The British government is closing Portsmouth’s shipyard to protect jobs at the Clyde shipyards in Glasgow in a transparently political move to placate the Scots ahead of their independence referendum.
Just look at these comments from some of the English workers the Brits are sacrificing to protect Scottish jobs:
It’s definitely a political decision. All to do with Scotland and Scottish independence; it’s disgusting. They don’t care about us.
This is simply pandering to the Scottish government before the independence referendum next year.
Even the MP for Portsmouth is unhappy:
It’s a massive and grave error on the part of the government to put more shipbuilding in Scotland. It’s political. It always has been.
And then there’s the comments section in the Express …
Disgusted that our weak government is letting this happen – to shut Portsmouth and give new contracts to a Scottish port is despicable.
What a disgrace, blatant politically inspired bribery for the jocks…well what if they say YES to independence anyway…I do hope they do vote to leave and let the politicos explain why we are buying ships off a foreign country?
i hear that its portsmouth yard that will close rather than the scottish ones..i wonder why that is. is there a referendum coming up
Even some Guardian readers are having a pop …
Scottish jobs saved at the expense of English workers.
Portsmouth is being sacrificed for saving Scotland ahead of a referendum
A thousand workers in Portsmouth thrown on the scrapheap just so project fear can keep making a spurious point about the “benefits of the union”. Playing politics with peoples lives yet again.
Helps the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK I suppose…
Then there’s the Telegraph …
Why give it to the Scots? Are their unemployed more deserving. Sadly, they are never going to vote for independence so shafting the ENglish YET AGAIN is horrific.
This is little short of treason by Cameron to the English in a futile political sop to the Scottish. If he had any balls at all he would preserve the English yards, scrap the Scottish yards and state that the decision would be reviewed after the Scottish referendum on independence.
Why are they trying to buy Scottish votes, the Glasgow yards are hotbeds of socialism and militants, they should take the hits and not the English yard, kill two birds with one stone.
Short term daftness to rely on warship building in a country that is not committed to the UK. This has Cameron McFudge written all over it. The lads in Portsmouth should have been supported, not the would-be defectors in Govan. Salmond will be laughing yet again.
A disgusting sop to the Scots nationalists. What ought to have been brought home to them is that even the threat of independence costs Scots jobs. As if a separate UK government would ever build ships in a foreign Scotland . . . Should it ever happen Portsmouth will need rebuilding from scratch. I’m a Conservative Party member but if there was an election tomorrow I wouldn’t vote for them. They’ve just sold England down the river for short-term and disguided political reasons!
If this isn’t a political decision, I don’t know what is. But in the unlikely event of Scotland voting for independence next year, I trust that this decision will be reversed in double quick time.
The sacked workers in Portsmouth know they’re being sacrificed by the Brits to keep the Scots happy, politicians know the workers in Portsmouth are being sacrificed by the Brits to keep the Scots happy and the general public know the workers in Portsmouth are being sacrificed by the Brits to keep the Scots happy. There is no price the British won’t pay to keep the Scots in the union as long as it’s the English that are paying.
I used to think there was a place for England in a reformed British union but it’s pretty clear that England will never be important to the Brits. It’s time for English independence.
The EU project to set the people of he UK at each other’s throats is proceeding very nicely
Like every would-be ominant European power, the EU wants to break up he EU
And most people do not recognise the manipulation.
This is nothing to do with the EU. Apart from the fact they devised the tender rules that undermine the ability of the shipyards to take on commercial contracts.
You keep slagging the ‘Brits’.
But , according to yourself, the English are 85% OF THE BRITS.
So, you are slagging yourself.
Which is entirely the right thing to do.
I’m not British, I’m English.
I noticed this quote in the Independent
“But Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, and Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish Secretary, signalled that today’s announcement could be reversed if the Scots opted to leave the United Kingdom.
Mr Hammond said: “The UK has always built complex warships in the United Kingdom so that it has sovereign control over the operation of those contracts.”
Mr Carmichael told the Commons it would be “difficult to see how the work would go to Scotland” if it was independent.”
So not so much bribery as blackmail.
Empty threat, at least for quite a few years, there’s no yard anywhere else in the world that could build the Type 26 that has enough extra capacity to fulfill the UK’s needs, Never mind in England
rather build them in argentina than shitland
It may stave off Scottish ‘Independence’ and keep the sham that is the so called “United Kingdom” in existence (in name only) for a little longer, it may also be the seed that grows into English Independence, enough is enough.
