Thursday, November 16, 2006
Independence is the Solution
An article called Scotland Alone by Michael Fry in this month's edition of Prospect Magazine puts the case for Scottish Independence by a former member of the Scottish Conservative Party.
He writes:
And that is the important bit. The unionist Labour Party are intent on keeping Scotland dependent on government hand outs that independence will look a very unattractive proposition.
Personally, I don't think Labour do this solely to keep Scotland dependent - they do it so that everyone is dependent on the state. However, the fever in which they are creating dependencies in Scotland is amazing.
Michael Fry also writes:
And he is absolutely right. I have met very few English people that I actually disliked. But there is a kind of peer group pressure simmering away that makes it very difficult to publicly like the English. It is an issue that can be avoided if you are skilled enough, but if cornered it is easier to discharge a volley of profanity aimed at the English than it is to argue the case that there are a few eejits in England, just like anywhere else, but on the whole they are a pretty good bunch of people.
ADDITIONAL
More discussion on Michael Fry's article:
¶ 19:47
He writes:
All my adult life I had been a member of the Conservative party. I have been a Tory candidate for election to both the British and the Scottish parliaments. I was still committed enough to believe that the party's comeuppance in 1997, when it lost all its seats in Scotland, could be the prelude to an ascent from the ashes. I thought the implosion might purge the party of all it had got wrong as Thatcher stomped with heavy boots over the conventions that had grown up inside the union. I was deluding myself. The Scots Tories, nine years on, neither uphold their old policies nor seek new ones—they prefer to have no policies at all.
...
An inflated public sector... accounts for nearly 50 per cent of Scottish GDP, 10 percentage points higher than the British figure. In depressed areas, the state and its agencies are often the only major employers—in East Ayrshire they provide over two thirds of jobs. Across Scotland, spending rains down on groups organised enough to lobby the government... Much more importantly, this undoubted pre-emption of resources by the state is squeezing out the private sector and immobilising a good part of the Scottish workforce—how else could tens of thousands of Poles arrive and immediately get jobs the natives have no incentive to do? In other words, all the public spending is designed—just in a different way from before—to keep Scotland dependent, therefore voting Labour.
And that is the important bit. The unionist Labour Party are intent on keeping Scotland dependent on government hand outs that independence will look a very unattractive proposition.
Personally, I don't think Labour do this solely to keep Scotland dependent - they do it so that everyone is dependent on the state. However, the fever in which they are creating dependencies in Scotland is amazing.
Michael Fry also writes:
I have no doubt independence would make the Scots happier. It is a shame that from their subordinate position in the union, so many feel they have to hate the English, and that this feeling is coming to be reciprocated south of the border.
And he is absolutely right. I have met very few English people that I actually disliked. But there is a kind of peer group pressure simmering away that makes it very difficult to publicly like the English. It is an issue that can be avoided if you are skilled enough, but if cornered it is easier to discharge a volley of profanity aimed at the English than it is to argue the case that there are a few eejits in England, just like anywhere else, but on the whole they are a pretty good bunch of people.
ADDITIONAL
More discussion on Michael Fry's article:
¶ 19:47
