UKH

Very well done....great touches, well balanced I thought. Liked the landrover...

I thought about the Queen sat alone and thought of all those who have lost people to covid and couldn't see them and with covid based funerals...

Likewise the coffin bearers...RM NCO"s....a number of whom will have been involved in repatriating the fallen....often young lads.

Harry...what must he have been thinking...

Yes. Whilst many have lost friends and relatives earlier than expected this year, endured miniscule funerals, to have to do it with the eyes of the world on her, expecting dignity from her must be tough. 

What do you think?

His grandad's dead. I'd hazard a guess that when they did the interview/megxit they did know his 99 year old grandad was in his final years..

Honestly could not give a monkeys. To have the whole affair portrayed as a universality owing to COVID related suffering sticks in my throat even more

So which is it ?

Fair comment!

I crawled my way out of a council house in Dalry and I save lives every day. I get paid a tiny fraction of the share of £80 million HRH got paid to open leisure centres. Servitude and duty? My arse. Syncophancy that perpetuates social division. I buried my 97 year grandmother last year and I am still hurting; I believe she contributed more to the UK than any royal family member. I am angry at the role this family plays in my country. 

I don't think I'm alone in having no interest whatsoever in watching a funeral of someone I've never met and attended by nobody I've ever met.

I don't have a problem with those who take an interest in such things, but I do find it rather odd.

I got home and switched on to watch the later part. I thought the lone piper slowly exiting the chapel was particularly moving. He played Flowers of the Forest which a piper also played at my Dad's funeral so it had great resonance for me. I'm sure many people were similarly reminded of loved ones who've gone.

My sister was glued to it. I couldn't care but the waste of money grates on me. I read somewhere the landrovers were 100k.

Well I hope they can sort it out, by all accounts they are both very decent guys.

Each to their own, but I like the pageantry, and the way Britain does it. It was a moving ceremony to watch, particularly the piper's lament fading away as he slowly marched out of the chapel.

I felt great sympathy for the Queen sitting there on her own with no one to hold her hand or offer her comfort, at what is probably one of the most heart wrenching things that any human being has to endure - saying a final farewell to a person you love. 

Maybe you have not experienced it, so find it difficult to emphasise with another even if you don't know them?

I think these are two separate things. I imagine many (most?) people would empathise with the Queen for the loss of someone that she's been with for so long. The idea of her sitting on her own at such a time is very sad. But it's possible to feel that sadness for her whilst not having any interest in watching the funeral.

Fair comment

It might stick in his monkeys throat.

That's as maybe, and I'm sorry for your loss, but I imagine you nan, could nip down the boozer anytime she felt like and could pretty much do what she wanted without being examined and criticised on everything she did.

I'm not a great fan of the royals, but I certainly wouldn't swap places with any of them.

Here's an idea. Get rid of the monarchy. Then they wouldn't have to bear their terrible burden and they could just be ordinary people. 

Possibly unfortunately, the only way that getting rid of the monarchy would happen, would be in the same way that the communists got rid of the royals in Russia.... It would be preferable if they could just be phased out, but I suspect that that would not be a permanent solution.

(I expect a good number of dislikes, for Aln, myself, and a few others thinking that we should have a much more equal society.)

Yet you cared enough to derail an RIP thread with your assertions of his overt racism?

Well there was a few. But this is about the funeral. Please be respectful...

Well millions would.

4 million kids, something like 30% of british kids live below the poverty line so I'd imagine most of their parents would swap places.. https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

Tbh though, I'm not in favor of getting rid of them. They do bring in money, they do help people, I'd just reduce the size of the family. Cut down how much support they get.

It's crazy that just because William the Conquerer in 1066 era confiscated a load of land to this day much of that remains crown property and we have people squeezed into tower blocks. 

I think their time is pretty much up though unless they modernize. Society has too.much inequality to justify their position. Blowing a hundred grand on 'an old lanny'..

I think millions, might think it's a good idea, and then when reality struck they'd think again.

