The BBC: Just Another TV Channel After All

In light of the BBC court victory over the SNP, in which the BBC was allowed to weasel out of its charter obligations and only be held to the same low standards as commercial TV channels, perhaps it is time for a different tactic.



Let’s face it, the SNP’s court action was a good idea, poorly executed. They completely missed the opportunity to present the equivalent of a class action for all UK minority parties to be heard in these crucial debates.

Specifically, their petition was:

"For interdict ad interim against the respondents [i.e. the BBC] broadcasting in Scotland on or before 6 May 2010, by any means, a debate scheduled to be broadcast on 29 April 2010 between the leaders of The Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal democrats that does not feature on equal terms with the said persons a representative of the petitioners."

With only 7 seats in the UK Parliament, this should never have been just about the SNP. Instead, they should have petitioned:

"For interdict ad interim against the respondents broadcasting in the UK …that does not feature on equal terms the leaders of all UK political parties currently represented in the UK Parliament."

Considering the effect the first debate had on the election prospects of the LibDems, this would have been a fair and democratic demand: there can be absolutely no doubt that the decision to give the LibDems a podium place has utterly transformed the election prospects for Britain’s third party in the coming election.

It also gave the lie to the argument that the debate was only between those party leaders who could become PM. On the contrary, the BBC’s decision to include the LibDems was about maintaining the British political status quo. If you look at their policies, conceding the LibDems a share in government is in reality only a small concession by the British establishment at almost no cost. After the election, the new government will appear different but the new actors will still be reading from the same script.

Does anyone truly believe that, with the LibDems in a coalition government, Britain will emerge from this election with proportional representation, scrap Trident and reduce immigration to levels that can be absorbed?

Had the SNP petitioned for a fair hearing for minority parties – not just the LibDems and the SNP – then Plaid Cymru, Respect, the the Democratic Unionists would have backed them to the hilt, even contributed to their legal war chest. Granted, it would not have been perfect. It would have given more voice to the so-called regions, but it would also have excluded the Greens, the UKIP and the BNP. But the SNP would have been acting with democracy in mind, not merely with me-too petulance. The case would have been a cause célèbre on every media outlet.

A real missed opportunity.

But, as we all know, every cloud has a silver lining. One benefit of the court case is that it has made Scots sit up and take stock of how critical the BBC is to the maintenance of the British state. The BBC, in fact, is a perfect example of how the UK works in Scotland – we pay our taxes, but have little say about how they are spent or what we get in return. Or, as Sir Tom Farmer puts it, it is taxation without representation.

Perhaps then it is time we re-examined why Scots are forced to pay for the BBC, and its one-size-fits-all political programming. Hypothetically, what exactly would happen if, as a result of the savage economic cuts proposed for Scotland by the UK London parties pandering to their English electorates, some of us temporarily find it difficult to pay the TV licence fee, but choose to hold on to our TVs to maintain our vital connections with our local communities?

According to Wikipedia:

“TV Licensing enforces the BBC's statutory obligation to ensure that every address where a television licence is required is correctly licensed, but its agents have no special rights and, like any other member of the public, rely on an implied right of access to reach the front door.

The occupants of a visited property may deny an agent entry to the premises without cause and are under no obligation to answer any questions or enter into any conversation. If an agent has evidence that television is being watched or recorded illegally but is denied entry by the occupants so that (s)he cannot verify the suspicion without trespassing, then TV Licensing may apply to a magistrate for a search warrant, but the use of such warrants is rare.

The BBC states that a search warrant would never be applied for solely on the basis of non-cooperation with TV Licensing and that in the event of being denied access to unlicensed property will use detection equipment rather than a search warrant.

The law allows a fine of up to £1,000 be imposed on those successfully prosecuted. This figure is frequently publicised by TV Licensing to maximise deterrence. In reality, magistrates rarely impose the maximum fines allowed to them by law. During the year 2005-6, the average fine including costs was approximately £153 (slightly more than the cost of a licence)…

TV Licensing is managed as a sales operation and its officers are motivated by commission payments. In 2005, a TV Licensing officer was found guilty of false accounting and perverting the course of justice after he deliberately forged the confessions of four people to obtain commission payments.”

