
I like Scotland and would like them to stay as part of the union simply because it gives our islands a united front. Who is to say that Scotland wouldn't invite the likes of Russia or Iran or whatever other radical country to help defend it's borders in future years? I know that sounds highly unlikely, but the vast majority of the country is owned by rich Saudi's, Russians, Chinese and Japanese. So who knows what influence they may have regarding their investment in the future? Just a thought!
They have done similar in the past. They have invited the French over many times in history to fight us or defend them. So it isn't such a far fetched concern.