How can the English be independent ?? You can’t afford to be independent.
£1.3 TRILLION in debt, borrowing £20 billion a month,relying on Scottish oil money, Scots taxpayers paying for English dole scroungers who are so lazy they have to get Poles in to work in the fruit picking, you’re broke.
Love that SNP maths. The national debt is shared between all the member states of the UK, including Scotland. All north sea oil and gas tax (even that raised in English waters) doesn’t cover the subsidy the English taxpayer pays to Scotland.
It was primarily a business decision, The Clyde yards were the most capable so they were kept, The Portsmouth Yard was unfortunately surplus to requirements.
It does put the RN into an awkward situation where they will be forced to build modern warships on the Clyde since there are no yards anywhere in the world that could build the Type 26 frigates that are not already too busy building ships for their own country except from those on the Clyde,
Claims that the RN will build their ships abroad are frankly baseless, Foreign Naval shipyards just don’t have 10-12 years spare capacity unless you propose building our ships in Russia.
It was primarily a political decision. If the Scotch yards are ‘the most capable’, a bald statement not backed with any evidence, they are so only because the British government has always given them priority, diverting work that could and should have been done in the English yards at Portsmouth, Devonport and Chatham, not to mention The Mersey and The Tyne. Yet again the British government protects the whingeing Jocks from the worst of any cuts and England pays the price. It’s precisely the same when army regiments are cut. The day is coming when we boot you scrounging bastards out on your arse, and the sooner the better.
Don’t forget RAF St Athan getting public money to build facilities to take away a contract from Cosford for no other reason than St Athan is Welsh and Cosford is English.
I’m more of a technical person than a politician, hence my comments on the shipyards. I don’t know enough about RAF St Athan but if investment is being directed by the government to win favour in the devolved administrations then that is entirely wrong and something should be done.
I have read figures somewhere however that Scotland contributes more money (~£2 Billion) to the MOD than is spent on units stationed in Scotland or contracts placed with companies operating in Scotland which does lead me to questions that however.
I think we’re certainly taking our share of the defence cuts, in the last few years we’ve lost 2 out of 3 of our RAF bases as well as a little less than half of the recent BAE job losses which unfortunately meant the closure of the Portsmouth yard.
English jobs weren’t sacrificed for jobs in Scotland, jobs were simply lost and a country of 55 million lost slightly more than a country of 5 million, while regrettable it certainly isn’t victimising either side.
Would you complain if UK shipbuilding was centred on the Tyne and a less capable Scottish yard was shut down to keep open the better yards on the Tyne?
English jobs were sacrificed to save Scottish jobs. Jobs were lost in Scotland but the industry remains intact complete with the associated industry in and around Glasgow to support the shipyards. Closing the shipyard entirely in Portsmouth also means the end of the industries that supported it – the suppliers of raw materials, tools, people, training, testing, electricians, builders, maintenance people, etc. All those people that were needed to keep the shipyard going and the people who were needed to keep those people going – most of them will be out of work now.
If you were to cut 1700 jobs by closing one of the Clyde yards there’d be proportional cuts in the industry up there, while increasing costs and reducing the ability of the United Kingdom to build warships.
In the end you’re inflicting 2000+ job losses on a city which already has a 30% unemployment rate for no commercial benefit (frankly the opposite) to save a less capable yard in a city with a 3% unemployment rate.
I’m going to turn the tables here and say that your proposal is sacrificing Scottish jobs to save English ones, unless like others here you view the Scots as sub-human.
Closing one of the two shipyards on the Clyde wouldn’t have destroyed an entire industry and supply chain like it is in Portsmouth.
No, but it would of slashed the number of jobs in most parts of it, in real terms it’s still inflicting 2000+ job losses on a city with 30% unemployment to preserve jobs in an uneconomic yard,
sooner we’re free of the parasitical celts..the better.and a removal of them in england of the unemployed scot..in hospital..english uni..in a english prison..coupled with proper border controls.out of the eu..out of the commonwealth..out of the uk..get rid of the echr..send all asylum seekers and illegals along with any offspring spawned here back to their country of cultural identity…or closest.should be easy to cross reference all data,criminal,births,marriages,deaths,n.i,benefits,coupled with dna and fingerprint/photo id cards…and hey presto…we’d keep english airways running for a good few years…the celts could be dropped off at the respective borders and made to walk over the border…
Notice wonko didn’t reply to your point about the Tyne. A beaten man talk about something else rather than the point he was unable to answer.