Perhaps the time has come for a general boycott of the BBC licence fee in Scotland. Should it happen, the BBC can of course fund itself in Scotland by advertising.

Just like every other TV channel.

UPDATE

Newsnet Scotland argues that the BBC is in fact the fifth political party in Scotland.

A petition to abolish the BBC licence fee.

What I Can and Cannot Change

Things I Cannot Change:

1. The ever-increasing world population.

2. The inevitable moral corruption of most politicians after prolonged exposure to political power.

3. The rise of China as a world power.

4. The relative decline of America as a world power.

5. The power that banks have over governments, such that banks are deemed too big to fail but nations, evidently, are not.

6. The financial slavery in which the West holds the Third World via the IMF, the World Bank, and by direct and indirect trade tariffs.

7. The mind-numbing frequency with which otherwise intelligent, rational, moral people are swayed by powerful vested interests to change their understanding of the reasons behind world events, against all evidence to the contrary.

8. The power of the Murdoch press to influence opinions, societies and elections around the world.

9. The power of the Israeli government to directly influence American foreign policy by using AIPAC to lobby the US government and senators. This is not an anti-Semitic statement. See points 7 & 8.

10. Climate change altering our planet beyond recognition. This is not a radical statement. With Big Oil in mind, see point 7 again.

What I Do Have Some Power to Change:

The colonial control of the nation of Scotland by the last remnants of the warmongering imperial state we call the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It is known almost universally, and incorrectly, as 'England', a nation itself held fast by the same political machinery.

By getting off my backside and making the effort to vote for an independent Scotland in this and EVERY election until independence, I can directly influence this state of affairs. A solid SNP block will stand up for Scotland in London, at least whilst this colonial situation continues.

The ultimate goal is of course NO SNP MPs in London, but by doing this I can help push Scotland towards becoming an independent nation, the normal state of affairs around the world.

With independence we can stop sending Scottish boys to die needlessly in illegal foreign wars, we get Trident nuclear submarines out of Scottish waters, we say goodbye to London parties telling us how to run our affairs, and we use our oil money to fix the mess Britain has left Scotland in after 303 years of Union.

We then face the above challenges in control of our own destiny.

We fix our society by taking control of our own laws, taxes, fisheries, oil, alternative energy resources, environment, media, broadcasting, immigration policy and import tariffs – without asking anyone else’s permission – so that Scotland becomes a freer, fairer and safer place to live and raise a family.

Open your eyes, Scotland.

Scotland: The Last Jewel in the Crown

George Monbiot is a thinker with a global perspective I like to follow, and he recently wrote an excellent piece on the long-term reasons for the Britain’s mounting woes. In summary, his scathing theory is that empire-less Britain has run out of foreign peoples willing to be exploited.

“The current political crisis has little to do with the expenses scandal, still less to do with Gordon Brown’s leadership. It arises because our economic system can no longer extract wealth from other nations,” he says.

It’s a plausible hypothesis, both academically honest and one that is sure to make uncomfortable reading for many of those who proudly call themselves British. Many who consider themselves Scots rather than British might take issue with it too, not only with Monbiot’s assertion that the metropolis has run out of colonies, but with his conclusion that the United Kingdom is the final stage of its disintegration. They might argue that – with Scottish independence a real possibility – the UK’s demise still has further to go, and that what remains of London’s imperial structure is now squarely focused on asset-stripping Scotland of her oil revenues while it still can.

The question is, are they right? Has Scotland become little more than a colony for the Southeast of England? Surely, with her own parliament, any argument for Scotland being a colony should now be dead. So what evidence is there for this outlandish claim? As one might expect, their argument hinges on the London’s relentless extraction of Scottish oil and gas wealth and its repeated refusal to reinvest a penny of this windfall back in Scotland. (1) This is a fact whether one agrees with the policy or not, but is it enough to justify calling Scotland a colony?

