The effects of Scotland's referendum on the rest of England

An interesting side effect of the upcoming referendum is that the rest of England is now beginning to question its place within the UK. While the status quo remained the areas of England, outwith the south east, has accepted their lot. Not any more:

OurKingdom

Carlisle's view

The Cornish republican

England devolve

There are loads more but you get the point.

The Battle of the Hook, Black Watch,Korea 1952

I was reading up on the Korean War and the Battle of the Hook, Korea, 1952 in which my father took part as a member of the Black Watch.

My father, like many soldiers, just wouldn't talk about it and the only way that I was ever able to gain any information about it was to get him drunk, normally rum & pep [peppermint], and join together little bits of info that he let loose. You never know, in those types of situations, whether all these things happened to him personally or happened to other people and he related them as happened to him. That aside it was still interesting listening to him and his cronies about those days. I'll relate what I can, but, obviously, there is some stuff which I will keep to myself; for obvious reasons.

Corp. George Mitchell

On the way out to Korea the Black Watch boarded a ship which took them out there. My father, being the type of man he was, realised that the sailors were entitled to their daily grog and, as was his want, ingratiated himself with the sailors to get his 'share'. One day, in the Med, as they headed towards the Suez canal, he got so drunk he fell overboard and the ship had to stop and return for him. The omens for him weren't too good.

After the Black Watch landed in Korea they were met by an American army band who were playing jazz tunes. The band major [if that is what they were called], after looking at the disembarking Scottish soldiers, enquired of them: "Where are your niggers?" [I know but that's what it was like in those days]. It was politely explained to them that the term 'Black' in Black Watch was a description of their tartan.

Anyway, they proceeded up to their positions on the Hook on the 14th of November, 1952 taking over from the battered US 7th marines. The positions the Black Watch took over were considered inadequate by The Black Watch's C.O., Lieutenant Colonel David Rose. So he ordered the men to start digging and improve the trenches. As usual with men, they complained, but his foresight enabled many of his men to survive when they were overrun.

Rose (right), in command of 1 BW in Korea, accompanies General Collins, the US Army Chief of Staff, during the latter's visit to the Battalion Command Post on The Hook.

During one of the Chinese attacks on the Black Watch's lines my father, who was in charge of a Bren gun post-which was positioned in front of the lines-and was meant to mow down as many Chinese as possible then pick up the gun and return, post haste, to their lines, set up and continue firing. [Not being infantry I don't know about this and just assume that this was the case. Maybe someone will be able to confirm or deny that.] Anyway, as someone once said: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." While stationed at his post the call for chow was made and my father and his mate left their post to get fed. While waiting in line a Chinese mortar attack happened. After the attack was over my father and his friend rushed back down to their post, stopped, took one look at the Bren gun which was completely bent over, because of a direct hit, and rushed back to their lines. When the fight was over they went back down and took a photograph of it. We have it somewhere and if I find it I shall post it on here. The most interesting point, from my perspective, is if chow hadn't been called my father and his mate wouldn't have been here and neither would I.
Another incident happened when my father was blown up by a mortar. he told me that the only thing that he remembers about that was flying through the air. When he groggily woke up he felt this terrific wind blowing past his head all down his body. He then realised that he couldn't move his arms or legs but managed to move his head to one side and realised that he was several hundred feet in the air strapped to a helicopter. In those days it wasn't the fantastic helicopters that we have nowadays but a 'Whirlybird' helicopter. He told me that he 'shit himself'. Whether he actually did or was just an expression; I don't know but I can fully understand his shock.
He was later found to be suffering from shell shock and was sent back to help with the stores. Bad move for the army. Anyone who has served in the military knows that if it wasn't nailed down it was stolen. My father had a field day. He told me that the only thing that wasn't worth stealing was petrol. The sides of the roads were crammed full of Jerrycans. All you needed to do if your vehicle needed petrol was to pull over to the side of the road, grab what you needed and fling the empty cans at the back of the pile. One day he met an American stores sergeant who told him that it was possible to make alcohol out of chewing gum and would be happy to supply him with as many boxes of chewing gum as he needed in exchange for the winter clothing that the Black Watch had. The American uniforms, though wonderfully smart, were no use for the winters in Korea that were similar to the winters we have in Scotland. However, he had to arrange his own transport. this stumped my father until one day a couple of lorries from the RASC arrived at the camp stores and out jumped a corporal whom he knew from back home. After reaching a deal with him my father's venture in the distillation of chewing gum business was up and running. he was so successful that he was even selling it back to the Yanks. I think he was sorry when the Black Watch had to leave Korea.

