Tubby Isaacs wrote:This is my view, expressed with less of my heat.Eric_WLothian wrote:What Salmond and Sturgeon want is power. They don't really care about how it is achieved, but independence would be their ultimate power grab.PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Hang on though. Remember Salmond (who I don't like btw but have some grudging admiration for) wanted Devo Max not independence. It was sodding Cameron who forced the either / or question on Scotland.
Do you really think Salmond and Sturgeon want full independence?
Devo-max was never a realistic option for a Scotland-only referendum. (This is one, and possibly the only, correct decision by Cameron imo). It's perfectly acceptable for Scotland to vote on leaving the UK 'club' but it would not, I think, be acceptable to vote on changing the rules of the club unless all the members had a say.
The SNP gained their (slim) majority in Holyrood as a result of the defection of the LibDems to the Tories in Westminster the year before. Even then, they only polled 46% on a roughly 50% turnout. Since they have been in power they have frozen council tax, leaving LAs dependent on Holyrood; centralised control over the police (and fire service); tried (ongoing) to remove the requirement for corroborative evidence in court; overturned local planning decisions; taken over the committee system in Holyrood (and put in place their own presiding officer)... I could go on! Are these the actions of a socialist-leaning party or tartan Tories?
The constant carping about how Scotland should have more of everything fails to acknowledge that if they get their demands, other parts of the UK will be worse off.
I'd add what actually happened with the police too. Manic stop and search.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... h-scotland" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Check this out for a defence of it.
Yeah, you, you're young, you look like a criminal.MacAskill said: "It's not rocket science, it's not happen-chance that there's a clear correlation. It's about being proactive, about preventing crime happening in the first place [and] it's reasonable and proportionate. I don't accept that it's discriminatory. It's quite clear and self-evident that crime is disproportionately perpetrated by young people."
and in totak:[Police Scotland] Officers carried out 2,912 searches on children in that age group [8 to 12] between April and December 2013.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-27627154...The force said a total of 640,699 searches were carried out across the 12 months to the end of March.
The figure is three times higher than the 222,315 searches conducted by London's Metropolitan force, which polices a population greater than that of Scotland.