Most counter-arguments to the argument that Scotland is a colony are poorly thought out and predictable. “What rubbish!” the Scottish Unionist defiantly retorts. He (it’s usually a ‘he’) will tell you how well Scotland’s economy did from the Union (eventually, anyway, after the forty years of ensuing economic stagnation), and how many Scots achieved positions of power in the imperial apparatus which, he will be at pains to point out, was most certainly NOT exclusively English.

Indeed, the Scottish Unionist’s hackles can always be relied upon to rise when an Englishman lazily cites the imperial achievements of England. If the British nationalist (giving the Scottish Unionist his proper name) knows his history, he will explain to the patriotic Englishman that Scotland was in fact on the ‘executive committee’ of the Empire, and remind him politely of imperial power-wielders such as Henry Dundas, key colonial governors like Australia’s Lachlan Macquarie, accomplished military leaders such as Colin Campbell, and great explorers like Alexander MacKenzie, James Bruce and David Livingstone. Desperate to prove his British credentials to his fellow Brit, he will no doubt remind the yawning Englishman of the Thin Red Line at Balaclava, of Colin Campbell’s relief of Lucknow, of the Highlanders who gave Wolfe his victory in Quebec, and of the Lowlanders and Highlanders facing Napoleon as one at Quatre Bras. “Sure,” the Englishman will reply, glancing at his watch. “That’s all very well, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned, they were fighting for England.” And he would be right.

Explorers, governors, missionaries, bureaucrats, merchants, soldiers: this is the glorious (if anachronistic and irrelevant) imperial history to which the Scottish Unionist clings in his denial of Scotland’s need to be a nation in her own right. Having felt some pride in this imperial history myself, it’s hard not to feel at least some sympathy for his predicament: emotionally – and logically – it must be difficult to proudly and patriotically boast to Englishmen and foreigners of Scotland's imperial record, only to deny in your next breath that this pride is in any way nationalistic. Something doesn’t add up.

It’s because it is the rhetoric of the servant.

Scottish nationalists (as opposed to British nationalists - it's a matter of identity, not legitimacy) take a different tack. If anything, they say, Scotland’s magnificent imperial history only proves how far we have fallen, and that Scotland has become a colony since the end of Empire. Some scholars go even further, arguing that – regardless of our leadership role and the personal success of individual Scots in the Empire – Scotland became a colony the day the Treaty of Union was signed. They point to the forced nature of what was an incorporating Union (2), the broad patriotic character of the 1715 Jacobite Rising – following as it did hot on the heels of the Union (3), the expendable nature of the Highland regiments (4), the brutal persecution of Scottish nationalist radicals like Thomas Muir (5), the financing of the Sutherland Clearances from English industrial profits (6), the excessive Scottish war dead throughout the imperial period – including almost a fifth of Britain’s death toll of World War One (7), and Churchill using English soldiers against Scottish strikers in Glasgow in 1919. (8)

All fair points, diehard Unionists will say, balanced by the success Scots enjoyed as equal partners in the Empire. Many Scots may have suffered – as did many of those who Scots helped subjugate (9) – but enterprising Scots did very well from the Empire too.

Perhaps. The role of Scots throughout the imperial period is a complex one, and your opinion on it is probably as much a reflection of your perceived national identity as of your politics, or your opinion of empires in general. That the Scots were enthusiastic participants in colonisation – of our own people as well as others – is undeniable. Let’s just say that there were many shameful aspects in the roles of Scots in the Empire, which may be balanced by philanthropic and benevolent roles played elsewhere. Time and healthy debate will tell.

The problem is that whereas during the imperial period there was a semblance of balance between gain and loss, benefit and detriment, coloniser and colonised, today we see only Scotland’s exploitation. In addition to:

A. The continuing grand larceny of £32billion in tax revenues every year from Scotland’s oil (10), we also see:

B. The pre-meditated, concerted and sustained campaign by the British Government to conceal the true scale of Scottish oil revenues from the Scottish people, using consolidated national tax revenues and the rendering of key government documents ‘Secret’, only recently unearthed by FOI requests. (11)

C. The continuing adversarial attempt to control Scotland via a colonial Governor-General acting as ‘Scottish Secretary’ – in spite of Scotland supposedly having her own government (12),