Bell H-13 Sioux

It wasn't all mud and guts and as Pathe portrayed there was some fun.

On the left, Private Jim McHale and on the right Corporal Kim Man Kyogh of South Korea

On the extreme right is 2nd Lieutenant A T Baillie, the Platoon Commander. On the extreme left is Sergeant Atholl Bluck, the Platoon Sergeant.

George Mitchell acting as 'God knows what'

Amundsen, Scott and Nobu Shirase

Nobu Shirase

We all know about the great race to the Antarctic between Amundsen and Scott but how many of us have heard of  Nobu Shirase? I know I hadn't until I read an article in New Scientist. 

Shirase died in 1946, poverty-stricken and forgotten.

"Shirase was the victim of bad timing, says Ben McInnes, a Japanologist at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. "If Shirase had won government support, he would have reached Antarctica at the same time or perhaps earlier than Scott and Amundsen," he says. In the event, his efforts were eclipsed by those of his rivals."

These are the types of people I hold in deep respect. Those who are driven by an idea, no matter how stupid or daring, and strive to overcome the obstacles put in front of them. Long may these types of people exist.

Herald poster

This was posted on in an article in the Herald today. A guy called Brian Harrison from Plymouth and is worth repeating again.

They all talk principle and legalities but this is about power. The UK is an extremely centralised state: power resides at Westminster and no one at Westminster will voluntarily to give any of it away - (Blair was pushed into devolution by the EU). Salmond is also about power and wants to see as much as possible of it at Holyrood. 

For me the key question "is do you think over the last 40 years that Westminster has done well and will continue to do well?" The answer has to be resounding NO for anyone in the UK who does not live in the south east of England and who is not into Great Britain as a world power.

Westminster is incompetent. This incompetence of leadership is clearer the further you get in any direction from London, and wider travel plus the internet have made the comparisons easier to draw. It is not just the scandals like the Iraq war, MP's expenses, News International, the power of unregulated banks, or even the hilariously inconsequential public inquiries ("Carry on, Westminster"): it also shows in the numbers.

Google almost any economic measure - GPD per capita, percentage industrialisation, balance of payments history, balanced budgets, debt levels - and all the North European countries, (except France and Finland on some measures), outperform the UK. The UK's long term economic failure versus its Northern European competitors is being achieved despite reduced union bargaining power, significant privatisation, and it being made easier to sack staff than in any of them, and also despite repeated devaluations (a factor of 5 compared with German currencies of the last 40 years). The UK has had North Sea oil and still achieved a permanent trade deficit: genius.

For most social indicators - life expectancy, obesity, cocaine usage, teenage pregnancy, % GDP spent on Health, % of the population in prison, etc - the UK is nearly always the worst, and the more time you spend in Northern Europe the more you sense this. The internet also reveals that the same is true for less obvious indicators - social mobility, Gini index, percentage of women in positions of power, pay differentials, pension regulation, percentage of youth in training, liveable cities, renewable energy capacity, etc.

With its massive centralisation of power, its secretive ways (look up the McCrone report if you live in Scotland), and its unwritten constitution, Westminster is failing the individual populations of England, Scotland and Wales.

But despite the crowded trains, the cracked pavements and pot holed streets that catch your eye when you return here, Westminster cannot make the comparisons: it thinks in terms of its own importance, total GDP -" we're 6th in the world", rather than that of its citizens, GDP per capita - "we're poorer than everyone in Northern Europe". It is not just Westminster that is dysfunctional, but so is the underpinning "Great British" culture of its political and chattering classes, a culture that is encapsulated in the veneration of the polar explorer Scott, whose men died of starvation and who lost to Amundsen, whose men put on weight. It is not just the endless wrangling of left and right idealogues, any form of drama is more valued than a grasp of the numbers, cooperation and long term thinking. Costly and outdated assumptions are not challenged, as if Britain somehow deserves its UN security council seat, as if it can afford Trident and its military spend, and so, from Suez to Iraq, it is considered normal to indulge in murderous, self important adventures. Most disabling are the myths - Westminster being the mother of parliaments has nothing to learn from other democracies - and distorted narratives of identity - we won WW2 and have little to learn from our neighbours. The arrogance of empire without the fact.

