The Dis-United Kingdom Thread - (Indyref 2, United Ireland poll, Welsh independence)

[Lang Spoon]

And an Indy Scotland would be exporting to England at least, when the wind powered part of the grid has a surplus.

[Nocturnal Submission]

PT's not gonna like this.

Ah well.

I've seen some messageboards where deviation from the general theme is suppressed by the moderators with a ruthlessness that would make Seumas Milne gasp with pleasure, but I'm not a big fan.

I'd kind of like threads to have sub-headings with can either be used to explain obscure or punning titles or be updated to indicate a shift in the direction of the conversation.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I think diversifying the economy to not be dependant on exporting energy sources of any kind would be more sensible. Also much of the renewable sector remains a reserved power, Osborne fucked Scottish research and private investment in tidal power by cutting tax breaks.

Well, partly turning the country into a renewable energy test lab and using the knowledge gleaned to establish manufacturing facilities and provide consultancy services to the rest of the world wouldn't be the worst direction for the country to take.

[ursus arctos]

That's interesting. Can you expand a bit on what you saw?

1984 Dublin reminded me of a provincial Polish city that was down on its luck. Łódź, maybe. It was grey, cold, and everything was falling apart, whether it was Georgian row houses or Dalymount Park. People drank to forget the reality of their existence and young people with ambition couldn't wait to emigrate.

1996 Dublin was very much in transition. Some people had made money (often in the UK or US) and brought some of it back. Other people were beginning to discover that you could make money without leaving the country. People who had emigrated became to stay at home after they came back for holidays or family occasions. Some of them realised that they could make a killing by buying prime residential buildings that had been effectively abandoned for years and fixing them up. It reminded me a lot of parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn in the early 80s, except that we never let our Georgian architectural heritage get that bad. The equivalent buildings here were originally constructed after the Civil War.

2005 Dublin was what you would get if much of a decent size city's population went on a long cocaine binge. It was wild. People were making obscene amounts of money without any real understanding of how they were doing it. They built because they could, sort of like the Chinese ghost cities.

[Lang Spoon]

Yep but that will need some powers currently held by a WM govt at best ambivalent re Climate change devolved to Scotland. And the likes of Denmark and S Korea have a massive head start, partly through that gimlet eyed cokehead Osborne fucking Scotland's renewable strategy (whether purposefully or negligently) five years back.

[Lang Spoon]

2005, christ. I wish someone had spiked a week's worth of the city's coke with strong microdots back then, the crisis of conscience would have been visible from space. Peak Bonfire of the Cunts and Helipads.

[Nocturnal Submission]

1984 Dublin reminded me of a provincial Polish city that was down on its luck. Łódź, maybe. It was grey, cold, and everything was falling apart, whether it was Georgian row houses or Dalymount Park. People drank to forget the reality of their existence and young people with ambition couldn't wait to emigrate.

1996 Dublin was very much in transition. Some people had made money (often in the UK or US) and brought some of it back. Other people were beginning to discover that you could make money without leaving the country. People who had emigrated became to stay at home after they came back for holidays or family occasions. Some of them realised that they could make a killing by buying prime residential buildings that had been effectively abandoned for years and fixing them up. It reminded me a lot of parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn in the early 80s, except that we never let our Georgian architectural heritage get that bad. The equivalent buildings here were originally constructed after the Civil War.

2005 Dublin was what you would get if much of a decent size city's population went on a long cocaine binge. It was wild. People were making obscene amounts of money without any real understanding of how they were doing it. They built because they could, sort of like the Chinese ghost cities.

Quite the transformation. Your description its '80s manifestation is about as damning as I could possibly imagine.

I've only visited a few times, firstly in 1995, but my trips were brief and any conclusions would be superficial.

I'll be interested to hear what OTF's native Dubs think of your analysis.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Yep but that will need some powers currently held by a WM govt at best ambivalent re Climate change devolved to Scotland. And the likes of Denmark and S Korea have a massive head start, partly through that gimlet eyed cokehead Osborne fucking Scotland's renewable strategy (whether purposefully or negligently) five years back.

TBH I was thinking more on a long-term, post-independence basis.

What powers that Westminster currents hold for Scotland would you like to see transferred, with your preference for full sovereignty a given?

[Lang Spoon]

Energy is a reserved power (Holyrood uses jurisdiction over planning laws to approve or refuse energy (eg fracking) projects but lacks proper competency), so that for a start. I'd have been happy enuf with Devo Max pre Brexit (esp as it would have likely been a Free State style stepping stone), so all powers over taxation also.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Energy is a reserved power (Holyrood uses jurisdiction over planning laws to approve or refuse energy (eg fracking) projects but lacks proper competency), so that for a start. I'd have been happy enuf with Devo Max pre Brexit (esp as it would have likely been a Free State style stepping stone), so all powers over taxation also.

So if the Scottish government as currently constituted wanted to encourage the renewable energy industry with grants, tax breaks, tax penalties in the non-renewables sector or whatever, their powers are limited or non-existent?

