The Real PapaBear

the first one is a 'must read'.

It is widely conceded in the circles of academia that the German language is without peer when it comes to the creation of convoluted nouns. Handwringyness? Sir, you have just out-Germaned the Germans and I salute you.

Almost every country runs at a loss and services a debt ' we'd be no different. The difference is that Scotland, far from being subsidy junkies has been paying more into the UK than we have been getting out since time began. Scotland: 8.9% of the UK population Scotland pays 9.6% of the total taken in by the Exchequer Scotland receives 9.3% of the total spent by the Exchequer. We pay more than our fair share, so being called parasites and junkies by the people we are subsidising is a tad cheeky.

In the same way that Norway, Denmark, Sweden; Finland, Switzerland and Austria are all struggling? Of those, only Norway has anything approaching what we have in natural resources and yet they are all among the richest and happiest nations on Earth.

seriously, bud, I give up. Your mind is completely closed on the subject and your only response to points is either fabrication or non-sequiturs. The Yes campaign has been entirely positive about what an Independent Scotland could achieve. The No campaign has been entirely negative, all about how we would crash and burn without the UK to subsidise us. http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/fear-versus-hope-what-history-tells-us.21537982 I could deliver the ultimate proof to you of why we should vote Yes, gift wrapped in a box and you'd complain that the colour of the bow was anti-English.

I give up.

Yep, I'm sure the millionaire troika of David, Boris and Gideon will rouse the Scots to vote for them in huge numbers. Cameron; millionaire son of millionaires, privately educated at Eton and Oxford, never had a job in his life, handed the keys to number 10 because he was the least bad of a motley crew. Salmond; average guy son of average people, state educated in West Lothian, worked in a real job at RBS and earned his way to a senior position, fought and won power in a system designed to prevent a single party doing so. Not once, but twice. Can't imagine why the Tories wouldn't win a landslide in Scotland, never mind getting only 10 seats.

Any chance you could address any of his points? Or is your argument that since there may possibly be corruption in an independent Scotland, we're better sticking with the waste and corruption we know exist in Westminster? One of the things the No campaigners fail to understand is that while Westminster preachers 'market forces' and the 'market balancing itself out' etc etc, the economic policies of the past 40 years have been designed to foster London at the expense of everywhere else. In simple terms, a strong pound was good for the financial services economy (the south east) and bad for tourism and exports (Scotland amongst others), so while exporters were begging the Government to do something about the high interest rates (used as a mechanism to bolster the Pound) Government policy ignored them in order to provide support to The City. Result? UK manufacturing and export was decimated whilst the City became the world financial centre. Then comes the crash of 2007 and the City and with it UK economic policy is fucked (thank you Capitalism, great job!) because everything has been sacrificed at the altar of financial services, the economy of London - we don't make anything any more, so we have nothing to sell abroad. Contrast and compare: In Germany after WW2, the main industrial centres of the Ruhr and NRW saw rents and wages becoming too high as those regions prospered. What happened? Businesses were forced to move elsewhere, notably to South West and South East Germany, areas which had largely been agricultural. The result? Booming high tech industries in both Bavaria and Baden Wurttemburg and the wealth and development spread naturally throughout Germany. The spread of wealth saw the creation of new businesses and thus new wealth spread pretty evenly throughout the country. With the spread of wealth comes the spread of power, so that in Germany the artistic centre is largely Munich, the financial centre is Frankfurt, the media Centre is (or was) Cologne/Duesseldorf, the political centre Bonn/Berlin. Look at a map to see the spread of those cities and how balanced it is. In the UK everything, and i mean everything, is in London. In the UK, the London and South East economy overheats - the result? Introduce "London weighting" and a variety of other subsidies whereby the rest of the UK subsidises the good times of the south, whilst being starved of investment and development themselves.

really? in what way has he tried to impose his views and values on anyone?

but...but..but... sporting integrity and all that...

Venezuela; a small oil rich country whose masses lived in abject poverty until Chavez came to power. This 'dictator' was elected time and again by the mass of the people, introduced massive improvements in social health care, education, housing and wealth distribution - no wonder the United States hated him.

Agree, sadly, that Novo's time has passed. We have to remember that if he signed Nacho, every game he played would be one game fewer for the younger guys.

Capitalism, on the other hand, has been a roaring success.

There ye are; fixed that for you, bud.

The whole point of independence is that we would always get the government/party that we vote for. If there is a Yes vote, there will be an interim period of caretaker government until the next elections the following year. If the people continue to vote SNP, so be it. If they want to vote for Labour or anyone else, so be that, too. I believe the official term is "democracy" FWI, I think the SNP would cease to exist in its present form after independence as its raison d'etre would have gone. At the moment it contains people from left and right, who often make uneasy bedfellows. After independence the party would probably split and one of those wings leave to form another party. By the way, "tartan tories"? How old *are* you? You'll be talking about Dr Findlays Casebook next.