D. The relocation of ALL British nuclear submarines to Scottish waters near Glasgow (13) – rendering it the principal target in the event of any nuclear strike,

E. The blatant attempt at manipulation of Scottish election results (14),

F. The attempt to dump toxic waste from London’s Olympics in Scotland (15),

G. The seizure of £150 million of Scottish charity money for the 2012 London Olympics – despite Scotland needing the cash for its own 2014 Commonwealth Games (16),

H. The appropriation of Scottish sportsmen and women as British when they succeed – while Englishmen can proudly compete as Englishmen without criticism (17), and

I. The tight control of the Scotland’s print media to deliver an endless subliminal stream of confidence-sapping and contradictory lies about her being better off as part of Britain and her non-viability as an independent state. (18)


Individually, each item may not in itself be sufficient to prove the point, but together they form a strong case that Scotland’s pocket-money parliament in Edinburgh has in fact changed little. Indeed, without any real power to defend the interests of Scotland and her people, it is largely symbolic. And try as they might, it is impossible for Scottish Unionists to blame any aspect of Scotland’s current economic woes on independence: any blame must lie squarely with the status quo, and our on-going membership of the United Kingdom. One well-timed announcement of a ‘saved’ defence contract does not a case for Union make. (19)

That’s why Monbiot is right when he connects the UK’s current troubles with the end of Empire. His only error is to see the process as over, and the lingering mini-Empire of the British state as the smallest unit of post-imperial disintegration. The reality is that the Empire is still alive and kicking, and that Britain’s decline still has one more step to go – the independence of Scotland.







References

(1) Tom Gordon, ‘Alex Salmond Fuels Flames of Oil Crisis,’ TimesOnline, June 1, 2008.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4040115.ece?token=null&offset=0

Even the Calman Commission’s recent report recognised that 90% of British oil revenues belong to Scotland.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2009/06/calman

(2)The riots that occurred in 1707 in the streets of Scotland with English forces standing by at the border are testament to the forced nature of the Union (Magnus Magnusson, Scotland: The Story of a Nation, HarperCollins, London, 2000, p548), a fact which Scottish Unionists can only dismiss with bland statements such as ‘our leaders chose it.’ This is a disingenuous argument. If Scotland signed up for a voluntary union, then surely it is equally acceptable to leave it. And if she is part of a forced union, then why the Scottish Unionist pretence of friendly federalism? Which is it? If the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath was an assertion of the sovereignty of the Scottish people, then our leaders agreeing to the 1707 Act of Union was clearly a violation of this.
See Paul Henderson Scott’s excellent summary of the background to the Act in The Union of 1707: why and how?, The Saltire Society, Edinburgh, 2006.

(3) See Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History, Pimlico, London, 1992, p328.

(4) As (later Major-General) James Wolfe wrote in his private letter to his friend William Rickson in June 1751:

“I should imagine that that two or three independent Highland companies might be of use; they are hardy, intrepid, accustomed to a rough country, and no great mischief if they fall. How can you better employ a secret enemy than by making his end conducive to the common good?”

This statement, as expressed by their eventual commander, clearly reveals the cold, expoitative calculation that lay behind the recruitment of Scottish Highland regiments into the British army post-Culloden, even though it was the Earl of Albemarle who was to eventually suggest the idea to William Pitt.
See Stephen Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe, McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, 2007, p123, 125

(5) For reading out a letter of support for Scottish independence from the United Irishmen, Thomas Muir was in 1793 given transportation for fourteen years to Botany Bay. In the letter, the United Irishmen rejoiced that ‘you do not consider yourselves as merged and melted down into another country, but that in this great national question you are still Scotland – the land where Buchanan wrote, and Fletcher spoke, and Wallace fought.’
See Kenneth R. Johnstone, ‘The First and Last British Convention,’ Romanticism, Edinburgh University Press, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2007, pages 104-105 & 114

(6) Some scholars argue that the first Duke of Sutherland in fact made a loss on the enormous personal investment he made in the destruction of Sutherland's Highland society, as if the failure of his financial venture somehow made him the victim.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/immig_emig/scotland/highland/article_6.shtml