[Lang Spoon]

Yup. Scotland has fuck all taxation powers compared to a US State or a German Lander. It can tinker but has no real power outside individual income tax, council tax, stamp duty, Air Passenger tax. corporation tax and the like is fully reserved. It may have some leeway with grants, but not much.

even the plastic bag levy isn't allowed to be a tax where revenue accrues to the state (as in Ireland) cos that power hasn't been granted by the Big State. Instead, the law is merely that stores have to charge for a placcy bag.

[elguapo4]

Quite the transformation. Your description its '80s manifestation is about as damning as I could possibly imagine.

I've only visited a few times, firstly in 1995, but my trips were brief and any conclusions would be superficial.

I'll be interested to hear what OTF's native Dubs think of your analysis.

Ursus has pretty much hit the nail on the head, I was 20 in 1984,and you don't notice when you're in the middle of it,but Dublin, and Ireland, was a grim old place. I've always been lucky work wise, I left school in 1981, got a job with a local employer, then joined the Post office in 1985,and have been there in various capacities ever since, but I saw many of my friends driven nearly mad with frustration at unemployment. And I lived in Dublin, when I used to travel around the country for football games, you'd pull in to small towns along the way and think "how can people live here "
I used to deliver the post around Dublin city centre and one of my favourite deliveries was along the North quays out to the ferry terminal, no one wanted to do it because it was so long, but there was nothing out there, now it's Dublin's financial centre.
I remember green shoots of recovery in the mid 90s, there seemed to be no unemployed and people were optimistic. By 2005, we had totally lost the run of ourselves, and anyone with any sense could see we were heading off the edge of a cliff.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

In 1987, my mam dropped my dad and my sister and myself off at the gates of the phoenix park, and we walked the length of the quays into town. One in two houses had a roof, one in three had windows, and these were independent of each other, so about one in six had both. Ireland was completely Bankrupt at the time, and not in the relatively sedate way that countries go bankrupt now. the bits of the Commitments shot around Smithfield are the clearest things I can remember. I remember my dad telling me that the made the spy who came in from the cold in Smithfield, because it was the only place in europe in 1965 that resembled post war Berlin.

The last scene where 'wilson Pickett' pulls up in the big car takes place in an area of utter desolation, but the huge metal pressurized diving bell in the background indicates that it's right beside my old flat, and half way between the Bank of New York and State Street.

[elguapo4]

In 1987, my mam dropped my dad and my sister and myself off at the gates of the phoenix park, and we walked the length of the quays into town. One in two houses had a roof, one in three had windows, and these were independent of each other, so about one in six had both. Ireland was completely Bankrupt at the time, and not in the relatively sedate way that countries go bankrupt now. the bits of the Commitments shot around Smithfield are the clearest things I can remember. I remember my dad telling me that the made the spy who came in from the cold in Smithfield, because it was the only place in europe in 1965 that resembled post war Berlin.

The last scene where 'wilson Pickett' pulls up in the big car takes place in an area of utter desolation, but the huge metal pressurized diving bell in the background indicates that it's right beside my old flat, and half way between the Bank of New York and State Street.

That scene was on Great Britain quay, at the time the only thing there was an illegal travellers halting site, now Bono and the Edge are building their phallic monstrosity down there.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I was just a little bit further up off john rogerson's quay. (Behind the colombia mills, which only closed as a 'venue' five years after the apartments there were built.) I'm impressed at how completely and thoroughly windmill lane got erased. In that guinness Ad where Michael Fassbender swims to America to say sorry to some other lad, he walks out the door of my apartment building, then he clearly takes a wrong turn at the end of lime street, because the next shot is of him coming back up great Britain quay.

[Balderdasha]

One issue that I've never seen anyone address in the Scottish independence question is the coastline.

So, there is a company called The Crown Estate. It controls everything that used to be owned personally by the Queen but was handed over 'to the nation' in exchange for, in effect, an annual salary. The Conservatives changed the rules a few years back so I think the Queen now gets 10% of the revenue while the rest of it is ploughed back into the company or goes directly to the government. Anyway, one of the more interesting things that the Crown Estate owns is 55% of the UK shoreline and 100% of the UK seabed up to 12 nautical miles around the whole of the UK. Every single one of the UK's offshore wind turbines has leased land from the Crown Estate to be built. Same with offshore oil platforms. The Crown Estate also owns masses of property like most of Regent Street, the Windsor estate, lots of big shopping centres and farmland across the UK. There's also a nifty clause that states that any property where ownership remains unproven for, I think, 75 years, reverts to being owned by the Crown Estate. It's all separate from the Queen's private palaces like Buckingham palace and Balmoral.

But, Scotland keeps on saying how much revenue it gets from the energy industries, yes? What happens if the Crown Estate refuses to rent the land any more?

[anton pulisov]

Besides the fact that Ireland was the poorest country in the EEC at the time, there's the fact that suburbanisation had taken hold all across the western world in the 1960s and 1970s. Parts of Amsterdam were also in disrepair in the 1980s.

[ursus arctos]

As were significant swathes of London.