Q.E.D. Not in Scotland.

As long as Spence, Cosgrove and Spiers continue to be given air time, we will know that nothing has changed.

Really? How about someone who lives in France for much of the year, works in France, was married in France to a French woman and has French family and friends; someone who has no connection to England, never lived there, never worked there and has no English friends or family? Still a bigot? You know, your extremist vocabulary " worst kind of bigoted nationalist", your invented quotes "how brilliant Scottish nationalism is and how horrible British nationalism is" , your fabricated opposition viewpoints "from this independence campaign. Anti-English, anti-British stuff is rife," and confusing of subjects " I disagree about Scotland's big morals you seem to be playing up, what our friends in the East End get away with being a prime example" make debating with you very difficult. It's impossible for me to address a point which only exists because you invented it. Show me, for example, one single instance of any publication by the official Yes campaign which is anti-English. Just one. Show me one single piece of anti-English material by the official Yes campaign and I will change my vote. Then you can maybe explain what the connection is between the thuggish behaviour of Celtic fans and the inclusive, civic nationalism promoted by the SNP, which gives anyone who lives here, regardless of nationality, full democratic rights.

This is perfectly illustrated if we take the point made by dB about the powerful nature of some of these chants. Why, for example, did they go after the Billy Boys all of a sudden, Because they knew that this was the most potent chant in football, and it was ours. They had to neutralise it, and they did. if we'd been smart we'd have changed the line about "up to our knees in f****n blood". But we weren't and we didn't and the result is, we no longer have our most potent weapon.

One answer: no it does not. Further, it should take every opportunity it can to emphasise the fact that all other broadcasters and media are welcome whilst Pacific Quay are not. It might not matter right now, but when the champions league music starts up again, BBC London might ask why BBC Scotland are covering it from Edminston Drive.

First, it is possible to promote and desire independence without holding prejudices. Second, give me one example of the SNP "playing themselves up as some sort of socialist angels" whatever the hell that means. Third, if someone moves for work, tough. The inclusivity of the government means that if they so choose, they can vote here. Fourth, Scotland, generally has a low tolerance level for bigots, xenophobes and racists. Why should Scotland's first minister comment if Farage wanders into an environment to which he is ill suited and about which he knows sweet fuck all. Fifth, you've got Farage's xenophobia back to front. Farage is not a xenophobe because he wants to leave the EU. He wants to leave the EU because he's a xenophobe. The desire to leave the EU in itself doesn't mean he's a xenophobe, it just means he's a fucking moron.

I do get where you're coming from but I think you have to widen it out a bit. Expand it beyond England. Do you see yourself as different from a resident of Marseilles or Mannheim or Milan? Do you think they want anything different, essentially, to what we and the English want? Clearly not. So using the argument of "we're all basically the same", whilst true, doesn't really get us anywhere. The question is, how can we best achieve what we want to achieve for our country and our children? I believe it is by becoming an independent nation, in charge of our own priorities and building our own culture. If you believe that our childrens' needs are best served by tying ourselves to England; fair enough. I'd love to go through the reasons why this is not the case - albeit in a different forum.

how in the name of christ can you call an independence party pushing for independence "hypocrisy". The inclusive nature of Scottish nationalism can be seen by the fact that *everyone* who has chosen to live in Scotland gets a vote on independence; If you have chosen to live outside Scotland, you don't get a say in how the country is run. Your nationality doesn't matter; If you're Polish and live in Scotland, you get to vote. If you're Scottish and live outside, you don't - that is the ultimate in inclusive, open-minded, progressive, civic nationalism! By the way the people who chased away that xenophobic muppet Farage? not scottish nationalists. They were socialists - and one of the two arrested was English. How d'you like them apples?

Which nationalism? The flag-waving, chest-thumping, xenophobic big nation nationalism of England and the US or the civic, inclusive small nation nationalism of Canada, New Zealand or Scotland? It may be more helpful to make a distinction between the type of exclusive nationalism aimed at putting other people down and the type of inclusive nationalism aimed at promoting your own country. Come and live in Glasgow, dB, and you get to vote in all of Scotland's elections and referenda. Go to live in England and you'll have to change your nationality before they let you do the same. Now, tell me if it's the UK or Scotland which is 'nationalistic'.

Of course you can, and nobody is claiming anything else. I can completely respect, whilst fundamentally disagreeing with, the view that Scotland is better off in the union - and would never suggest that anyone who held a different view to mine is any less Scottish for holding the view they do - however flawed . Having said that it strikes me as oxymoronic to say that one is a proud Scot and proud Brit but isn't a nationalist. Pride in your country *is* nationalistic by definition. The only question is whether you believe your country is best served by the union with England.