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Bugger

So now Cameron won’t be resigning?

46 thoughts on “Bugger”

  1. Full credit to Gordon Brown. The Scots realised if they voted yes they’d be stuck with him full time, not just when he’s not in London.

  2. Bottled it! Braveheart my arse. Time to renege on Camorons extra cash bribe, dismantle the Barnett formula and ban Scottish, Welsh and Norn MP’s voting on English matters at Westminster.
    Strike while the irons hot.

  3. When push came to shove, they bottled it and ran back to hide under Mother England’s apron. There, there, you brave little soldiers, mother won’t let any harm come to you.

  4. bloke (not) in spain

    Cameron’s staying. But for how long?
    The Union’s been ‘saved’ in Jockland but is looking more precarious south of the border, where the tab for the ‘saving’ is expected to be picked up.

  5. One of the lessons of the last 25 years is that any nationalist movement, no matter how tiny, can and will grab its independence if it really wants to. Macedonia? South Sudan? Exactly. But like the Québécois, the Scots nationalists are a shake-down racket, not an independence movement.

    A sad result for almost all of us.

  6. All those stupid promises will be coming home to roost now. What’s the point in saving the Union just to bankrupt it?

  7. “When push came to shove, they bottled it and ran back to hide under Mother England’s apron.”

    Oh, not this drivel again.

    London has the power and wealth because it’s the capital of the UK, not because it’s the capital of England. This is what makes the who-subsidises-who question so pointless. Pound for pound, the Scots have surely achieved more than us English over time. Something to do with their seriousness and pragmatism I suppose.

    This doesn’t hold true if you compare the UK’s middle-class against Scotland’s lower-class. But so what?

  8. On the subject of politicians we’d all like to see the back of, we should all remember that the result of McDoom entering the debate was a massive swing to Yes.

    A civilised and humane society would arrange it so that Darling never sees or hears of that brooding twat ever again.

  9. @ alastair harris

    So now Cameron won’t be resigning?”

    nope – you will have to wait for the men in suits to deliver their letter!”

    Is there a date fixed?

  10. Gutted.

    I was hoping (with the large postal vote especially) that the SNP would have by now picked up some of Labour’s ballot-stuffing techniques.

  11. Tee hee.

    If you’re still experiencing that tickling sensation in your trousers, it’s us with our hands in your pockets, filching your Pounds Sterling money.

  12. I’m mildly disappointed too.
    I was looking forward to supporting the Orkney and Shetland Secessionist Movement.
    Also it makes the 2017 In/Out a bit harder to win.

  13. “If you’re still experiencing that tickling sensation in your trousers, it’s us with our hands in your pockets, filching your Pounds Sterling money.”

    Fair enough, all that deep-fried heroin isn’t going to buy itself!

  14. Like him or loathe him, Cameron’s a jammy bugger. Things might work out quite well for him.

    He takes a chance giving the Scots a referendum, risking breakup of the Union, but gets a No partly by promising them more powers. Which have to be promised to England too.

    It’s always been there, but English nationalism now really has to be appeased, so at last ‘English votes for English laws’ looks like it will finally be addressed.

    If it is done properly, this’ll take a lot of the shine off UKIP. As will the promise of a EU referendum – Cameron gave the Scots theirs, so it’ll look like he’ll keep this pledge) More votes will swing back from UKIP to Tories.

    And Miliband has looked the light-weight he is. He can’t argue against some form of English parliament/Grand Committee thing. His (and Clegg’s) attempts at speaking up for any sort of regional set up will be derided – how can England be the only country in Europe without it’s own parliament or assembly?

    Five more years of big Dave loom.

  15. What I think is really interesting, and what we will not know probably for a considerable time, is the ulterior motive, true aims and tactics to achieve them deployed by both sides of the leaders and those supporting the leaders (so Cameron in the case of the No side) and also how those aims and tactics changed in the last few months after the phoney war since the Edinburgh agreement

    Did Salmond really want full independence (I think yes but can’t be sure).

    Was Cameron’s aim really more to do with shaking up the UK rather than stamping out the independence wish.

    Were Labour really as inept as they seemed to be throughout.

    We’re dealing with clever people here not to mention the spooks etc backing them up.

    There is a lot below the surface we may never know.