I did answer it, I said closing one of the two yards on the Clyde wouldn’t have destroyed an entire industry like it has in Portsmouth.
…and I was trying to be nice an’all eh?
Well, the facts are that the Portsmouth yard only had the ability to build OPVs – mainly for fishery protection, unfortunately not a unique capability in the UK, they can also make sections of larger warships but not a full ship, these sections would then have to be taken to the Clyde to be completed.
The Clyde yards on the other hand can build anything from Destroyers to helicopter carriers to large sections of Aircraft carrier, there’s even room for expansion on the river for when the Royal Navy finally tries to rebuild it’s numbers. The Clyde yards survival is essential for the Royal Navy to build it’s fleet, even with independence.
Hi ScottishGuy
For god sake don’t use facts, it only upsets them………
What bothers me in all this is that 1,775 jobs are being lost at both English and Scottish shipyards (835 jobs are going north of the border).
Now this may well be a cynical attempt by the Tories to blackmail Scots into voting to stay in the UK, but to me the important thing is that nearly 2000 families are losing their bread-winner.
A typical Jock response: asserting a McStigmatic fiction (Scotch Mist?) as an incontrovertible fact and dismissing any English critic as ‘ignorant’. He hasn’t used any ‘facts’, he’s simply made unsupported statements that don’t rest on any genuine facts and don’t stand up to even cursory scrutiny. We’re wise to it Jock and it doesn’t work.
Here are some facts for you English subsidy junkie boy.
Unemployment-
Scotland 6.4%
England 7.1%
(January 2014 figures)
So Scottish taxpayers pay for English dole scroungers.
Scotland 8.4% of ‘UK’ population , but pays 9.4% of taxation. (‘UK’ govt figures, financial year 2012/3)
So for every £1 you pay in tax, I pay £1.12.
So called Barnett Formula subsidy £9 billion (1.5% of total’UK’ govt spending of £600 billion)
Oil and gas revenue, including direct taxation , and Income tax and NI payments from oil industry employees that goes directly to Wastemonster equals £17 billion (2012/3).
Leaves us about £8 billion in the black, £1600 for every man woman and child in Scotland.
Whisky industry accounts for 25% OF ENTIRE ‘UK’ S FOOD AND DRINK EXPORTS.
England is a high unemployment bankrupt nation borrowing £20 billion a month (88% isspent in England), £1.3 TRILLION in debt.
That money has been wasted on tax cuts for the rich, £15 million per day in Afghanistan , Iraq wars, Trident etc etc etc, NOT subsidising the Scots. Dennis Healey even admitted it.
Try reading the Mc|Crone report, which confirms (I quote) ‘an independent Scotland would have an embarasing surplus’ etc etc.
There are 5.3 million sore backs up here from carrying you lot around for the last 300 years, and it’s just about to stop.
You need to learn the difference between England and Britain. The British are running up debts, not England. London continues to contribute more than a fifth of the UK’s GDP alone. North Sea oil and gas tax revenue is approximately £7bn whilst the Barnett bribe is around £11.3bn. That’s a £4.3bn deficit. Whiskey tax raises about £4bn (some of that is levied on English whiskey). That leaves at least a £300m deficit. The £11.3bn Barnett bribe is on identifiable public spending, the rest of the subsidy is tied up in reserved matters. It is an indisputable fact that Scotland was bankrupt in 1707 and the English have been subsidising the Scots ever since. The sooner you go the better but sadly that won’t be this year because unlike you most Scots know that they can’t survive without English money.
Any job losses are terrible and you are right in saying that they are not simply English cuts, maybe if the EU loosened it’s rules on tendering for shipbuilding contracts Portsmouth may of been able to sustain itself on commercial vessels.
a punch in your mouth would do wonders for your thinking…i’d happily do it if you like…you sound like the green half of glasgow…the provo lovers…
You confirm what I have said. The inability of any English yards to construct large warships is due solely to their being downgraded so that Scotch yards, which are always given priority for orders, can be upgraded. The facts are that there is no English site that does not have the potential to exceed the capacity of any yard that could be built on the Clyde. The Mersey, Thames, Tyne and Severn are all better sites than the Clyde, even the Medway, which is the second largest natural harbour in the world, is at least equal to it. Portsmouth harbour could easily accommodate a yard large enough to cater for the English navy’s future needs without putting the contracts out to foreign yards.