The current British state works well for the metropolitan chattering and political classes, Westminster in short, who even if they do not believe all the myths buy themselves out from sharing the health and education services of their fellow citizens, and who, looking only to the USA, enjoy empire by association; however, for over a generation "Westminster" has failed the test of basic competence, let alone met the aspirations of the governed. Unlike the successfully capitalist countries of Northern Europe, the UK is simply not earning its living in the world. As a result it can afford less and less of the modern goodies, like infrastructure investment, market regulation, targeted welfare and wide access to education and training: this leads to its making worse use of its only asset, its people, who become less resourced, less educated, less numerate, less healthy, less socially mobile, less united in purpose, which in turn leads to less wealth creation, which in turn leads ... etc, etc.

In Scotland the SNP are quite rightly looking to the more successful countries of Northern Europe as their model, because it would be almost impossible to do worse than Westminster, from whom the rest of us should try to remove as much power as possible: if the SNP succeed, we may all benefit.

Scotland's referendum announcement

Well, let the battle begin. The SNP have announced the date of the referendum: Autumn 2014. The anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, the end of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and possibly the end of the Ryder cup in Gleneagles. Let us hope that we will have a proper debate on this and not a negative attack by the Unionist parties, which has been their preferred tactics so far. I have asked every supporter of the Union that I have met to give, at least, one good reason why Scotland should remain in the Union and no one has managed that so far. There have been attempts, such as:
a) We will be stronger together. OK, explain what you mean by 'stronger'. If you mean the armed forces then we would like to point out that we don't want to stride the world bullying all the smaller nations of this world, or if you mean in a financial sense then why is our economy in such a mess. No country-which was part of the Anglo-Saxon banking industry- was strong enough to resist the crashes that have happened; even the USA.
b) The UK has a seat on the security council in the UN therefore Scotland will not have a say on that council. Scotland does not have a seat-and for that matter, neither does England, it is the UK-anyway, we are not interested in playing at being a world policeman. We want to live in peace with everyone.
c) Scotland is too small to take care of itself. You mean like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Switzerland and all the other small nations of the world who are happy being independent?
d) Scotland is too poor too take care of itself. You mean apart from the abundant supplies of oil, gas and the 4th largest export in the UK; whisky? When you add all those up and divide that by the population of Scotland-which is just over 5 million-it makes the Scots pretty wealthy. Keeping in mind that is only a fraction-admittedly a large fraction- of our wealth. We still manufacture-no thanks to the decimation of our industries under Maggie Thatcher-and we still have a financial sector; admittedly not as big as the City of London, but when has the square mile ever concerned itself with Scotland?
e) It has mentioned that we are to stupid to look after ourselves. Scotland has produced world leaders in science, technology, philosophy and many more things that have added to the advancement of the human race. Considering our size we punch well above our weight.
f) Will Scotland be able to have a military capable of defending its borders. Our only land border will be with England. Are they thinking of attacking us? We will need a navy and air force to patrol our oil and gas fields and a small army in case of international peacekeeping duties. We have no reason, nor need, to invade other countries-unlike the UK-therefore we don't need a large military.
g) If it wasn't for the UK investing the money in the North Sea there would be no oil and gas. The UK never 'invested' a penny. They gave tax breaks [never took money off them as opposed to giving out money] to the oil companies who invested their own money in the exploration.
h) The oil is running out so what is Scotland to do? There is still decades amounts of oil and gas and more fields are being found every year. This is a lie. However, oil will run out eventually but that will apply to all oil and gas producing countries so the question also applies to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Brazil, Libya,  Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and all the other producers. I don't see them begging to be taken under the control of the UK.
i) The union has been going for 300 years. That's not exactly true as the Union, when we joined it, has changed several times so the Union is not the same Union we joined. In reality the last major change to the Union was when Southern Ireland got its independence in 1919. Therefore the Union-as we know it today- has only been going for 93 years and not the 300 as often stated.