(7) Murray G.H. Pittock, Scottish Nationality, Palgrave, New York, 2001, p103

(8) Some may say ‘so what?’, but can you imagine the English reaction to Scottish troops being used to quell political demonstrations on the streets of London, Leeds or Liverpool?
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde/redclyeve14.htm

(9) The Chinese, for example, suffered greatly from the opium trade, to which Scottish opium barons such as Sir James Matheson contributed significantly.
See Arthur Herman, The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World, HarperCollins, London, 2001, pages 342-3

(10) This uses an oil price of $60 a barrel, the price as of July, 2009. This is quite conservative, considering that just one year ago it reached $145/bbl.

http://www.nyse.tv/crude-oil-price-history.htm

(11) The best summary of this process is the recent BBC documentary Diomhair. I’ve given a link to part 1 below, but due to the BBC’s repeated attempts to prevent its availability via legal writ, this may not work after a while, so the best way to locate it is by a simple Google search on either YouTube or GoogleVideo.




(12) Eddie Barnes, ‘Role of Scottish Secretary Will Survive Reshuffle,’ Scotsman, September 28, 2008.
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/politics/Role-of-Scottish-Secretary-will.4535883.jp

(13) On May 6, 2009, Bob Ainsworth, Armed Forced Minister, announced to the British Parliament that the entire nuclear submarine fleet would be based in Scotland by 2017.
http://www.banthebomb.org/ne/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1158&Itemid=95

(14) Angus MacLeod, ‘Election Shambles Verdict: the voters lost,’ TimesOnline, October 24, 2007.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2726440.ece

(15) http://apps.sepa.org.uk/disclosurelogs/pdf/F0130268%20released%20correspondence.pdf

(16) Eddie Barnes, ‘Olympics robs Scots of Lottery cash,’ Scotland on Sunday, November, 23, 2008.
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/londonolympics2012/Olympics-robs-Scots-of-Lottery.4722417.jp

(17) Joan MacAlpine, ‘British if you win, Scottish if you lose,’ TimesOnline, July 5, 2009.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6637179.ece

(18) This humorous YouTube video is an excellent summary of the knots British Unionists get themselves into in their quasi-religious nationalist zeal for the British State:

(19) Daily Record, ‘Defence contract guarantees Clyde work for 15 years,’ July 2, 2009.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/07/02/defence-contract-guarantees-clyde-work-for-15-years-86908-21489650/

Nine Ways to Stop Scotland Breaking Free

As Scotland’s minister for the Constitution, Mike Russell’s job is to deliver a successful independence referendum in late 2010. This will not be easy. In the second part of this series, we look at what he will be up against, and what tactics PM-to-be David Cameron might use to hold together what’s left of the remnant of Empire we call the UK of GB & NI.


Over the next two years, the fate of Scotland will be decided in the following three polls:


A. The next British General Election on or before June 3rd, 2010.

B. The planned referendum on Scottish independence, planned for late 2010, and

C. The next Scottish parliamentary elections on May 5th 2011 - if indeed there is still a devolved Scottish parliament by that date: if the above referendum goes ahead and is successful, there won’t be any more elections for a devolved Scottish parliament. The electoral cycle for a newly independent free and democratic Scotland will have begun.


Getting a referendum bill through the Scottish Parliament will be no easy matter. It will be met by the full arsenal of British Unionist resistance: the combined opposition of the British Unionist parties in Edinburgh (Labour, Tory and LibDem), the relentless pro-Union bias of the foreign-owned Scottish media, the death throws of the out-going Labour administration in London, the continued surreptitious spoiling tactics of Britain’s faceless minions in Whitehall, and the full might of the next Tory government at Westminster with its massive English majority.

But now that Labour is facing annihilation at the next British election, surely the task facing Scottish nationalists becomes simpler? Won’t there be a Scottish backlash against the Tories, once they take power at Westminster?