You need to take off your tartan tinted spectacles: we don’t need Scotland, or whingeing Scotch beggars, for anything, whether or not they’re trying to be nice.
To be honest I’d be happy enough if Scotland and England went their separate ways, both sides seem to think they’d be better off so it seems a win-win situation.
I don’t know if the Clyde is or isn’t the best site, the thing is that it’s established there and the cost of moving it would be cost prohibitive at this time.
More McStigmatic nonsense. Large ship building was well established in England until successive British governments destroyed it for to save the Scotch yards, and an English Parliament could ensure that it is re-established. The cost in English pounds to the English tax payer, Scotland making no net contribution to the Exchequer, is of no concern to the Scotch.
The Scots represent 8.4 per cent of the UK’s total population, but they generate 9.4 per cent of its annual revenues in tax – which is equivalent to £1,000 extra per Scot.
Interesting way of not making a contribution
we’d be spending ENGLISH money on ENGLISH yards…you numpty..if you jocks think you can support yourselves better independently,than as part of the uk…then grow a pair and vote for it.and if the gutless jocks wont….can the powers that be give us english a vote…
fuck off then…bet you wont vote for independence..and the reason scots wear nothing under their kilts……no balls
It’s worth mentioning that Scotland has lost it’s fair share of naval yards as well, Rosyth has been drastically cut down in size and the number of yards on the Clyde is a fraction of what it was in the past, since we’ve just taken a little under half of this cut I don’t think anyone can say that with 1/11 of the population of England we’re not taking our fair share of the cuts.
The people of England have deliberately been ignored for too long, The British Governemnt works for Scottish interests at our expense, and we don’t have any say let alone care about Scotland. There can be no doubt the UK Union does not work for England and we must do something about it. In the word of Nelson “England expects that every man will do his duty” either an English Parliament in a federal UK or Independence for England, the current set up is no longer tolerable. Spread the Word.
Why do you propose a federal ‘U’K? What possible benefit can it do the English to be in any sort of union with the Celts? Complete independence for England is all that is acceptable, with The Northern Irish, Scotch and Welsh treated just like any other alien people – passports, visas, work permits, vetting etc.
This isn’t the first time an English yard has been sacrificed so that Scotch yards coule be spared. Cast your mind back thirty years or so and recall that another historic English dockyard, Chatham, was closed so that the Jocks wouldn’t suffer, and the arguments used then were remarkably similar (Scotch yards most suitable etc. – all bullshit). At the time one of the other arguments used was that unemployment was a ‘totally unacceptable’ 9% (if I recall correctly) in Scotland and further job losses would be insupportable. In the Medway towns however, a safe Tory seat, the closure of the dockyard pushed unemployment to 27%.
There are many other examples, in many other economic areas, of England suffering for the Scotch, who never do anything except bleat about how unfair things are for them. Fishing is a particularly notable example but there have been instances in the motor industry, aerospace, and other sectors, as well as the number of public sector jobs placed there, in which Scotland is favoured far in excess of both their population numbers and their value and contribution to the ‘union’.
Job losses in Scotland? Who gives a damn. Let them all lose their jobs and starve as far as I’m concerned; tghere are fewer than two hundred thousand net tax payers there, and most of those are English.
Must you keep using words such as “Jock”, “Scotch” and the like? It doesn’t make people take your points any more seriously.
Personally I agree with you, by and large (tone excepted) – the Scottish shipyards have probably been favoured historically over their English counterparts, which is why the yard on the Clyde is the only one capable of building the large warships the Navy needs.
If the Scots do vote for independence next year that will leave the rump UK that is left without any ability to construct its own warships, a major strategic asset, and that would make the UK dependent on a foreign country for its warships. That shows shocking short-sightedness from the UK government over a period of decades, not just during the last few weeks.
Yes I must, and I couldn’t give a damn whether loftier and intellectually superior types like you (Do you read the Independent?) take me ‘more seriously’, which rather implies that, my ‘tone excepted’, my points are taken seriously.
Spend more than a week or two in the absurdly over rated little backwater that is Scotland and you’ll discover that we English are called considerably worse, every day, without anyone remarking that the abuse is unnecessary.