This is a failure of government not much to do with royalty.

I hope so for all sorts of reasons, I agree totally that birth shouldn't give you the advantages so far above all others. I think though there are others I'd start on first.

I'm of the same opinion. However when the Queen comes to pass I shall watch the funeral out of historical importance as I think it'll be a watershed moment for the monarchy.

I believe the Queen is a high water line in terms of respect and acceptance of the royal family. She represents a bygone era, the winding down of the empire and the transition towards modern Britain. If Charles tries to maintain the status quo he'll look so utterly out of touch and hasten calls for reform.

William took land from one bunch of Lords and gave it to another. Not much changed and in the intervening 1000 years anything could have happened had William not invaded. 

Monarchy; plenty European countries have a monarchy and what you might call a more equal society. Or look at the USA? More equal without a monarchy and ancient land ownership rights?

If you look at global rich lists the queen's hardly near the top in terms of wealth or influence. If you want to find the billionaire bad guys, I'd be looking at bezzos, Zuckerberg etc.. 

If life's so shit for the royals then let's do them and us a favour and get rid of them. Save us a fortune and they can then nip down the boozer anytime they like. Win win.  

Zuckerberg earns his own money.. entirely different

I'm not blaming them for policies, but we give them millions purely based on birth.

How is that equality?

You have to treat them differently to how you treat others purely on the basis of their birth.

So does the queen technically as head of state. 

Life is better if  you don't spend all your time moaning about what other people do, did.  Do something yourself.   I'd just bear in mind a very old lady has lost her husband of 73 years 

Its hardly moaning commenting on a forum.. 

And no, don't be absurd. You can't compare the wealth generated by Zuckerberg with the queen. 

No, it's arguably worse. The tax arrangements of new billionaires usually have one thing in common and it's  certainly not benefitting the population of any country they operate in. 

Yeah that certainly needs dealing with. 

Though wasnt queen outed for having bank accounts in offshore tax havens when the paradise hack happened.

Great, but how do we make sure that ordinary people like, say, Donald Trump don't become head of state instead and with vastly more power than a constitutional monarch ?

Or Boris Johnson.. at least the US just opted to get rid of Trump. The UK voted back in bojo.

But that's the thing, when we don't like democratically elected leaders we reject them at the polls.

You have a constitution like the majority of democratic countries where the head of state does not have vast powers.

Tax haven or former colony / common wealth country? (I don't know). 

So like we have now, then.  So that's OK.

Most democratic republics show how possible it is to "make sure that ordinary people like, say, Donald Trump don't become head of state instead and with vastly more power than a constitutional monarch". Mainly because the head of state usually does not have vast powers.

With a constitution, and you know, laws and complicated stuff like that. 

The Queen did not work for Putin by fomenting exsecuting and implementing Brexit.  It took subverted politicians to do that.

Absolutely agree. Is it the Glasgow Dalry you're from? 

Tend to agree.  Buried my mam last April - or rather my brother did, best I could manage was a zoom presence.  She gave close to 50 years of her life to the NHS, starting less than a year after it's creation (after retirement she was persuaded to return to be matron of Newcastle's RVI for a few years - for those who know the area).  Only my brother and my sister and law could attend in person, with about 4 others (including myself) via zoom.  Bizarre experience, and almost a year on I feel absolutely nothing about her death or the funeral.

What would you do with their properties then? Would you sell them on, let them crumble or would we still be spending money on their upkeep, like we would many other historic buildings?

I didn't say it was equality.

You don't have to treat them in any way at all, at least I haven't.

There's no royalty in the US, and yet there's plenty of inequality, probably more so than anywhere else. So how does that fit with your assertions.?

Is that true?

But I get your point. 2 wrongs make a right.

Yes the US is an unequal society. And we work to reduce that. Tbf before covid the US supposedly had less kids in poverty than ever before and Bidens stimulus package will dramatically change that again (using a UK strategy actually).