These were just some of the negative comments being brought forward by the Unionists but not one of them has given a positive reason to stay in the Union.

The Referendum Debate

Let us hope that we can have a full and frank debate devoid of any negative comments. Negativity will do nothing to further the choices of the voters of Scotland and may, indeed, force voters over to the independent side. Strangely enough that is not what I want. I am already convinced of the need for Scotland's independence but I am willing to have my mind changed if the Unionists can come up with good counter-arguments. Independence is a big step for the Scottish peoples-which we are more than capable of taking-and I want to be sure that this is the correct course to take. My view, so far, is that we have been abused and ripped off by the Westminster government who don't give a toss about the Scots. I hasten to add that the Westminster government don't give a toss about the Welsh, the Northern Irish and, for that matter, the English. Which brings me around to some of the vile, and some would say, racists comment seen in the media by those that want to retain the Union as it is. I don't need to produce links to them as we have all seen them. I want to make this perfectly clear, independence is not about being anti-English; it is about being pro-Scottish. I, for one, have an English daughter and English grandkids. I live in England and like the English people, as a whole, and would stand up, and have done so in the past, for some English people abroad. This is solely about the BRITISH government and the way that they have treated my nation in the present and the past. As an aside, I don't particularly like the way the British government have treated the rest of the constituent nations of the UK & NI.
So, let us have a forthright discussion on this. The ball is now in the court of the Unionist parties to come up with a reason why the Scottish voters should remain a part of the UK& NI. Good luck to all.

Antony Worrall-Thompson

Recipe for a good day out:

Go to Tesco and steal some cheese and a bottle of wine or 'Ready, Steady, Crook'.
I wonder if this man had been a poor working class person desperate for something to eat, would he/she just been let off with a caution?

Cameron on the BBC

Here we go again.

Now Cameron is starting to unleash the big guns by speaking about the referendum on the Andrew Marr show and copied by their BBC lackeys in Pacific Quay. To show you how important the referendum is to the UK the interview with Cameron, about the referendum, lasted for approx 4 minutes and 15 seconds out of a programme that lasted about 58 minutes. It starts at 43:40 and lasts to 46:54. We should be thankful that they even gave us that.
The fact is, and Cameron has said this on more than one occasion, the referendum is up to the Scots but the UK media aren't exactly shouting this from the rooftops. It is obvious to anyone who has been watching this unfold that the Unionists are attempting to muddy the waters and cause panic amongst the Scots; he doesn't get it. Piss off the Scots and they'll hold a grudge for decades and, in some cases, centuries. All he has to do is count the amount of Tory MPs in Scotland and he'll see what I mean. It was Thatcher that destroyed the UK but Cameron is going to get the blame.

Cameron is talking about the legality of holding a referendum, of course he is, but you can be sure that the legality will be, like the Calman commission, kicked into the long grass and never heard of again. More muddying of the waters and ammunition to the slowly diminishing Unionist media in Scotland.
Then there is the old chestnut of the Scottish economy suffering because of the uncertainty of when the referendum  is to take place. Of course it is Mr. Cameron, which is why there has been so much inward investment in Scotland by the hard work of Alex Salmond, even after Mr. Cameron stood up in the House of Commons and advised businesses not to invest there. Which was the first time in the history of the UK that a Prime Minister has openly told companies not to invest in a part of the UK. I won't forget that.
During the interview Andrew Marr brought up the timing of the referendum and mentioned that it will happen at the time of the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn; so what. The Scottish government [administration according to Andrew Marr] will have the referendum when they said they would have it; in the second have of the 'administration'; Alex Salmond has made that perfectly clear.

All the jostling and complaining by the Unionists will not change that. It just makes them look desperate; which, at the moment, I'm sure they are. However, that will not last for too long and the Unionist bandwagon will get its act together and money, time and effort will be thrown at the NO vote. Their black ops has already begun and the political battle will, when Ed Milliband gets his act together, follow quite soon. They just need something to grab on to, which is what the muddying of the waters is all about. When the referendum comes our ace in the hole is the amount of feet we can put on the streets; it won't be about money.

Update:

Now we are being threatened!