If you have something to say...
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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
It was a great party, without a doubt. And yes, it was about the United Kingdom and its remarkable history, Scottish as well as English. But if what ...
If Scotland becomes independent would I still be able to be referred to hospitals in England? I can't take any chances, and at the moment while I would prefer to stay put in Edinburgh, I'm looking to relocate to the vicinity of the hospital that is willing and able to treat me, in London.
The debate around Scottish independence is one which the Scottish Nationalists have of late, like it or not, done an excellent job of defining, driving and dominating.
While the Liberal leadership struggled to head off grass root opposition to the coalition's plans for the national health service at its party conference, the SNP leadership, at its own conference in Glasgow, was able to talk about a renaissance in Scottish industry.
No matter how many press releases you pen, how many interviews you give, or how much spin your experts can generate, sometimes there's no substitute for appearing in person, something Rupert Murdoch and David Cameron took to heart this week, flying into and out of London respectively to rouse the troops and go into battle for the things they hold dear. For one, there's a newspaper and the reputation of his staff at stake, for the other, the future of the UK as we know it.
As an Englishman and an Irishman - but a Briton first - I look upon this debate with the despondency of one who wishes the United Kingdom could have remained wider still. The sadness of division in Ireland, both within and without, is nothing to envy. We, the British people, are greater than the sum of our parts. Let us fight, wherever we are, for our shared national home.
The pro Britain campaign has not got off the ground. It needs to and quickly. And it needs to be a campaign about YES to Britain and not NO to independence... 2012 is going to be filled with cool, iconic reasons to celebrate the UK. That must be the backdrop.
Health reform is perhaps the most divisive issue in Britain's government... and there is another health issue that the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary do not agree on: the new Alcohol Strategy, which is expected to be announced any day now. David Cameron wants a minimum price to be imposed on cheap supermarket alcohol, while Andrew Lansley prefers self regulation.
The United Kingdom, like all states, is an artificial construct. For some its symbol is the bulldog. The strange thing about the bulldog is that it would die out as a breed if left to its own devices.
I have worked in public opinion polling in the past, and indeed have polled on Scottish independence before, so a few people have asked me what I think about the question that has just been released by the Scottish National Party that is soon to be used in a referendum on Scottish independence: Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? (Yes/No)
In my view, the cry for Scotland's Independence is at best folly and probably one of the worse ideas I have ever heard in my entire life.
Alex Salmond's plan to hold a referendum on Scottish independence in autumn 2014 has reignited a debate which has been with us for centuries. Last week the Scottish first minister came to London to put his proposals to the English asking, "Is there a market for Scottish Independence in England?"
It was difficult to be a Scot in London yesterday, because for once it felt like the real action was elsewhere. Alex Salmond's speech to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, in which he laid out the details of the SNP's constitutional position and plans felt like some kind of historic moment.
A hundred years will pass in the blink of an eye. And when it does, nobody will be worried about whether we're Scots, English, Irish or Welsh. We'll just be people who used to belong to a great nation but are now too poorly skilled, under-qualified and unproductive to bother about.
There I was passing a shelf of specially-ordered Burns Night haggises at Waitrose in Canary Wharf when I overheard a woman speaking to her friend. "Any Scottish people I've known have always been really arrogant and loud," she said in an East End London accent. "Yeah. Big drinkers too," her friend nodded, picking up a haggis and eyeing it suspiciously.
In 1707 the Act of Union gave England political and economic authority over Scotland and some Scots have been protesting ever since.
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