You would think so, but we can’t write off Labour yet. Their plan is to hang on long enough to fire off their last deadly Parthian shot: proportional representation in UK elections. With the prospect of at least a dozen years in power, the Tories will oppose it, but Gordon Brown (or his unelected Labour successor) will push it through as the only thing standing between his party and utter oblivion.

How will this affect Scotland? The referendum is the key, but with an impotent Tory administration in Westminster (as a result of a new PR system), there might not be the backlash against the Union that the SNP is counting on in the coming referendum.

The signs are indeed ominous, and Scottish nationalists might be getting a strong sense of déjà vu. Haven’t we been here before? For those too young to remember, current events bear more than a passing resemblance to 1979, with the SNP calling for the dissolution of the British parliament, Scotland being dragged down by the UK’s increasingly precarious finances, the IMF breathing down the British Government's neck, the Labour Party on the ropes, the Tories waiting in the wings of Westminster, and a referendum on Scottish nationalism in the pipeline.

When the '79 referendum was finally held, Scotland voted YES in a contrived question that would have granted an almost meaningless form of devolution, only to be told the answer was NO on a trumped-up technicality.

It was Europe that eventually forced London to concede real devolution to Scotland via another referendum in 1997 after – despite Tony Blair’s claims of spontaneous generosity – a secret group of Scottish nationalists had pointed out to Council of Europe diplomats that Brussels was in no position to dictate forms of democracy to Eastern Europe when those self-same forms were being denied within Scotland. London was promptly told to get its house in order. Quickly.

It was the supreme irony of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. Having lobbied for full EU membership for the emerging democratic states of Eastern Europe (to counter attempts by the French-German axis to create a ‘United States of Europe’) her actions led to Scottish nationalists then using her success to seek the same levels of democracy, levels she had been so instrumental in preventing in Scotland.

So what can we expect this time around? Another loaded question in a fixed-up referendum? Twenty more wasted years? What tactics will the combined might of the British establishment use this time to hang on to Scotland for the few remaining years it needs to extract the last of her oil?

To answer this question, and to anticipate the desperate Unionist rearguard action about to be unleashed on Scotland, I’ve decided to put myself in David Cameron’s shoes - assuming he wins the next election. What follows is a step-by-step battle plan, ready to roll for the newly elected Prime Minister of this morally and financially bankrupt British state:

1. Announce English votes for English laws. This should head off English demands for devolution and act as a good band-aid for the inherent unfairness of England not having her own parliament.

2. Make ‘Respect for Scotland’ the Tory mantra north of the border. Buy off the Scottish elites and nationalist-leaning Scottish entrepreneurs with knighthoods and peerages. Move some of the nuclear subs from Scotland to ports in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Re-form the Scottish regiments. Divide et impere.

3. Strict Scottish media management. Control the flow of all non-internet information. Pull the plug on award-winning Newsnight Scotland. Encourage pseudo-intellectual Scottish writers to attack the idea of Alex Salmond’s ‘arc of prosperity’ while ignoring the stunning success story of Norway (1), the closest match to Scotland, and the complete meltdown that is UK Inc. Continue to support blanket pro-Union media coverage via the BBC and the Scottish press. Spoon-feed ‘lobby journalists’ with inside stories, ostracising any journalist – English or Scots – with nationalist leanings. Increase funding to BBC Scotland for pro-Union news and current affairs programming. This could never happen in England, but with Scotland’s well-established, anti-SNP, rabidly pro-Union press and media, it would be business as usual, with a new piper calling the tune.

4. Derail economic arguments for full Scottish independence. Avoid granting full fiscal autonomy, allowing instead the Calman Commission recommendations on Scottish government borrowing. Then go further and announce a fair share of all taxes raised on oil revenues will now be paid directly to Scotland, proportional to its current ratio of the UK population: 8.5%. (2) The nationalist Scottish Government will appear greedy as it condemns the niggardliness of the windfall while spending it on hospitals, roads and schools. The Scottish people will probably settle for this as an acceptable result, allowing the British Government keep the rest for IMF repayments, more London infrastructure, the Olympics and the replacement of Trident.