Meanwhile in the UK the number of kids living in poverty has increased.

https://cpag.org.uk/recent-history-uk-child-poverty

But how does giving an annual 70-80 million sovereign grant help kids in poverty? 

Yes you do. Have you met the queen/royals? Try not following the necessary traditions. You get quite a lecture before meeting them on how they are to be addressed. 

You don't walk up and treat them like your mates nan..

Re property. Sell it. Look at Glenn Allt Shiel is it? On loch muick. Beautiful house, not used for decades apart from the back room for the bothy. There's plenty of them around the UK.

ask the tories

you are being irrelevant and talking rubbish.  The Britain I grew up in was much much much more egalitarian than the Britain we have had since the 1980s when beggars started re-appearing in numbers on our streets.

Are you suggesting that the greatly falling egalitarianism in the UK since the 1970s and the steadily increasing divide between the richest sections and the poorest/struggling sections of our society is somehow the fault of the monarchy?  What utter and total rot!

Re the US. Tbh I'd not chose to live here unless I met an American. It's got major faults in terms of healthcare, gun ownership and poverty. When we met she was applying for med school. Maybe next year she'll have the necessary licenses and we'll move. But we'll see. She's 1/4 million dollars of debt from medschool we need to look after somehow. Probably Germany or Canada if we did move. I'd be very reluctant to move to the UK tbh. Possibly NZ but it's a long way from both our families.

Good logic there.. how did I suggest that? You're trying to put words into my mouth and make things up. 

Regarding the UK being more egalitarian when you grew up. That's the most ridiculous comment on UKC for a while. I'd say I'm staggered but you've got form! Only a white guy would say britain in the 70s and 80s was a more egalitarian society.

Egalitarian Society: believing that all people are equally important and should have the same rights and opportunities in life: an egalitarian society.

Just in case you don't understand what the big word means.

We had Andrew round our work and were forwarded a load of shite by email about how to address him. F*ck that, it was promptly ignored and everyone had a bit of a chat. He appeared to be pleasant enough but entirely deviod of any detectable charisma.

Yeah he used to visit my Dad's research centers quite a bit for his role in engineering, opened various centers for him. Even sent the family Christmas cards for a few years. They always said he seemed pleasant enough too. Obviously the cut ties with him in more recent times..

His main contribution to our discussion around engineering metrology was waffling some shite about how the tunnels dimensions in the south west were designed to accommodate precisely carriages with ranks on. Or something.

Yeah they had a similar opinion. The americans liked meeting royalty to get deals over the line but didn't find him the brightest bloke in the world.

I m reading this thread I suppose because there not much else happening of interest this evening .  . But now I’m lost . What is  he doing to / with his monkey ? And what is it that’s sticking in his throat ? 
I’d quiet like a monkey . 

My views are;

1) I don't like the monarchy's existence. For a lot of reasons, mostly principles about one person not being "born" better than another, the idea of being a subject, calling someone "Your Majesty" etc.

2) That said, the Royal Family is expected to carry out the functions of the Crown. And that is the key; they are expected to do it. We have chosen to keep them, as a country. They are not really responsible for whether we do that or not. I imagine they are all pretty pro-monarchy but ultimately we have a Royal Family and a Monarchy because that is what is democratically supported in this country, much as I resent that. I don't blame the Queen for being the Queen cos it's not like people don't want her to be the Queen.

3) They are very rich in a country where some people live in dreadful poverty

4) That said we could change that too, if we wanted, but we don't (again, much as I resent that)

5) I imagine having a lot of money and being the Queen doesn't really mean much to Elizabeth Windsor right now. Her husband has died, I imagine she's lonely. It is sad when someone loses someone.

6) It is sad when every other 93 year old loses her husband, mind you

7) It felt very weird and voyeueristic to have this public view into what was essentially a very private family funeral. I wish they had held it behind closed doors. And I wish that I could spare them the weight of being the monarchy, because I honestly think they'd be happier and better off without it, as would the rest of us.

