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UK - Election 2015

Ex PM john Major has now entered the Election debate. we are happy to note that he has "many, many Scottish friends". Politically, however, this friendship is unrequited, because during his ministry Scotland was for a time without a single Scottish Tory MP.

Major's stereotype vision of "Britain" is very charming, but not inclusively "British":
A country of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist.
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These are very English images. The existence of other countries within the UK must be irksome to John Major, but I think he wants to subsume them into his imaginary land of cricket grounds and holy communion, rather than release them from Britannia's steely grasp.

In his unionist enthusiasm, Major is being very honest or very foolish, for he states
I warned against Scottish devolution in 1992 and 1997. I always knew that nothing good would come of it.
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But the line now is that devolution was absolutely fine. So good in fact that we Scots require nothing more. Major would have denied us even that.
 
Information Analyst said:
Remind me again what the Irish Nationalists actually did after the 1918 General Election....?
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OK. From wiki.
This Dáil was an assembly established by Sinn Féin MPs elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in the 1918 United Kingdom general election. Upon winning a majority of Irish seats in the election (many uncontested), Sinn Féin MPs refused to recognise the United Kingdom parliament and instead convened as the First Dáil Éireann (translated as "Assembly of Ireland"): the unicameral legislature of a new notional Irish Republic, and the first Irish parliament to exist since 1801.

The Dáil of the Irish Republic, however, was only recognised internationally by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The first meeting of the Dáil occurred in Dublin on 21 January 1919, in the Mansion House, attended by 27 members. The body was prohibited in the following September, and was forced underground, meeting in several locations.
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That prohibition started the War of Independence with all its horrors.

But our situation is, I hope, different. The SNP are following the peaceful path permitted by our modern democracy, and will therefore seek, through the influence that electoral success and constitutional right permit them to exert in Westminster, to change the political situation in favour of Scottish independence. It would be insane to suggest that if this is achieved, rUK will declare Holyrood to be an illegal assembly and set off an armed conflict. For Holyrood was set up with consent, and with consent it will, if it does, become a sovereign Parliament.
 
Darat said:
No they are not.
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I would say they are, in the context of Britain. At all events, they're not "Scottish" stereotypes. I must stress that they are perfectly fine, but odd as images suggesting life in the UK.
 
Information Analyst said:
No, they're a small subset of English images, many of which being unfamiliar by personal experience to most English people.
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Craig B said:
I would say they are, in the context of Britain. At all events, they're not "Scottish" stereotypes. I must stress that they are perfectly fine, but odd as images suggesting life in the UK.
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They are generally pastoral images, the cricket is probably the closest to a specifically English stereotype, although there are parts of Wales where that might be as appropriate as parts of England.
 
Craig B said:
........Major's stereotype vision of "Britain" is very charming, but not inclusively "British": These are very English images. The existence of other countries within the UK must be irksome to John Major, but I think he wants to subsume them into his imaginary land of cricket grounds and holy communion, rather than release them from Britannia's steely grasp.......
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Your distorting glasses are getting thicker and thicker. You determination to take offence at the inoffensive is getting more and more obvious.

Do you think that there is no cricket played in Scotland? Do you think that roughly the same sort of beer isn't drunk in Scotland in roughly the same settings (in higher quantities, though) as in England? Do you not think that maids (whatever they are) cycle to church in Scotland as they (apparently) do in England?

And you do realise that you entirely made up the "John Major must find it irksome" bit..........because you have no evidence to support that he finds anything irksome about having other countries in Britain, and you have no idea what he finds irksome.

Can you not see what this constant whinging and whining about anything and everything anybody says about Scotland actually does for the image of Scots? Scots Nats on this board are about as useful for the public image of Scotland as ISIS is for the image of Islam.
 
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So, one question I have for the Greens/SNP. Without Trident, what leverage would the UK have when it comes to negotiation with China or Russia in political crises? A strongly worded letter?
 
