There is an elephant in the room. It is a very large elephant. When will the good people of England see this elephant?
Let me help you. The newspapers today say that Britain is edging its way slowly to the brink of bankruptcy. Gordon Brown has now written a blank cheque to the banks. Credit agencies are rumoured to be poised to reduce our sovereign debt rating – meaning that they fear for our country’s ability to pay back its borrowing obligations. Just as in 1976/7, a Labour Government after mismanaging the economy may have to turn to the International Monetary Fund to bail us out. This would affect our living standards for a generation (or more). Even if we don’t have this worse case scenario we are still in very “deep doo doo”.
“So what’s the elephant?” I hear you still ask. This is the elephant – it is that Scottish politicians and bankers have brought our nation to the edge of bankruptcy. They were not content with working under a formula that for over thirty years took English taxes and redistributed them generously to Scotland. They were not content with a biased electoral system which saw the English cast more votes in the 2005 General Election to the Conservative party yet still ended up with a Labour Government. No, going beyond this, they had to take actions and deeds that have brought the whole system crashing down on its knees.
We have Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling (both Scottish and put into Westminster by Scottish voters) frantically trying to sort out this mess which occurred on their watch due to regulatory failures taking place under a regulatory framework which they established. This almighty mess is taking place at a time when they (Brown and Darling) had already taken the nation’s borrowings to worryingly high levels. The two banks at the heart of our problems today are the Royal Bank of SCOTLAND and HBOS (can you guess what the S stands for in HBOS?). Both RBS and BOS have their headquarters in Edinburgh. Yes dear readers, we can firmly lay our present economic woes at the feet of Scottish politicians and bankers.
In the hubris created by the false Mother Of All Booms in recent years the Scottish people were edging closer and closer to independence - hence the SNP as the governing party in the Scottish Assembly. The tragedy now though, as they see that Scotland on its own, would merely be a mega version of Iceland, is that their opinions are changing. Many may still loathe and hate the English but they understand clearly now that they still need us. They will not be voting for independence now in a hurry.
But what about the people of England? Don’t we have a say in the matter? Is the Union a marriage in which only one of the parties to it, the Scots, is ever allowed to consider filing for divorce? Where is the fairness in that? When can the English have their own say on this important matter?
*************************************
Want some other opinions?
What Troy thinks on 20th January appears in The Telegraph on 23rd January.
A view from The Times with interesting comments
Thoughts on Scottish Independence from "The Independent"
See also my comments box for a variety of other views including the scottish take on this contentious issue. Troy welcomes the diversity of views that blogging affords.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Wouldn't you normally institute divorse proceedings if your so called partner hated you enough to empty all the accounts! I agree heartily, dump them.
Och the Noo.
Gosh, Troy. Harsh words indeed.(Your words, not my three!) Told my husband about the gold thing you posted a while back. We didnt do anything... but surely it must be safer to invest in something so Real. Might get my finger out and do something about it.
Sarah - I'm pleased you're with me on this. Shame you don't still have a vote where it matters.
LWM - Harsh words for a harsh environment. I can't advise you, not sure myself at these levels whether its still a buy or rather whether its a sell. Which is a shame as one of the most important decisions when investing is knowing when to do both!
Troy...are you trying to start a war between the Scots and the English again? ;)
Trixie - I suspect that as two independent nations we would have a better relationship than presently exists. I've had many great holidays in Scotland back in the 1960's and 1970's before the locals turned hostile to the English. Only a couple of weeks ago a woman was brutally attacked in Aberdeen just for having an english accent. Most Scottish people support "whoever is playing England" when it comes to football.
Oi, I'm Scottish and I certainly don't hate the English nor does anyone in my family and neither do any of my friends!! It's a small, narrow minded minority that create the impression that all Scottish people hate the English and, to be honest, people like that will always find some reason to hate someone!!
I'm sad that you blame the Scottish people for the entire countries economic problems.
C x
It's all rather dire, and seemingly getting worse daily. So depressing.
Carol - Don't take it personally and I know several ex-pat Scottish people like yourself that think themselves "British" as well as Scottish. But just like in Iceland, it is a small number of politicians and bankers, in our case they are all Scottish, who have and are continuing to pull the walls down around us. As I said in response to Trixie I also truly believe our two nations would enjoy a better relationship as two separate properly independent nations.
Debs - yes the bad news is leaking out bit by bit, every day getting worse. First the £37bln bank bail out would be enough. Gordon thought he had "saved the world". But the slippy slope gets steeper and slippier. In the late 1970's it took Margaret Thatcher to take charge and pull the country round, and yes it was painful getting there. I'm not convinced there is a 21st century Mrs T. out there this time. More's the pity.
Troy, the union of Scotland and England comprises 50 million English, and 5 million Scots. So, of course we are to blame for all your ills. It's obvious, isn't it? i mean, we are only outnumbered 10 to 1, so naturally with odds like that in our favour we are bound to completely overwhelm you. If we are indeed the elephant, then the room must be the Albert Hall. Oh, and try this. Substitute the word "blacks" for "Scots", and see how acceptable that might be in an enlightened society. I have never subscribed to the view that any of my troubles can be blamed on... let's think about this... any racial group other than my own. In other words, I take responsibility for myself, and don't look for convenient racist scapegoats. If you want to find a reason for Britain's current ills, look no further than a greedy society in terminal decline that borrowed beyond its means to satisfy an appetite it couldn't afford. Oh, and by the way, I'm Carol's dad. And I clearly brought her up to be far too polite!
Peter - I fully agree with your assessment of the main driver to our current ills. But did our leaders stand by, discourage or encourage this behaviour? I would contend that they (politicians and bankers) positively encouraged it.
When blogging it is unfortunately easy to give racial offence. I've just seen "a bunch of pseudo-Irish eejits in daft green hats" used to describe Irish-Americans when following a link in my comments.
I have now included in my blog a link to an article in the national newspaper on 23rd January, three days after my blog was written. England is definitely not happy - we were outnumbered in the 2005 General Election! Alex Hammond is purposefully feeding that unhappiness as it suits his purpose - his goal of independence.
Perhaps, Troy, if you checked a dictionary, you would find that "pseudo" means false. And as anyone who has been in New York on St. Patrick's Day will know, most of the "eejits" have no Irish heritage whatsoever. And as for the spurious piece in The Telegraph, all I can say is that birds of a racist feather stick together. Oh, and btw, if you care to check, you will find that the "Scottish" banks you mentioned are either wholly owned subsidiaries of English banks, or run by Englishman. And for your information, the Scots have always voted labour, going back decades. But the British government has always been determined by the English vote - normally Tory. (And for your further info. the Scottish first minister's name is Alex Salmond.) Your arguments simply don't stand up, Troy They are, pure and simple, ignorant racist ramblings.
It's worse than that. There were people warning about the banks in 2002/2003 - people like Warren Buffett (wealthy American stock dealer). I didn't notice or take action... but then I wasn't chancellor of the exchequer. The reason they did not take action is because they needed the gravy train to finance their "buy votes" spending and illegal wars !
Post a Comment