Respect to your Mam and condolences to you, that must have been awful. I found it really difficult to process my dad's death (some 20 years ago now) and that was with a full funeral, I can't imagine how difficult it'd be to make your peace with it in such bizarre circumstances.

The British Prime Minister has a lot more power than the American President in terms of control over government.

As long as Boris Johnson has a majority in the Commons and they stick with him, he can literally pass whatever laws he likes. The Queen might be the Head of State but the Prime Minister of the UK is the only power that really matters (based on, of course, a Commons Majority)

I've not met them, so it's not an issue for me, so I don't HAVE to do anything.

Would you be happy to sell any of our historic buildings?

No use asking me, I'm from Hartlepool, there's only one thing we do to monkeys there.

Not if it's got tourist value. The palace. Tower of london, balmoral etc - though I suspect balmoral may be an issue post independence.. (sorry to kick off another debate!

But the crown owns hundreds and thousands of property, millions of acres that aren't used.

That wasn't my point, the point was having Royalty, isn't a precursor / or an indicator of an unequal society.

You seem to have missed the levels of homelessness and maybe kids are out of poverty, but adults and minorities not so much so.

Not the Queens fault, or much to do with her, I think.

How much do they bring in due to tourism, etc. I don't know so it might be less, but people do come to "see" the Queen.

Also, like I said, we either choose to preserve our historical building or we don't, it would be a bit weird if we chose to specifically exclude building, because the Queen used them.

Oh definitely. 

The queen is valuable. The UK has history so as I've said a few times I'd keep the monarchy.

Likewise the main properties. The pomp and ceremony bollox people love and it inspires them so I'd not actually vote for getting rid of the monarchy. I'd just support a reduced footprint.

I do have issues with people being born superior to others, someone ^ above summarized it well. But you can't argue the queen doesn't have significant pluses for the country.

Re the queen uses them.its the opposite.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glas-allt-Shiel

Some just aren't used at all. Yet remained in royal ownership. 

Some are used by the royal family others remain vacant for ever. 

I think I read somewhere that Glas Allt Shiel hasn't been used for many decades. It just sits decaying. And that's not unique.

I never blamed the queen for inequality.

I just think as we move towards a more equal society it's hard to justify spending millions on a family purely because of their birthright. 

If you say so. But the reign of King Charles is coming soon. Dear UKCers, are you all looking forward to that?? And it could be a very long reign, looking at the lifespan of his mother, father, and grandmother. Long may they live, and bless them, but can I point out they get very excellent health care from their own private doctors. Do you think they go into a long frustrating phone queue, then wait two weeks to see a doctor, like the rest of us?

Just one example of their huge unearned wealth and privilege. Not to mention fabulous cars, palaces, servants, food, and air travel - to name a few things 

I don't blame them for grabbing it. We're the fools for putting up with it

The queen is OK, I think, and acceptable. But again, folks, King Charles is coming - are you looking forward to that??

I suppose it's true that for those on the bottom rung life has rarely been a bed of roses but the Norman oppression of the English and British population was stark. The Norman conquerors didn't gradually find common cause with the populations they ruled as the Saxons had done before them. The Normans militarised the land, using forced labour to build castles, and they ruled the population by harsh laws and intimidation.

Witness the Harrying of the North where the Normans decided to punish a couple of rebel northern earls by massacring the population of Northern England and laying waste to the villages and land so that 100,000 survivors of the initial massacre died of starvation.

At the top end of society around 4000 English lords lost their lands to around 200 Norman lords and at the lower end of society the number of free peasants also declined dramatically. The effect being that power was much more concentrated among an all powerful elite with no cultural affinity with their peasant population and many more of the peasants were living as destitute and unfree peasants where they had to get permission from their Norman masters even to marry or to leave their village.

Re the wider inequality in the US. You are right, this is just one step. We didn't get here by chance, it was hundreds of years if systemic racism. We're not going to reverse it quick.