Though Dublin (and Ireland) still stood out to me, largely for the reason you state. It was a strikingly poor country.

[Lang Spoon]

I believe management of the Crown Estates were devolved to the Scottish Parliament in 2017.

it would be some brass neck for rUK to try and get them back in the event of Indy. So they probably would.

[ad hoc]

One issue that I've never seen anyone address in the Scottish independence question is the coastline.

So, there is a company called The Crown Estate. It controls everything that used to be owned personally by the Queen but was handed over 'to the nation' in exchange for, in effect, an annual salary. The Conservatives changed the rules a few years back so I think the Queen now gets 10% of the revenue while the rest of it is ploughed back into the company or goes directly to the government. Anyway, one of the more interesting things that the Crown Estate owns is 55% of the UK shoreline and 100% of the UK seabed up to 12 nautical miles around the whole of the UK. Every single one of the UK's offshore wind turbines has leased land from the Crown Estate to be built. Same with offshore oil platforms. The Crown Estate also owns masses of property like most of Regent Street, the Windsor estate, lots of big shopping centres and farmland across the UK. There's also a nifty clause that states that any property where ownership remains unproven for, I think, 75 years, reverts to being owned by the Crown Estate. It's all separate from the Queen's private palaces like Buckingham palace and Balmoral.

But, Scotland keeps on saying how much revenue it gets from the energy industries, yes? What happens if the Crown Estate refuses to rent the land any more?

Surely "the Crown Estate" is effectively the state. (I mean it;s tied up in Britain's weird monarchic history, but this land is to all intents and purposes state land. So when the state changes the ownership transfers. I presume when Slovakia and Czechia split apart, land which was the property of (or administered by) the state of Czechoslovakia was handed over to the relevant one of the two governments

[Patrick Thistle]

. It's all separate from the Queen's private palaces like Balmoral.

Although this is an interesting point as well. The Royal Family own a few places in Scotland themselves. (Castle of May, is it, in the far North?) What happens to them?

Not sure what the SNP position is on the Monarchy. I know Plaid say they are Republican so if they led Wales into independence the links to the monarchy would be abolished, presumably. I don't know if the Royal Family own anything in Wales, but I assume it would be confiscated on behalf of the nation.

We would also have to rename at least 5 hospitals. Prince Phillip has a hospital named after him in Llanelli, of all places.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

There's also a nifty clause that states that any property where ownership remains unproven for, I think, 75 years, reverts to being owned by the Crown Estate.

There has been a lot of talk about this round here in recent years. A once quite grand (for Carlisle) hotel went through a few changes in ownership before eventually ending up owned by a company that went into liquidation, and the property went into escheat. The common belief was that this means the Crown Estate owns it and is responsible for it. When it started falling to bits, it quickly became apparent that things are more complicated than this - it is the responsibility of the local authority to keep it safe, until a buyer can be found, in which case the proceeds of the sale would fall to the Crown Estate. The hotel is on an important road link out of the city centre, and close to the main railway line, and the road has been closed twice pending structural assessments (for weeks at a time, putting small businesses on the brink). At the third time of this happening, the Council declared it unsafe and appointed a demolition contractor. Despite the advice of Carlisle's numerous and hitherto secret structural engineers, who were unanimous in their social media verdict of JUST F***ING KNOCK IT DOON, the demolition has been tricky due to the hotel's location. Anyway it is now demolished, the whole episode has cost the Council hundreds of thousands of pounds, and the only impact on the Crown Estate is that they've missed out on a few quid of windfall receipts.

[Lang Spoon]

Officially the Nats are Monarchists, and the Crown would revert to pre 1707 Union of being separately sovereign of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England. Plenty Republican sentiment in the party but (as with Scottish Labour).

[Lang Spoon]

Balmoral is privately owned so the fuckers would keep that in any case. Holyrood is a Royal Palace, and would make a good art gallery on their abolition.

[Duncan Gardner]

Briefly,

Dublin in the 80s

Aye, it was bleak. I remember going down with my Mum and Aunt to have a look before I started at University there. Whole areas of the Northside were much more desolate than Belfast- even the non-derelict bids looked like Eastern Europe as Ursus says

Scottish Nationalism in the 20s

Agree with much above- Sturgeon wants a consistent poll lead (60%?) before seriously demanding another Indyref, but before that Eck's trial is a risk to her personally as well as the Party

Against that, can a Monarchist opposition putting so much trust in a 93 year old and a football team finishing second in a one-horse race every season really sustain?

Ulster Unionism in the 30s (percent)

They're probably fcuked mid-term (10-15 years), but will keep frothing awhile yet. The DUP have even managed to find a young woman MP (Carla Lockhart) to replace Emma Lately-Parliamentary. Carla is on the hardcore religious anti-sex wing. Not that they really have another, but bear with me.

A sad if telling tale from Fermanagh-South Tyrone (Nationalist majority 57). My mate's aunt Dorothy died last Wednesday, so her 5 kids and many adult grandkids ((all living locally) didn't vote. They're basically all Unionists so might have tipped it...