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jimbob said:
They are generally pastoral images, the cricket is probably the closest to a specifically English stereotype, although there are parts of Wales where that might be as appropriate as parts of England.
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Plenty of cricket played in Scotland; two of my brothers live in Edinburgh and both play local cricket every week in the cricket season.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
So, one question I have for the Greens/SNP. Without Trident, what leverage would the UK have when it comes to negotiation with China or Russia in political crises? A strongly worded letter?
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What leverage do Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan and Brazil have? Oh, of course, they got invaded and wiped out because they didn't have nuclear weapons, didn't they?
 
anglolawyer said:
What leverage do Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan and Brazil have? Oh, of course, they got invaded and wiped out because they didn't have nuclear weapons, didn't they?
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That's largely because they are under the American/French nuclear umbrella. On their own, in terms of foreign policy clout, they don't have much. Meanwhile, if the UK totally disarms, then it has to rely on either France or America to guarantee second strike capability.

If anything, it isn't strongly worded letters or feelgood platitudes that have prevented another World War, it's Nuclear Weapons, primarily because the Risk/Reward metric means that whatever reward is outweighed by serious risk of nuclear exchange. And if France/China/India is anything to go by, nuclear weapons are a very strong check against superpowers trying to force you into their camp.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
That's largely because they are under the American/French nuclear umbrella. On their own, in terms of foreign policy clout, they don't have much. Meanwhile, if the UK totally disarms, then it has to rely on either France or America to guarantee second strike capability.

If anything, it isn't strongly worded letters or feelgood platitudes that have prevented another World War, it's Nuclear Weapons, primarily because the Risk/Reward metric means that whatever reward is outweighed by serious risk of nuclear exchange. And if France/China/India is anything to go by, nuclear weapons are a very strong check against superpowers trying to force you into their camp.
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What examples have you of Britain or France exercising clout in the world of foreign affairs due to their possession of nuclear weapons? Other than the United States, what examples are there of states using or threatening the use of WMD in furtherance of their foreign policy?

Here is a list of the world's 120 or so non-aligned nations and, just as you would expect, every single one of them has been conquered by a nuclear state.
 
anglolawyer said:
What examples have you of Britain or France exercising clout in the world of foreign affairs due to their possession of nuclear weapons? Other than the United States, what examples are there of states using or threatening the use of WMD in furtherance of their foreign policy?

Here is a list of the world's 120 or so non-aligned nations and, just as you would expect, every single one of them has been conquered by a nuclear state.
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One major reason the UK is considered a great power is that it possesses a nuclear deterrent, along with China, Israel, USA, Russia, France, India, North Korea and Pakistan. This gives it a lot of prestige and bargaining power when it comes to negotiations. Without it, that bargaining power is significantly reduced.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
One major reason the UK is considered a great power is that it possesses a nuclear deterrent, along with China, Israel, USA, Russia, France, India, North Korea and Pakistan. This gives it a lot of prestige and bargaining power when it comes to negotiations. Without it, that bargaining power is significantly reduced.
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You are stuck in the 19th century. That's when there were great powers. Now, we have one superpower with another galloping up to overtake it. North Korea a great power? Be serious. Actually, there is an example of a state posturing with nuclear weapons (although aren't there some who doubt NK actually has them?) and look at the fix it's in with only one card in the deck. The world has moved on from the 60s.
 
China lacks the power projection to supplant the US, which in turn was acquired from the crumbling British Empire after WW2. But still, there's a Superpower, then there's Great Powers (India, China, Russia, France and Great Britain - Guess what they have in common)
 
NWO Sentryman said:
One major reason the UK is considered a great power is that it possesses a nuclear deterrent, along with China, Israel, USA, Russia, France, India, North Korea and Pakistan. This gives it a lot of prestige and bargaining power when it comes to negotiations. Without it, that bargaining power is significantly reduced.
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Examples are not obvious. Hong Kong? Not really. The Falklands certainly not. Suez terminally not.

This "bargaining power" is an illusion which gratifies wanna-be world-class celebs. Everybody sees right through it.
 
The thing about nuclear weapons, as I mentioned before, is that they are meant to deter wars between Great Powers +, and within almost a lifetime, there has only been one major war between Great Powers, and that is thanks to nothing other than nuclear weapons. WHY? Because it instantly escalated the chances of an aggressor suffering grave consequences if they tried to go down the warpath with another great power. The threat of nuclear war deterred further British/French/Israeli Aggression in Suez. And nice try with Hong Kong, because that was a 99 year lease from China, which the British honoured in 1997, in a manner similar to the Panama Canal Treaty.
 
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