BBC news, enough about Scotland already!
Discussion
ash73 said:
Eric Mc said:
I think the UK in 5 years time will look very different to the way it is now.
In what way?Eric Mc said:
Based on what Cameron said in his speech this morning - and on the subsequent discussions on the BBC (and elsewhere) today, I genuinely think that the whole way Parliament operates is going to be radically changed in a very short time. And not before time. The Scottish vote has FINALLY brought to the forefront of political thought the anomalies and downright undemocratic aspects of the way the UK is run.
Hear, hear!I for one am looking forward to the next few years of change and realignment to help this United Kingdom race headlong into the 21st Century renewed and reset.
The COMBINED achievements of the Union made us the rulers of most of the civilised World at one time. Imperialism is long since dead and is very much not the way of the World these days. Our combined intellectual and practical strengths must now be refocused, not on the conquest of new lands or internal struggling with a post imperialist world, but on genuinely regrouping as a Union and facing the World with that irresistible united force of will that has been admired by so many others on the outside looking in for so many years until relatively recently.
We need to get our house in order first though now that we know that the majority want Union and progress. We must cease to have Scottish MPs voting on issues that do not affect life North of the Boarder. We must stop allowing London to tell the rest of the Union what is best for it locally. There must be self determining powers for localised issues. If the East of England wants to build 100,000 homes in the next 10 years that should be their decision and they should be the ones to deal with this, not some remote group whose only encounter with Norfolk was when they went to stay at a friends holiday house up that way one weekend 4 years ago. If the Scots want to offer free University Educations for all North of the boarder then they should be able to do so, through their own money, not the central pot.
Westminster, as we know it, should be responsible for our international and joint national strategies. It should set the basic economic policy for the Union but with the regions becoming more autonomous in their ability to raise funds through local sales taxes and the like to add the cherries to the top of the cake Westminster provides.
I am English and love my home Nation. I am also British and see the Great in our Union. I see a Union that has lot it's way and identity a little of late but which can be not only salvaged but rebuilt bigger, strong and better. Together.
Let us take and grab hold of this opportunity to remember all that is good about our great Union and to address the bad points. Let us create a system that provides a national glue and safety net but allow those living in an area self determination within wide and soft buffers.
This is not Jingoism, it is not a call to arms to re-forge the Empire, it is a genuine heartfelt plea to everyone to see the opportunity that we have been handed by the Scots yesterday and this morning to look deep within ourselves and assess our relative strengths and weaknesses.
As with any union you must appreciate and respect what each party brings to the table. You must allow each party the freedom they require to be an individual and you must accept that you will not always agree and that compromise is the best option. Above all though should anyone attack that union they should immediately learn the true meaning of solidarity, the unparalleled ingenuity and audacity of the British conscious and that, whilst the Bulldog is not the biggest or most ferocious beast in the World, you mess with it at your peril.
I am not a particular fan of our American friends' overt displays of patriotism which sometime boarder on the absurd but do think that it is about bloody time that we Brits, the population of the United Kingdom, should rally around our Union Flag. We should celebrate the fact the even the ruthlessly efficient Germans are stunned at how few bumps on the path there have been in dealing with the recent crisis and how 'adult' we as a nation have been about it all.
America might well think itself the greatest nation on earth. Let them have it. Let us prove by thought, word and deed that we are the greatest Union on earth.
TL;DR - Time to regroup, reconstitute, and re-emerge bigger, better, and stronger!
Rude-boy said:
TL;DR - Time to regroup, reconstitute, and re-emerge bigger, better, and stronger!
Do you think that might work better in N,P&E?This thread was intended to be more about the BBC spending 22 minutes of its 30 minute slot on the aftermath of the election. There is actual news available from elsewhere, should they feel like spending some time on it.
ash73 said:
Rude-boy said:
[bizarre ideas about local self determination and general jingoism]
What a load of crap.btw isn't it about time Wales had some representation on the union flag?
We have it in our grasp to re assert ourselves as a power for good and freedom at the very forefront of the World stage. If you wish to live in a nation of also rans I hear that Canada isn't a bad place.
Does it not make you proud that bar a few idiots on the fringes we have undergone the constitutional upheaval of the last few months and days without mass riots, letter bombs and the like? Right now most of the civilised World is looking at us and saying "fk me, I wish we were more like that".
This is not about being better than everyone else. This is about helping others by example and being the very best we can be as a nation. We will never again be a top Superpower of the China, Russia or USA mould and I wouldn't want to be. What we can be is the voice of clarity and reason. An aspirational beacon of how it should be done to all those who love or covert personal freedom and democracy.
Others have corrected you on the flag point.
It's funny how the entire bunch of scummy politicians have played the public of the UK like a fiddle. The answer to all our problems, of course, more tiers of parasites paid for with even more taxes. They tell us it's for democracy, better representation. More jobs for the boys! Hooray! Huzzah! Absolutely fking brilliant!
Speaking of the BBC's coverage of the election, they missed yet another opportunity today to point out, when discussing RBS's 'threat' to move their registered office to England, that a registered office need not be much more than a plate on a wall.
Scary threat, eh!
Were they trying to make the whole thing sound interesting, or were they suggesting/hinting that people should vote no? I'm going with option 1 there. They failed.
Scary threat, eh!
Were they trying to make the whole thing sound interesting, or were they suggesting/hinting that people should vote no? I'm going with option 1 there. They failed.
singlecoil said:
Speaking of the BBC's coverage of the election, they missed yet another opportunity today to point out, when discussing RBS's 'threat' to move their registered office to England, that a registered office need not be much more than a plate on a wall.
Scary threat, eh!
Were they trying to make the whole thing sound interesting, or were they suggesting/hinting that people should vote no? I'm going with option 1 there. They failed.
I've just finished reading a book on the rise and fall of RBS and it is pretty obvious that whole massive expansion of RBS from the late 1990s onwards was very much part of an overall strategy to expand Scotland's influence in the financial sector and to put Scotland "on the map" as a world player. Alex Salmond was a key player in the background. Indeed, Salmond was an employee of the RBS for seven years.Scary threat, eh!
Were they trying to make the whole thing sound interesting, or were they suggesting/hinting that people should vote no? I'm going with option 1 there. They failed.
The chief architect of the scheme was the then CEO of RBS, George Mathewson. Mathewson is a life long friend of Salmond and has been working in the background as a key advisor to Salmond right up to now.
For RBS to come out and say that it was considering moving its HQ to London would have been a major shock to the Scotish financial sector - and the SNP (they have one of the largest corporate HQs of any British bank - just outside Glasgow).
It would not have been a mere "name plate change".
The book is called "Making it Happen - Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy" by Iain Martin.
I interpreted it as "HQ". Moving the Registered Office alone would be insufficient for the bank to come fully under the auspices of what would have become the "English" FCA - which was what the move was all about.
RBS wanted to show that their bank was being covered by the same system that monitored the other large banks.
RBS wanted to show that their bank was being covered by the same system that monitored the other large banks.
Gassing Station | TV, Film, Video Streaming & Radio | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff