This thread exists to discuss British politics.
Political issues related to Northern Ireland and the Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) are also considered on-topic here if there's no more appropriate OTC thread for them.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
As with other OTC threads, off-topic posts may be thumped or edited by the moderators.
More specifically, read this post
for some guidance on what we don't want to see.
- There is a dedicated thread to discuss LGBTQ+ rights in the United Kingdom
. That doesn't mean it's always off-topic here, but unless something's directly linked to political events, that's probably a better thread for it.
- There's also a separate thread to talk about your favourite British Prime Ministers
.
Recent political stuff:
- The vote to see if Britain should adopt Alternative Voting has failed.
- Lib Dems lose lots of councils and councillors, whilst Labour make the majority of the gains in England.
- The Scottish National Party do really well in the elections.
A link to the BBC politics page containing relevant information.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 7th 2024 at 4:50:10 PM
This oil fall is only in Scotland?
Great, yet another legitimate reason for the neighbours down south to feel cheated by the special treatment of the Scots. We get the biggest proportional share of the countries income as it is!
People keep forgetting that while Scotland has the oil, England has the London financial markets.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Wait, what?
...If that's the case, then it's news to me, since I thought everyone was getting the same fuel price drop. It would be grossly unfair if only one country got the fuel price drop.
From my understanding, there's a lot of different companies that have opened up wells in the North Sea, such as BP and (I think) Shell. There are also smaller companies that provide the technical expertise and equipment for these installations.
Locking you up on radar since '09Not having to bail out The City's financial sector might when they screw up might well be described as a plus of independence.
At any rate, if not outright independence, Scots could demand de facto total control over all their affairs, removing any potential for British interference. They'd get away with it. And, if any autonomy that's granted, no matter how overkill, is ever taken away... Instant Political Shitstorm, Just Add Water.
edited 23rd May '11 3:25:52 AM by SavageHeathen
You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.^^Its privately owned. And I was taking that Scots only thing as being implied by others, it was news to me too, so I assume myself to be wrong unless others can confirm.
^Some of us Scots see ourselves as Not So Different to the English you know, Savage. I identify culturally as British before Scot. And I'd like to be European before British.
edited 23rd May '11 3:20:22 AM by GameChainsaw
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.
True enough.
Still, there's more or less a mandate for drastically increased autonomy, and I doubt the Coalition has the guts to stop them.
Not taking advantage of the situation would be a massive wasted opportunity. Odds are, there's not gonna be a similar opportunity for much greater Scottish self-rule in decades.
edited 23rd May '11 3:26:13 AM by SavageHeathen
You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.Let me ask you a question. Where does one stop?
There was once the Kingdom of Strathclyde in Scotland, which was a significant power in its own. It made up the region now comprising most of Western Scotland (the southern part anyway, the bit that juts out and thus doesn't include the truly southern parts.)
Should we consider giving it independence next?
I'm not saying a bit more devolution would be a bad thing. Hell, the ability to raise our own taxes would be great. (Maybe make the military contribution fixed or something.) It would also finally iron out any claims of unfairness; each region gets exactly what it earns. (And I'd say, incidentally, that there's every chance of Scotland coming out on the arse end of the agreement.) After that, I'd say that the English need their own parliament for local matters. They cannot be at the mercy of Scottish, Irish and Welsh M Ps towing the party line.
What you have there, people, is not a United Kingdom, but more a British Confederation.
EDIT: Actually as we'd retain the monarch, it is the united kingdom. Its just functionally a confederacy.
edited 23rd May '11 3:35:26 AM by GameChainsaw
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.No, last time I checked the following of the Freedom for Strathclyde movement is about the same size as the Tooting National Front.
EDIT: How can we not have an entry for Citizen Smith?!
edited 23rd May '11 4:05:27 AM by GameChainsaw
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.We don't have one? Christ, that's a turn up! Genuinely surprised there.
Savage, hilarious as your stereotypical anti-capitalist copy-pasta comments are, they miss the fact that those markets bring in billions to the economy from all over the world, and Scotland would lose out on that if we became independant.
Fortunately, Glasgow is becoming the UK's Second City in terms of European finance; many banks have moved here, and the fact that there's a Financial Services and a Risk Management degree (the latter unique to Europe at that level I believe, and for 20 years so was the former. I did them both) done by universities in the city mean they have a great young graduate population of employees to get at. I don't see the likes of BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and others suddenly leaving if we became independant, so we could get some financial income. But we're still developing in terms of being an overall financial centre, and it will require a few years before we can properly stand on our own two feet as a major capital.
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.
Edinburgh (which is the current capital).
On the subject of alleged authoritarianism by New Labour, what about their increasing the period a suspect can be held without charge to 28 days (and wanting to increase it to 90 days)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006
edited 23rd May '11 11:20:17 AM by Wardog
Yep, that one is easy enough. Glasgow is the bigger, better and more populous city, but Edinburgh has the country's parliament and main administration.
Forgot about the increase in time terror suspects can be held without charge, though that still puts America to shame (3 months against 3 decades...). It was also swiftly reversed, it should be noted. Didn't stop them trying to get at least part of the extra time back, but that was never going to happen.
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.MP names the injunction footballer
as Ryan Giggs. Now, I'll be right back, police have just burst into my bedroom because I typed his name.
In something of a retread of last year, flights cancelled due to the volcanic ash clouds from Iceland
, which will hopefully not cause so many problems for the industry as last time.
The question is, why would anyone expect someone from Big Brother to be discrete?
I'm with Chainsaw, breaking up the UK would be A Bad Idea™. That said, giving the individual components of the UK (including England) devolved legislatures for matters of purely regional import and having a separate national legislature for the UK as a whole, like the states in the USA or provinces in Canada, would certainly help to lower tensions and remove unnecessary meddling.
I always thought that a good structure for a UK parliament alongside devolved Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments would be for the UK Parliament to simply consist of the sum of the regional bodies. So, rather than having a separate MP for Glasgow South and an MSP for Glasgow South, it'd be the same person; Monday to Wednesday they would be in Holyrood, and on Thursday and Friday he can sit in Westminster.
Obviously there are issues with different voting systems. More importantly, you may have issues with different constituency sizes, but that could be dealt with by scaling an MP's vote in Westminster according to ht epopulation of his constituency.
This also makes setting up smaller sub-national assemblies/parliaments easier. Want a Yorkshire Parliament? Fine, all the MPs for Yorkshire constituencies can meet up in a church hall in York three days a week.
edited 24th May '11 1:18:13 AM by AndrewGPaul

That would be the best case scenario, although at the back of my head I'm still fretting that Britain is potentially missing out on some much needed income.
Fingers crossed.
Locking you up on radar since '09