  16. BraveFart – “If you’re still experiencing that tickling sensation in your trousers, it’s us with our hands in your pockets, filching your Pounds Sterling money.”

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell the magistrate, son. He might buy it.

    I think we need to ask ourselves why the f**k so much time and money was wasted on loud mouthed independence supporters and so little time was spent asking Middle Scotland what it actually wanted. Why do we only get the prats and tossers on TV and hence dominating the political agenda?

  17. “There is a lot below the surface we may never know.”

    I think you’re over-thinking this one chap. Occams Razor and all that. One (dodgy) poll, with a tiny sample base, showing Yes by the slightest of margins, and our wonderful leadership collectively shat itself and for some demented reason decided to listen to Brown. Now they’ve got to deal with the fallout.

    Miliband was spectacularly useless on this issue – but its up to the Labourites if they want to let the work-experience lad be in charge.

  18. Widdershins : but English nationalism now really has to be appeased…
    More votes will swing back from UKIP to Tories

    I don’t think you’re correct on this. If David Cameron persuades English MPs to accept the continuation of the Barnett Formula, then English nationalism (inasmuch as there is such a thing) will continue to be affronted.

    There can’t be many English folk who feel better disposed towards the Scots today than they did six months ago and this combined with the concessions cobbled together in panic by a (ugh!) LibLabCon caucus must be to UKIP’s relative advantage.

    Interestingly, Lord Ashcroft’s poll this morning shows that ‘No’ voters knew their voting intentions long before the campaign began and consequently all the concessions originally and expressly ruled out by Cameron as a third choice in the ballot and offered at the eleventh hour in panic were unnecessary.

  19. The Labour heartlands voted Yes – and Labour opposed them. Will the Weegies and others remember this at the next Election, or will the bovine herd go back to voting Labour in droves? A huge opportunity for the SNP to win lots of Labour seats.

    No difference as far as England is concerned though – some left-wing Labour MPs voting on English matters are replaced by…other left-wing MPs.

  20. Jeremy Warner in the Torygraph:
    He then went on to suggest that in future only English MPs would be allowed to vote on English laws. This in my view would be completely unworkable, raising the possibility that you could have a Labour government at a national level run from Westminster, but a Conservative one, again run from Westminster, on all matters to do with England alone. The potential for fiscal and political fragmentation is obvious.

    Why is that unworkable? Why is it a problem? UK gets the gov it collectively wants, Scotland gets theirs in Holyrood, and the English get theirs too?

    This seems to be the meme being pushed that it’s unworkable. Why the should it bet?

  21. BraveFart

    No mate, your hand isn’t in my pocket, cos I don’t live in London.

    Because unless you’re in London/South East you don’t subsidise anybody.

    So when the English “regions” get offered their own devolution guess what the answer will be

    No, a good English parliament is what is needed.

  22. Henry Crun – “Bugger, we’re still stuck with Gordon Brown, Jim Murphy, Dougie Alexander et al.”

    Blair. Tommy Sheridan. George Galloway. Alistair Darling.

  23. Dan
    “Miliband was spectacularly useless on this issue – but its up to the Labourites if they want to let the work-experience lad be in charge.”

    Indeed. Imagine, for example, he is PM and we became involved in an actual and serious war with a reasonably competent opponent. Does anyone believe we would stand a chance, despite the (declining) abilities of our armed forces which, ultimately, depend on the LEADERSHIP of politicians?

  24. ”If David Cameron persuades English MPs to accept the continuation of the Barnett Formula, then English nationalism (inasmuch as there is such a thing) will continue to be affronted.”

    Quite possibly. But this might be a bit abstract to many voters compared to actually seeing glum Scottish MPs on the telly having to keep stumm in debates and stay out of the lobbies when it’s voting time. Can’t wait, personally. Shame Dennis Skinner isn’t the Beast of Auchtermuchty.

  25. This is all good. With UKIP threat to keep him honest, Cameron will have to institute a de facto English parliament by banning Scots MPs from voting on matters devolved to their parliament. Ditto Welsh and NI. That will generate a hard-to-resist demand for the UK parliament to apply the Barnet formula to England, Wales, and NI.

