If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Scotland not only has massive economic strengths - we are financially strong too. This impressive track record in innovation, our wealth of natural resources and skilled workforce means that Scotland has every right to be confident about our economic prospects as an independent country.
But this entire idea of breaking from Europe and going solo lacks realism. How will UK single compete in a tough economic world on its own. Ukip is harking back to grandiose days of the Empire.
I have to admit to a certain amount of confusion of late. I was asked recently by a friend 'what' I considered myself. I live in Scotland and here, in the run up to the referendum on independence next autumn, most people are trying to figure out, in essence, if they're more Scottish than British or vice versa.
Last week's opening skirmish in Scotland's War of Independence exposed a flaw in the nationalist battle plan that the unionists were quick to exploit: an independent Scotland would continue to use the Great British pound, irrespective of threats from Westminster.
Scots deserve answers on how their pensions will be protected if we leave the UK and the cost of doing so.
From a campaigning perspective big donations will always be welcome, but they alone can't ensure victory. The polls have been static on independence for some time, but with 18 months to go it's still all to play for.
Independence is a simple thing really. The ability to do as one pleases without outside interference. True, no country is truly independent in today's globalized world. But it is fallacious for Salmond is lead a vanguard suggesting independence would bring radical change to Scotland.
The truth is that a new national currency would be an entirely unappealing prospect, but the options outside of that scenario are hardly appealing either. It's going to be one of the key issues that the people of Scotland will have to think hard about, before the big vote in 2014.
This week, Scotland's lawmakers are sitting down to stage a debate on the legacy of Britain's first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher - carving yet another notch into the Scottish Parliament's already prolific belt that celebrates the body's obsession with utterly pointless parliamentary procedure.
I spoke at a Yes (for Scottish Independence) meeting last night and found it really difficult to speak thinking of how that old woman was looked after in the Ritz hotel in her dying days because"it gave the best care," while generations of my family have died in ward beds, in pain, and worrying that they were a burden
As the debate in Scotland rumbles on the SNP and the wider YES campaign are promoting the message that the only way to get change is to vote YES, and that the union is stubborn and impossible to reform without splitting it in its entirety. It's a widespread view, and it usually only takes a few minutes of debating devolution in cyber space before someone gives you the 'jam tomorrow' line, but is it really true?
Despite the gloomy economic circumstances, England has a lot to celebrate; it is a beautiful and tolerant multicultural society that has contributed a great deal to the world socially, politically and culturally. Yet the 'English question' has only been prodded and poked by the political classes rather than substantially addressed.
When I think about it, I've yet to come across any real argument as to why people should vote 'No' come 2014. It seems to me as though every argument the Better Together campaign has put forward is simply to poke holes in what Yes Scotland say and do.
ew people realise that the UK is one of the most centralised welfare systems in the world. Whitehall controls healthcare, education, tax and benefits. Local government controls only social care and a few other minor services. It doesn't need to be this way.
"It needs to happen in my lifetime. We have wanted and deserved it for too long." Emma, a student studying in Barcelona, is a Catalan Independiste. She belongs to the 50% of the population of Spain's north-eastern region who would like to see Catalonia split from the Spanish state to form an autonomous country. And her cause is steadily gaining tangible political progress.
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