Your statement of the blindingly obvious re. warship procurement post dissolution does not show you to be a profound thinker, and your apparent inability to see that Scotch independence, in any case in the gift of the English, whether they care to admit the fact or not, will dissolve the ‘U’K completely and not leave a ‘rump’ confirms that impression.
Mr Gruff
Much as I agree with Simon in his dislike of the use of racist language, please don’t stop as this blog would be a much duller place without it.
I have spent less than a day in Scotland, (Edinburgh to be exact) and I found it an interesting and friendly place. I have however been all over England and Wales and have found quite a large number of over-rated little backwaters, most of which I wouldn’t like to frequent after dark.
I don’t think Scotland has a monopoly over those.
By the way, if it is relevant you may wish to know that I read the Independent and also The Times, if that in any way helps you form an opinion of me.
Your language is rather offensive, Guess I had it coming for going on an English Nationalist blog, a little consideration would go a long way in making people from Scotland take your argument more seriously.
You’re the first English person I’ve ever heard complaining of abuse for being English in Scotland (And I live here).
I wouldn’t call it over-rated, If you spend some time traveling through the hills you’ll certainly find some places that are certainly under-rated, I’ve been traveling around for years and I can still find things I’ve never seen before.
Of course it’s not to everyone’s taste, and there are certainly a few places that would qualify as over-rated backwaters, and the temperature can’t exactly match the highs of the Spanish coast. Perhaps you weren’t lucky enough to visit the best areas off Scotland?
If you want to hear offensive language try being English in Scotland. As for consideration, you bastards have had far too much of that from us; my particular well of tolerance for you is dry.
If I’m the first person you’ve heard you must have cotton wool stuffed in your ears.
Your use of language is hardly inspiring me to be tolerant, maybe a little mutual respect might do a little good?
Where were you in Scotland? I’m not naive enough to believe that abuse of people because they are English doesn’t happen at all but I would be interested to know where and when an English person would be subject to the torrents of abuse you are describing.
I don’t care what impression you form of me William, but I do care about how the English nationalist movement is perceived. Like it or not impressions matter, and in a media- and information-dominated age how movements are perceived matters almost as much as the message they stand for.
A message promoted on blogs where one of the main commentators uses language that is offensive and even racist will get precisely nowhere. Like it or not, perceptions matter, and if you can’t get your head around that fact perhaps you’d better keep your opinions to yourself.
To be fair to Mr Gruff, this is a blog and as long as he doesn’t break Mr Wonkos rules he can say whatever he wants.
Personally I don’t like his use of language at all and I certainly don’t like his assumptions and depiction of the Scottish people, but he isn’t here to please me or anyone else and I don’t think he claims to represent any particular group.
He is simply stating what he believes – and lets be honest, at least you know EXACTLY where he stands on this topic…
I would actually much rather read his posts that something that starts “I’m not racist but…. and then reads like a BNP leaflet.
Personally I think that people should be encouraged to say what that actually believe than try to sanitise it for publication because anything other than that starts to sound like censorship. Besides, a lot of the views expressed here don’t actually hold up that well when you put them under any form of scrutiny.
To quote Mr Gruff
“Job losses in Scotland? Who gives a damn. Let them all lose their jobs and starve as far as I’m concerned; there are fewer than two hundred thousand net tax payers there, and most of those are English”
Where do you start? Does anyone take any of that seriously?
That said, I do sometimes read some of the comments posted and then hold my head in my hands in despair and wonder what planet some of these people are on.
‘I don’t care what impression you form of me William, but I do care about how the English nationalist movement is perceived.’
And it’s your God given right not just to define the image but to do all you can, in your superior yet effete and ineffectual way, to protect it. There is no ‘English nationalist movement’: each of us is as entitled as anyone else to express his opinion, whether anyone else likes it or not. Clowns like you are simply superannuated little emperors, the sort who form residents’ committees simply to give a veneer of authority to their neurotic attempts to constrain how their neighbours behave. You huff and puff but when push comes to shove you hide behind your garden gate and leave the donkey work to others.
You’re not in charge here, little man, and ‘like it or not’, you don’t matter at all. ‘If you can’t get your head around that fact perhaps you’d better keep your opinions to yourself’ and mind your own business.
