Friday, 7 November 2014

I now understand why some Scots hate the English!

There is a commonly held belief that Scottish people are naturally anti-English. In popular culture this may be seen on the football field where the rivalry between two adjacent teams will give rise to some very forthright banter. However, most of this banter is fairly harmless and given in a spirit of give and take that sports fans always experience when competing to shout louder than those of the opposing team.

I have lived in Scotland for over 15 years and I have never been aware of anti-English feeling directed against me. 

Anyway a wee while ago I was on holiday in Mallorca. Sitting outside a sea front cafe for lunch on a beautiful day. My meal was disturbed by the monologue of complaints from the table next to us. I hadn't seen the folks come and sit down but when she started her diatribe I turned. The woman speaking was in her fifties or sixties, fat and had tattoos.  She had a south of England accent, perhaps Essex? I should point out that I am not prejudiced against the overweight or those who have inked infantile drawings onto their skin!

Her monologue to her silent companion went like this.

"This Scottish woman she said to me that she had voted yes in the independence referendum.  And I said to her That was a waste of time. Who will pay your pension? And look at that Alex Salmon - what a disgrace. And Scotland is such a dreadful place. My niece had to go up near Edinburgh when her husband was sent to a barracks up there. They were an army family you know. She couldn't stand the place. It was wet all winter and full of midges all summer. She said to him if you don't get a transfer from this God awful place then I will leave you. And they got transferred back down to England after wasting two years of her life there.  Can you imagine that cold wet place and all those flies - no wonder you get people like Alex Salmon. Perhaps it is to do with the diet. They eat that horrible haggis stuff and porridge. Maybe they need the porridge as the mornings are so cold and miserable and as for drink - there are so many drunks..."

And on and on she went. I wondered what Scotland had done to her. As I listened to her rambling on and on I realised how easy it is to react and hate the English as a whole. But this was just an ignorant, patronising twit from south of the border, who should make sure they know what they are talking about before they open their mouth to speak! 

Wednesday, 10 September 2014

Scotland - the facts

Scotland has only 8.3% of the UK's population. 8.3%! Remember this important figure... 8.3%

But we DO have...

32% of the land area.
61% of the sea area.
90% of the fresh water.
65% of the natural gas production.
96.5% of the crude oil production.
47% of the open cast coal production
81% of the untapped coal reserves
62% of the timber production
46% of the total forest area
92% of the hydro electric production
40% of the wind wave and solar energy production
60% of the fish landings
30% of the beef herd
20% of the sheep herd
9% of the dairy herd
10% of the pig herd
15% if the cereal holdings
20% of the potato holdings
...obviously 100% of the Scotch Whisky industry.

We have a...
17 billion pound construction industry
13 billion food and drink industry
10 billion business services industry
9.3 billion chemical services industry
A 9.3 billion tourism industry
7 billion financial services industry
5 billion aeroservice industry
4.5 billion pound whiskey exports industry
3.1 billion pound life sciences industry
Scotland still has 350 million pounds worth of textile exports

We have 25% of Europes wave and wind energy potential.

And finally we are blessed to have 1.5 trillion pound worth of oil and gas reserves.

All of this, yet only 8.3% of The UK's population... Whao Scotland should be rich!

IGNORANCE...
If you hear anyone saying "I DONT LIKE ALEX SALMOND" or "I DONT LIKE SNP"...
THIS VOTE IS ABOUT SCOTLAND'S RIGHT TO ELECT ITS OWN GOVERNMENT... IT HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH ALEX SALMOND OR THE SNP. 
DONT LET POLITICAL IGNORANCE RUIN THIS OPPORTUNITY.

Do you know... This is the UK's legacy of success in our history of being better-together is as follows...

The UK has the 3rd lowest pensions in the 34 OECD countries of the world

The UK has the single most expensive childcare in the European Union

The UK has the second lowest-paid economy in the entire developed world

The UK has the 3rd longest working hours in the EU

The UK has the lowest number of holidays in the EU

The UK has the 8th highest gender inequality pay gap out of the EU's 28 countries

The UK has the highest likelihood of poverty in disablement in the EU

The UK has the highest rail prices in Europe

The UK has the second highest housing cost in Europe

The UK has the highest fuel poverty rates in Europe.

The UK is the 4th highest country of wealth inequality in the entire planet!

But surely these awful figures cannot be possible when you read the following Scottish statistics...

Now, finally, did you also know that in all of the UK's elections for Westminster ever!... Not one vote cast in SCOTLAND has ever mattered! Because of the Westminster numbers, whatever government England votes for, the UK gets. So we have no democracy here!!! 4 decades of tory rule that we voted against is proof enough, and our defiance was punished by the closure of all the mines; closure of all the steelworks; closure of all the shipyards losing hundreds if thousands of jobs. The term used by Westminster's Thatcher when these industries needed some assistance was "let the markets decide". Funny how when the greedy bankers collapsed everywhere they were bailed out to the tune of over a trillion pounds of our money... Not a mention of "let the markets decide".

FACTS:
Fact: Scotland has an oil boom waiting to happen on the West Coast, but Michael Hesaltine signed a cessation of any form of oil exploration in the entire area in the 80's to make way for nuclear submarines which Scotland doesn't want!

Fact: Scotland has shown its revulsion time and time again to nuclear weapons but they place them here against our countries wishes. A recent contingency report was carried out a out the feasibility of relocating them in Portsmouth. The report stated that it was unfeasible because the detrimental risk to the area of an incident was too high. (Ok for the Clyde though)

Fact: Scotland, with only 1 Tory MP, was forced to take the shocking attack on the poor & disabled called The Bedroom Tax, even though as our nations government, Holyrood voted to utterly reject this awful tax on the poor. Westminster gave us it anyway!

Fact: We are led to believe that the oil in our waters is finished and its a dying industry. Yet 13.5 billion has been invested by oil companies in the last 2 years alone!

Fact: The Clair Oil Field is about to open, and on its own has over 650 million barrels which will be extracted over 20+ years with production reaching a hundred thousand barrels a day!

Fact: Scotland gives more to Westminster than it gets back. Do you really think they'd be so keen to keep us if we were being subsidised like they'd have us believe?

Fact: Westminster has amassed over £1.3 trillion debt and still growing at nearly £6000 a second. Thats another £516 million today alone which YOU will have to pay for.

Fact: Of the 178 countries that have gained their own independence across this planet, not one single one of them has ever asked to reverse this independence, and very few of them have the assets we have.

SCOTLAND, WHAT ARE WE SCARED OF? WE HAVE A CHANCE... WITHOUT A SINGLE BULLET BEING FIRED, WITHOUT A SINGLE DEATH... TO GET OUR FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PUT A CROSS IN THE YES BOX.

SCOTLAND, ITS TIME TO STAND UP AS A NATION AND VOTE YES ON THE 18TH OF SEPTEMBER... AND BECOME A FREE AND CARING NATION AGAIN!!!

VOTE YES AND SET OUR COUNTRY FREE!!!!

Y E S ! ! !



note: I didn't write this. . The above is circulating on the internet as part of the YES campaign but it seems to be an accurate portrayal of the facts!

chitika