5. Form an unholy alliance with Labour in Scotland to get access to its up-and-running electoral fraud machine. They too will be playing an end game for their survival as a party, just as you will be for the British state. They will hope to stage a comeback from their old Scottish heartland, and will be willing to try almost anything. Imaginary Scottish Labour supporters voting for the Union in a referendum are better than real ones.

6. Once all this is in place, announce a British-run referendum on Scottish independence to take place before the Scottish Government one, with the pretext that you want to make sure it is run fairly, being such an important issue.

7. Make the referendum question loaded, something along the lines of: ‘Should Scotland break all ties and separate from the rest of Great Britain, or remain within the United Kingdom?’ YES – break all ties; NO – remain in the United Kingdom. The psychology of this is that most referendums tend to vote ‘No’, regardless of the issue, when it is contrived as a vote for the status quo. (3)

8. Hold the referendum on a work day or, even better, a holiday weekend so that the aged and unemployed – those currently dependent on British government handouts – will be over-represented, and more independent professional people will be too busy to vote, or away on holiday. (4)

9. Once the NO vote occurs – as it surely will if all these steps are taken – declare the matter of Scottish independence closed for a generation, at least until well past peak oil, when an asset-stripped Scotland can finally be cut loose.


In this way, despite the unprecedented levels of autonomy granted to Scotland, you, David Cameron, will still be able to claim that you are Prime Minister of a UK that includes the land and seas of Scotland. The UK will then retain its relative importance within Europe, its geopolitical importance in the world, and its seats on the UN Security Council, G8, and NATO, allowing you to continue with the myth that Britain is still a world power.(5)

This will also give your government continued access to 91.5% of Scotland’s oil revenues, essential if bankrupt Britain is to have any chance at all of paying off the unprecedented levels of debt accrued on the watch of your predecessor, the unelected Scottish Unionist Prime Minister, James Gordon Brown.





UPDATE
Brown signals end to ‘first past the post’ voting at Westminster



References

(1) “On the government's estimates, the [2009 Norwegian Government] surplus will more than halve as a share of GDP from 18.9% to 7.4%. That would still be a remarkably good outcome in comparison with the budgetary problems being faced in other European countries, although it is also dependent to some extent on the revised macroeconomic assumptions underlying the forecast.”
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13709932

(2) The current proportion of the UK population living in Scotland is 8.5%, taking Scotland’s latest population as 5,144,200, and the UK as 60,943,912.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/uk.html
http://www.scotland.org/about/fact-file/population/

(3) This has been the case in Australia, where the option for change has always been tied to the YES choice in any referendum. In this way only 8 out of 44 referendums have been carried since Federation in 1901.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Australia

(4) Labour tried this in Glasgow East in 2008 and still lost. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7522153.stm

(5) Jack Straw revealed the true value of Scotland to the UK during BBC Question Time, September 28 2006: “A broken-up United Kingdom would not be in the interests of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but especially not England. Our voting power in the European Union would diminish. We'd slip down in the world league GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN Security Council.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/5388078.stm

Scottish Nationalism as a Moral Issue

My friends often ask me why I waste my energies on something so divisive, so exclusive as Scottish nationalism when I could do so much more for human rights, environmental issues, or on matters more international, moral or intellectual.

I try to explain that I don’t see these things as mutually exclusive with Scottish nationalism.

Why? Because the independence of Scotland is first and foremost a moral issue.

When I look at the complexity of the problems that face Scotland today – low life expectancy, high unemployment, excessive drinking, violence, neds, environmental degradation, hard drug use, Scotland’s failing social fabric, religious bigotry, her poor roads, her awful train system, her old people dying of cold every winter, her sons and daughters emigrating every year, her young men fighting England's illegal foreign wars, her beautiful lochs used as nuclear bases for England, the incessant lies told to her people about their self-worth and potential by Scotland’s foreign-owned media – I see a complex array of causes, all with one contributing factor, one common denominator that is the root cause of so many of these problems, consistently holding us back from sorting any of them out: the dead hand of London.

So yes, I care about these other issues. They’re why I’m a Scottish nationalist in the first place.

And I've yet to hear a moral reason for remaining IN the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.