I don't know if you know about red lining, they made the more diverse areas poor, less parks, more multi family housing. Crime followed and on top of that we've a backwards criminal system.

We know criminal reform works, we know if we put funding into education and jobs and also rehabilitation we reduce crime but we won't - at the moment.

We can change child poverty very quickly though, so I'm hoping we continue this tax credit system because it's costing bugger all. We can also change healthcare access quickly. 

I'm hoping we can offer more free education, especially in towns/areas that were redlined.

I'm currently arguing with our city manager because when covid hit he closed all our sports facilities. The surrounding suburbs remained open or opened back up. I go to a track in my city and the police get called. I drive 3 miles and run on a track in a suburb. We still have huge inequalities like that, that we know are wrong. 

We saw the impact of covid on black, hispanic and native american people. The cases were similar, yet the case fatality rates were 2-4 times greater than for white americans.

And on top of that we teach (well preach) american exceptionalism. That America was given a special role by god essentially, and americans are superior. What a damaging message to tell kids. Ignoring the obvious issues with american society, it's just such a horrible notion to believe some people are inherently superior to others..

Wow thanks for that. Great input! I had no idea of most of that.

It is a contributory factor.

I look on the royals primarily as an opportunity cost i.e. the cost it is more about what could be achieved if we got rid of them than what it costs to maintain them.

The primary reason to get rid of royals and aristocracy and expunge them from our public landscape - street names, hospital names, names of scientific societies, statues, estates and palaces the way that eastern European countries expunged communists is we could use those resources far more fruitfully. 

For example, after independence in Edinburgh I hope we rename the streets named after Georgian monarchs in the NEw Town name the east west streets for Scottish poets and authors Burns, Scott, Stevenson and the North South streets for great thinkers: Maxwell, Hume, Smith, Hutton.  When people, and especially children look around their town they'd be inspired by the giants who once lived there, not reminded that the heights of society were unattainable unless you were born into or married into a particular family.  It would give the lie to the unionist premise that Scotland is 'too wee' to ever influence the world and be a step towards the self confidence we need.

We should name the hospitals after great medics and medical scientists, not royals.  There's more than enough of them: Lister, Simpson, Fleming.    They had the right idea naming the Covid hospital in Glasgow after Louisa Jordan, a local nurse who should be far wider known.

While we are at it we should get rid of all aristocratic titles and any awards from the state for public service should have no connection whatsoever to endorsing the concept of inherited monarchy.

Children should grow up thinking that the position of head of state is open to them independent of who their parents are and aspiring to be like people who have made the real contributions to culture, science and technology, not landowners and especially not inherited landowners.

The uk won't ever be equal because of the populations mentality. There is no embedded cultural driver that makes them desire it. Everyone just wants to get better than the rest. A 4 bed detached, not a terrace, a bigger more expensive car, better holidays.  They don't care if others are making do with less as long as they get more. 

Cheers.  The feeling of absolutely nothing is the oddest thing.  I still feel grief for my beloved german pooch that died in my arms a few years ago, so it seems nuts to feel so little about the death of my mother.  My father died a few months before my mother, just before covid kicked off so I at least got to attend that funeral.

The royals and aristocracy do not help with that.  When you put landowners on a pedestal at the 'top' of a society it makes people think that owning property is the way to respectability and status,  inherited money is in some way superior to money that was worked for and nepotism is perfectly fine.    Things like making your son an Admiral for his birthday are not a good example.

We need better role models to make progress.  Scientists, engineers, artists, people who built a business from scratch.

You really think average Joe is using royatly as a benchmark and not the hundreds of influencers, wannabee celebrities, reality TV people etc.. 

That's a false dichotomy right there.  People have more than one benchmark and the royals/aristocracy are one of them, especially as a benchmark for 'respectability'.

I expect a few had a leg up, Hume; son of a lawyer, his mother's father was Knighted. His dad died young about he inherited the family home. He wasn't cash rich, but certainly never poor or of humble origins. He was born Home, but changed to Hume because it was better known south of the border.  