I fear I may have struck a nerve, given the amount of personal invective you use. I do not claim to be in charge of anything, in fact I’m definitely more of an outside observer, but I know one thing William, and that’s if any English pressure group ended up being led by someone like you it would sink into irrelevance overnight. You accuse me of being “effete” and “intellectual”, well in that same spirit in you I see a blustering, ignorant throwback who spouts his ignorance wherever and whenever, invited or not.
I am certainly not in charge, but neither are you, and if you think you can go around browbeating people, “little man”, then you are mistaken.
“tghere are fewer than two hundred thousand net tax payers there, and most of those are English.”
I seriously doubt that, Do you have a source?
Chatham by 84 was a submarine repair centre and naval base, I think the Clyde yard in question in that case was the Faslane, If so I don’t think many in Scotland would be upset at not having to store the UK’s nuclear warheads.
The motor industry in Scotland hasn’t existed for a while,the last car factory closed years back. With fishing we have most of the UK’s seas off our shores and all British fishing vessels are free to use it. Given UKIP and similar party’s rhetoric I wouldn’t be surprised that if the tables were turned there would be complaints about Scottish vessels fishing in English waters and moves to curb this put on the table.
We’re not a different people, like the rest of the UK people in Scotland just want to get on with their lives, you can’t just destroy our jobs every time a cut has to be made, We’ll take our fair share of the cuts but we can’t take all of them.
You’re right, you probably don’t need us, yet your politicians fight every attempt we make to leave, I’ll do my part by voting Yes next year, you can do yours by voting for an anti-union party.
There aren’t any anti-‘Union’ parties for us in England to vote for.
Actually I think you will find that there are some political parties now that advocate England’s independence from Sctoland. What about the English Democrats?
As far as I have heard the UK govt is giving this contract to a company in Korea, not in Scotland.
The problem with the English Democrats is that they’re useless, bankrupt and overwhelmed by racists.
You could vote green I guess, certainly not ideal but it’s a start,
ScottishGuy, the Greens are just as pro-‘Union’ as the mainstream parties, as far as I can tell.
Wonko, your remark ABOUT THE English Democrats could apply equally to any of the LibLabCon cabal.
My bad, It’s only the Scottish Greens that are pro-independence.
Now, Jocky boy, that just will not do. Scotland has 70% of the ‘U’K’s fishing quotas simply to preserve the greedy Scotch fishing fleets, and for no other reason, even though the Scotch coastline represents less than 40% of the ‘U’K total. England, Wales and Northern Ireland must share the remaining 30% between us. While I lived in Northumberland there was an outcry in Scotland because juristiction over 6,000 square miles of fishery was rightfully returned to England, ending a long standing injustice that the Scotch thought perfectly acceptable, and outcry in Northumberland because the Northumberland mackerel quota was transferred to Scotland, an injustice that the Scotch thought perfectly acceptable, with adverse economic consequences for that English county, an injustice that the Scotch thought perfectly acceptable.
There are no ‘anti-union’ parties in England and we do not have an English constitutional platform on which to voice our grievances. My own MP is a brown nosing carpet-bagging Jock placeman, who asks more substantive questions in parliament about Scotland than on any English matter. Your ignorance of English affairs is risible.
I appreciate the language,
Ahem, http://www.environment.scotland.gov.uk/images/map_sea_areas.jpg
That’s just a wee bit larger than English waters, 70% of UK waters maybe? Perhaps more,
‘… you can’t just destroy our jobs every time a cut has to be made, We’ll take our fair share of the cuts but we can’t take all of them … ‘
This is laughable. You never take your ‘fair’ share, whatever that absurd phrase means; time after time after time it’s England that takes the hit while the Scotch continue to suck greedily and ungratefully at the public tit.
Talking of ‘fair shares’, when the Scotch ‘pairlyment’ building was raising eyebrows because it was ten times over budget (there’s Scotch efficiency for you), I saw comments from Jocks stating that it was right that the English were paying their fair share – I kid you not. That is the way Jocks think: when the bill for a Scotch party has to be paid it’s only fair that the English, who were not invited, should pay.
I’ll vote to kick you greedy grasping bastards out of the ‘union’ only when we have an English Parliament to ensure the British don’t knife us in the back.
Would I be correct in saying that for every job cut by the government around 10 are lost in England?
I’m sure this makes sense in a McScrambled Scotch brain.
