Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled...
I'm not well just now. It's just a cold, really, but as I think that makes four this winter it's not particularly amusing. I'm also experiencing that irritating part of illness where you have no drive, energy or motivation to actually do anything and are far too restless to sit still. Seeing as today I accidentally left the hob on for a full two hours while making soup (thankfully completely failed to set fire to anything) I'm also somewhat ditzy. So this may or may not make sense.
Among other things I have spent today sleeping, watching Voyager, playing Trine and the demo of Mini Ninjas, and watching The History of Scotland. This particular episode considered the union with England in 1707 and the two Jacobite uprising. Interesting, although I suspect that the documentary scriptwriter fell far enough into the Scottish camp as to bias the documentary in the other direction -- that is, in favour of Scotland and anti-union. This has led to thoughts about Scottish Independence. It's okay, I had most of these thoughts before the cold struck, so it's at least possible that they'll make sense.
Firstly, I think Scotland should have a referendum about independence. Issues of whether the idea of splitting the union is divisive and bordering on blasphemous aside, this is a democracy and in a democracy the people are supposed to get a say. So you have to ask them. And if you don't like what the majority decide, tough. That's the brilliance and danger of democracy, and you don't get to ignore it when it's inconvenient.
Secondly, I don't think there's any real reason to believe that Scotland "couldn't work" without English support. After all, for most of our histories we've been separate cultures. Lots of small countries get by okay. We may not end up as a world power, but let's face it: Britain as a world power only really caused trouble. Economically we may be worse off -- with economics, though, it seems like even the economists are only guessing. The importance of oil is arguably decreasing, but there remains some wealth in the North Sea. Further, and trust me on this, Scotland is ahead of England in terms of wind power, partially because it's windier up here. With good governance and some solid investment in Scotland in an international context -- by which I mean that it's treated as a country rather than as a region of another country -- I think Scotland could do well independently.
Thirdly, I don't believe being pro-Scottish and being anti-English are synonymous. There's no doubt to me that we are two different cultures, although we share many things. Our legal and educational systems are different, for a start. I don't think that independence is worthy of serious consideration because I don't like the English, or because I don't think that Scotland and England have things to learn and to gain from one another. It's more to do with the following:
If there was a referendum on independence, I would probably have to check the box marked "yes, with reservations". If there was such a box.
I'm not so much anti-union, as I am a believer that a government should be able to deal with the different needs of people in different regions; relatively recent history has demonstrated that when there is disagreement in the UK, the voice of the relatively populous South East will drown out anything we say. It'd be nice if recognising that problem had given us the impetus to fix it. I'm not sure if it has. I'm not sure that the Scottish parliament has changed much -- it's just put a band-aid on the top and crossed its fingers.
Oh, the SNP want us to join the Commonwealth, under the Queen. I'm not sure about that -- I think the Queen is probably an excellent Head of State, but I have my doubts about Charles as a monarch for the modern age, and although William might work who knows how it'll work out in the long term. Also, I'm not entirely sure why Canada and the Antipodes were so keen on keeping the Queen as head of state anyway.
Among other things I have spent today sleeping, watching Voyager, playing Trine and the demo of Mini Ninjas, and watching The History of Scotland. This particular episode considered the union with England in 1707 and the two Jacobite uprising. Interesting, although I suspect that the documentary scriptwriter fell far enough into the Scottish camp as to bias the documentary in the other direction -- that is, in favour of Scotland and anti-union. This has led to thoughts about Scottish Independence. It's okay, I had most of these thoughts before the cold struck, so it's at least possible that they'll make sense.
Firstly, I think Scotland should have a referendum about independence. Issues of whether the idea of splitting the union is divisive and bordering on blasphemous aside, this is a democracy and in a democracy the people are supposed to get a say. So you have to ask them. And if you don't like what the majority decide, tough. That's the brilliance and danger of democracy, and you don't get to ignore it when it's inconvenient.
Secondly, I don't think there's any real reason to believe that Scotland "couldn't work" without English support. After all, for most of our histories we've been separate cultures. Lots of small countries get by okay. We may not end up as a world power, but let's face it: Britain as a world power only really caused trouble. Economically we may be worse off -- with economics, though, it seems like even the economists are only guessing. The importance of oil is arguably decreasing, but there remains some wealth in the North Sea. Further, and trust me on this, Scotland is ahead of England in terms of wind power, partially because it's windier up here. With good governance and some solid investment in Scotland in an international context -- by which I mean that it's treated as a country rather than as a region of another country -- I think Scotland could do well independently.
Thirdly, I don't believe being pro-Scottish and being anti-English are synonymous. There's no doubt to me that we are two different cultures, although we share many things. Our legal and educational systems are different, for a start. I don't think that independence is worthy of serious consideration because I don't like the English, or because I don't think that Scotland and England have things to learn and to gain from one another. It's more to do with the following:
- Scotland and England, particularly the South of England, are very different politically. Scotland and the North of England, being generally poorer, have a higher focus on socialism, and tend to believe rather more in the robbing-the-rich-to-give-to-the-poor motif than the more conservative South East. We brought in the no-smoking ban a year earlier than England and I still think it's the best thing the Scottish parliament ever did. Then look at the Thatcher years -- Thatcher knew she had nothing to lose in Scotland and so she enacted all her most irritating policies North of the border. This means that representing both seperately stands a better chance of representing what people genuinely want from their government than lumping both together.
- The capital of Britain is London. That's a long way south from here; worse from the Highlands. That means that not only are our representatives in the matters of foriegn policy and war a long way away from here, but more importantly, to the MPs in London, Scotland is a long way off. I don't know for certain that this means that Scottish concerns are downplayed at Westminster, but it does seem kind of likely.
- I have four levels of elected representatives to deal with: local coucillors, Scottish ministers, Westminster ministers and European ministers. That's too much, by anyone's standard. The one I would most happily get rid of is Westminster. I still think that the European parliament is a good thing in forcing us to think internationally, and I wouldn't give that up. Besides, if Scotland was independent we could ditch the whole love-hate relationship with American politics that's dragged us into unworkable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and instead work towards setting up a truly global set of enforcable laws. We have a huge advantage in Europe that the Americans don't have: a wealth of language, culture and cooperation on our doorstep.
If there was a referendum on independence, I would probably have to check the box marked "yes, with reservations". If there was such a box.
I'm not so much anti-union, as I am a believer that a government should be able to deal with the different needs of people in different regions; relatively recent history has demonstrated that when there is disagreement in the UK, the voice of the relatively populous South East will drown out anything we say. It'd be nice if recognising that problem had given us the impetus to fix it. I'm not sure if it has. I'm not sure that the Scottish parliament has changed much -- it's just put a band-aid on the top and crossed its fingers.
Oh, the SNP want us to join the Commonwealth, under the Queen. I'm not sure about that -- I think the Queen is probably an excellent Head of State, but I have my doubts about Charles as a monarch for the modern age, and although William might work who knows how it'll work out in the long term. Also, I'm not entirely sure why Canada and the Antipodes were so keen on keeping the Queen as head of state anyway.