Scotland & Independence

AB Editor | 09:21 Fri 08th Nov 2013 | News

100 Answers

This poll is closed.

Scotland should...

Remain Part Of The UK In Its Current Form - 108 votes
48%
Gain Complete Autonomous Independence - 73 votes
33%
Remain Part Of The UK But With Greater Ability-Scope To Govern Itself (Devo-Max) - 42 votes
19%

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Wharton

Did you enjoy and join in the riots in England when it was introduced there?

emmie

from the Scotsman, and you really should read it wharton, perhaps you will get a different viewpoint....

Zeuhl

/zeuhl, you said pay tax there/

Ohhh I understand

sorry emmie - that was imprecise of me

i was thinking of Council Tax,

but now that you mention it, I think the amounts of income tax and vat raised in Scotland are calculated and do figure in arguments about who is subsidising who

so an English person working in Scotland or running a business in Scotland would be making a contribution to the 'Scottish side'

emmie

of course not, it was wrong and vile, many joined in as a way of creating mayhem, nothing to do with the poll tax, just another way to have a pop at the government, the police and anyone they didn't like, many were socialists, anarchists, and indeed we see the same thing over and again, the August riots of 2011 were no different, any reason at all to have a ruck and cause problems for ordinary citizens..

jno

I have Scottish ancestors and would feel a personal sense of loss if the Union was broken

don't be like that, Zeuhl. You'd lose nothing and you woud gain some foreign ancestors. Romantic, really.

emmie

i expect many of us are interrelated, i have Irish ancestors, however it is not without merit that there could be Scots in there too. I still won't get a vote, yet had i lived there for a time, be on the electoral roll, i would get a vote and say no.

Zeuhl

^
That's true jno

what a nice idea

mind you, my Scottish great grandfather was pretty foreign looking already

emmie

he could have been called Ethelred the unready, those Vikings were a little bit unsavoury at times.

Zeuhl

Well he was a McRobert

And we always wondered why there was a 'tall dark and handsome' gene in the family

In recently discovered photographs Old Man McRobert looks like he's just got off the boat from Napoli

More Old Man Roberto really...

emmie

this is the thing about nationality, if one looks back far enough we will all find skeletons in the closet generally from someplace other than where we think we originated from.

trt

If they do go independent, I hope they will have to apply for a Visa to come into England!

Wharton

If David Torrance doesn't know the proper title of Adam Smith's book why should I give credence to the rest of his piffle?

emmie

piffle is it?

Thus it remains conventional wisdom two decades after the poll tax was introduced in Scotland on 1 April 1989. The trouble is that it isn't true. A badly thought-out and unfair tax? Certainly. A tax maliciously "tested" on Scotland? Certainly not. On the contrary, Margaret Thatcher's decision to allow the Scottish Office to legislate before England and Wales was a pragmatic reaction to perceived Scottish demands.

The chronology was this: In spring 1985, Scotland's ratepayers (domestic rates were paid directly by homeowners and indirectly by those in rented housing stock) endured a particularly punitive revaluation. In Morningside, for example, hundreds of single, elderly ladies were hit with bills of more than 2,000. These "little old ladies", be they in Troon, Bearsden or Morningside, became the impetus behind what became known colloquially as the poll tax.

There was uproar in Scotland's remaining Tory heartlands, a reaction which convinced Mrs Thatcher that a review of local government finance – which had begun the previous autumn – should swiftly reach a conclusion. There was little doubt as to what that conclusion might be. "The burden should fall, not heavily on the few," she informed the Scottish Tory conference in May 1985, "but fairly on the many."

Wharton

^ "Margaret Thatcher 'allowed' the Scottish Office to legislate" - really decent of her and I don't think. We'll 'allow' ourselves to pass legislation after September 2014.