Am I right?
1707 Eng/navy = 240 ships. Scot/navy = 3 ships with shipbuilding to match.
English shipbuilding has gone from world leader to non-existent in this shite “Union”.
Glad to see you going for English independence Wonko – how does that fit with UKIP?
You’ll laugh, I did, but I was once told, in all seriousness, that Scotland’s navy was as large as England’s.
The ability of those self-regarding, self-serving clowns to delude themselves is apparently limitless.
I’m not sure that Scotland has a Navy, Army or Air force, in the same way that England hasn’t. I understood that it’s the British Armed Forces aka the Armed Forces of the Crown.
Only since 1707. What are they teaching you up there with all that extra English money the Brits shovel at your woeful education system?
What, all the way up here in North Kent? Strangely enough we never did Scottish military history in our school.
Although their are Scottish regiments, I just assumed that they were all part of Her Majesty’s armed forces.
But then again Prince Philip was born in Greece to a Greek and Danish family and then married into England’s historically German Royal family and he’s the Duke of Edinburgh – so what do I know?
Hmmm, my woeful education system?
Well seeing as I am English I can at last find something that we both agree on……
According to the landmark review of primary education in England by the Cambridge academic Robin Alexander, Scotland’s education system is of a higher calibre than that of England.
Given that the UK education system as a whole is ranked sixth best in the developed world – behind only Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, (according to the global league table published by education firm Pearson) – that makes
Scotland’s one of the worlds elite.
If you want to play with history I could try to hold the English responsible for massacres of the Highlanders during the occupation of the Highlands. As it happens I’m not bitter enough to drag that up.
Now, now Jocky boy, that simply will not do. Quite apart from the fact that you whingeing old women hold us responsible for every thing you mange to make a complete bollox of, the highland clearances were, as every (English) schoolboy knows, an all Scotch affair, and Culloden was simply a Scotch rabble supporting a would-be Italian usurper against a German king sitting on the British throne. Nothing whatsoever to do with the English.
If you want to moan about dispossessions, have a whine about those English estates confiscated by that dribbling fop James I and giving to his sweet Scotch boyfriends.
Meh, I’m not really bitter, it’s ancient history but there was events like the Glencoe massacre along with other heinous acts committed by the King’s army in the Highlands.
the reason the scottish education system is rated higher is because of the third world detrius the SCOTS led labour party’s open door immigration policy..and its deliberate gerrymandering of the population…theiving,lying,cowardly,back stabbing bastards..hopefully when it all kicks off…we english will be sensible enough to place the celts in the same camp as the other undesirables to be driven out of england..there is a reason scots are called PORRIDGE WOGS…
we all know of the football team you support,and the money it has raised for the PIRA.all scotttish service personell living in england should be made to leave england,including any part jock spawned here.they must leave english regiments and join the scottish armed forces and be paid by the scottish taxpayer…LOL
Jocks killing Jocks, for the sheer joy of it, as we have always done, at the behest of some fucktard in either Edinburgh or London, is just the way of things.
The empire was good for us, we could be bastards in far away places, where it was of no importance to anyone of relevance
they didn’t do a very good job….some survived
Simon M: You’ll have to show me where I’ve described you as ‘intellectual’, that’s not the sort of mistake I make. I described you as ‘effete and ineffectual’ but not intellectual; you’re clearly not that.
Hi Mr Gruff
To quote your good self with reference to Simon M
“Yes I must, and I couldn’t give a damn whether loftier and intellectually superior types like you (Do you read the Independent?) take me ‘more seriously’, which rather implies that, my ‘tone excepted’, my points are taken seriously.”
If Simon isn’t an intellectual, that would at least explain why he feels so at home on this blog : )
Your parting line suggests a reasonable grasp of irony yet you seem to have missed completely that implicit in the line you’ve quoted. Perhaps, like Simon M, you aren’t quite as clever as you would have us believe, and why you seem so at home here too.
Nice try. Try again but try harder.
Hi William
Try what exactly?
I merely quoted the paragraph that contained what may or may not be a misunderstanding.
My final line was a joke. I do not claim to be particularly clever and I have no intention of making you believe that I am more or less intelligent than anyone else who comments on this blog.
By the same token I do not judge anyone else’s intelligence here nor do I try to discredit people’s opinions by questioning their intelligence.
Personally I feel at home here because I happen to like lively discussion.