  26. Widdershins: But this might be a bit abstract to many voters compared to actually seeing glum Scottish MPs…having to keep … out of the lobbies when it’s voting time.

    That will be very pleasing, no doubt, but I doubt it will have the UKIP tide turning very much in David Cameron’s favour.

    Voters by and large have a good understanding of what’s in their best financial interest and have a tendency to become rancorous if they sense they’re being ripped off.

    The unanswered West Lothian Q and the Barnett Formula have been quietly tolerated and ignored in southern Britain thus far but in the wake of ‘The Vow’ that time is probably over. Unless Cameron is in a position to resolve both of these problems he will have painted himself into a corner which is good news for UKIP rather than the reverse.

  27. JeremyT,

    > That will generate a hard-to-resist demand for the UK parliament to apply the Barnet formula to England, Wales, and NI.

    The Barnett Formula already applies to England, Wales, and NI.

    If you mean that it should apply to everyone equally, what you are actually referring to is the scrapping of the Barnett Formula, and you have a very odd way of putting it.

  28. That will generate a hard-to-resist demand for the UK parliament to apply the Barnet formula to England, Wales, and NI.

    Some misunderstanding there. The Barnett formula applies to the whole of the UK – it says for that devolved spending, whenever there’s a change (read increase) in cash terms in spending in England, the regional assemblies get a similar cash change, scaled to the relative populations.

    The problem is not the formula itself, but that it affects only changes to funding, not the total amount, and hence retains past overspending in Scotland.

    Incidentally, my understanding is that if you treat most of the government’s revenues from oil production as taxes on Scotland, the extra money it gets is roughly balanced by the extra tax it pays.

  29. Cameron’s English Parliament idea may show that he’s cleverer than he looks. A Labour govt, dependent on celtic seats, would perpetually be at risk from English Tories. The reverse might not be true.

  30. BiF,

    it shows he’s finally woken up to the way Labour plays the game, and is finally giving some back.

    Let Labour try to counter it without sounding like they’re acting soley in their party interest (which of course they are – like the Dems in the US they have convinced themselves that their opposition is evil, and hence their party interest and the interests of the country are congruent).

  31. abacab

    Absolutely agree. And it is a delicious pleasure watching scrambling around.as they are played at their own game.

  32. SQ2, Apologies, I thought everyone here was up to speed on Barnett’s 2004 statement:
    “It was never meant to last this long, but it has gone on and on and it has become increasingly unfair to the regions of England. I didn’t create this formula to give Scotland an advantage over the rest of the country when it comes to public funding.”
    My suggestion was that this unfairness will be eliminated by extending the formula to cover the regions of England.

  33. Jack C,

    The Scots had the opportunity to be an independent country, they chose not to be, assessing that they are better off where they are, ergo, they bottled it.

    Care to justify your assertion that “Pound for pound, the Scots have surely achieved more than us English over time”.

  34. JeremyT,

    > I thought everyone here was up to speed on Barnett’s 2004 statement

    I am, yes.

    > My suggestion was that this unfairness will be eliminated by extending the formula to cover the regions of England.

    Then you don’t understand basic mathematics.

  35. DocBud,
    Assessing that the Union is better than independence, is not “bottling it”. What a bizarre conclusion.

    No I can’t justify my comment about Scottish achievement, must of us are aware that they seem to have been ahead in engineering, science, education, etc etc. Even football, until they took the entirely sensible decision to not bother any more.

  36. The latest from Miliband and Labour is that Scottish Devo-Max should go ahead full speed but English devo needs time and careful thought and should definitely not happen before the next general election.

    Well fancy him thinking that!

  37. BraveFart – “Indeed. Imagine, for example, he is PM and we became involved in an actual and serious war with a reasonably competent opponent. Does anyone believe we would stand a chance, despite the (declining) abilities of our armed forces which, ultimately, depend on the LEADERSHIP of politicians?”

    For the last 60 odd years the British government has put the interests of BAe and a small number of politicians in marginal electorates ahead of the lives and well being of our soldiers. Miliband is just the last in a long line of sad sack politicians who do not deserve to command.

    But then the Top Brass has not been much better.

    I only assume they figured the game was up if they ever fought the Soviet Union so they should concentrate on anything other than war-fighting. Such as feather bedding their retirements.

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