I expect exceedingly few desire to be royal, many more are probably glad not to be born into that lifestyle. 

If a person wants to learn how to dignified and respectful the Queen would be a good start, Andrew less so!!! 

Thing is, we’d then need to have a system for selecting a head of state. Then (1) you’d have another layer of chancers making promises; and (2) you might get someone who has the delusion that they can make decisions and do stuff. 
 

im not a royalist but there are worse alternatives to the constitutional monarchy.

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson as he was born. Mother from the Balfour landed gentry family, he dropped the balfour and changed Lewis to Louis.

Edit. When you say Scott, you mean sir Walter Scott, 1st baronet...  landed gentry, privileged, privately educated? 

I think some people think exactly the opposite, I can't fathom how you get to this, "Not to mention fabulous cars, palaces, servants, food, and air travel - to name a few things" and have any idea what the lack of privacy and personal freedom might do to a person.

This is especially true, when it's been thrust upon you, rather than vacuous wannabe's trying to be famous for wanking someone off on telly.

You'd think by now folk would grasp that magically having all the expensive things in life doesn't make you happy. You only have to look at the influencer, reality TV people, celebrities, lottery winners... to realise how it doesn't actually help, many of whom end up taking their own lives. 

Nonsense on stilts. Wasting money on changing street names is itself an opportunity cost and exactly the sort of ideological erasure of history that took place under the oppressive, totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe. It's no surprise that your writers and poets are all Scottish Romanticists - history rewritten for the tartan shortbread tin. Your great thinkers are all products of the Scottish Enlightenment that thrived after the Act of Union. Maxwell of course was slightly later, but is yet another example of that success - his field equations were developed during his time at Kings College London.

Lister was English and Fleming did all of his work at what is now Imperial College London.

It is the Truman Show. 

Everyone...?

Sufficient to vote in governments that are equally short sighted, or to drive society in that direction. 

Use covid as an example, European culture wouldn't have stood for a South Korean style clamped down 13 or 14 months ago, despite obvious benefits longer term. Everyone, or at least the majority thinks tthey'll get away with less.  

Why stop there? No point only half rewriting history is there? Make it a thought crime to mention anything English, burn all the books that refer to the United Kingdom, round up anyone who dares to whisper it and send them all to a labour camp?

No its leaving history intact (unlike certain attempts to erase inconvenient facts from the history lessons) but just deciding who should be honoured by having a street named after them. In the same way the people who originally named the streets were selecting which aspects of history they wanted to honour.

That's not true. As has been recently highlighted, the palace reviews any laws the government wants to pass that may affect them, and ensures that the government drafts them in a manner that pleases them before royal assent will be given.

WTF has that got to do with anything?

Scott was a world-class novelist.  Hume was a great philosopher.  Adam Smith was a great economist.  James Hutton was the father of geology.  Their accomplishments are the reason for naming streets after them. 

The problem is when you name streets after people without outstanding accomplishments just because they are rich landowners or royals.  

Obviously, particularly in the past, white males from better off backgrounds had more chance of substantial accomplishments because their economic security gave them better access to education and free time.  That isn't a reason for not acknowledging great achievement.   Being relatively well off may have been necessary but it was far from sufficient for someone to become a philosopher of the caliber of Hume or to lay the foundations of an entire field of study like Smith or Hutton.

And why did so many great Scottish thinkers have to move to England to make their careers?

Because all the f*cking money and power in this country is concentrated in and controlled from London.

Scotland's street names and education have been distorted by unionism for centuries.  It was an explicit policy starting with the proscription of Highland Dress, through to people currying favour by naming streets after Hanoverian monarchs to show loyalty after the suppression of the Jacobites, through to history curriculums which have far too much focus on England, and in the past teaching Scots kids to speak with an RP accent.  It needs reversed, the same way as the eastern European countries needed to purge their public spaces of communists and russians.  

The future for Scotland should be as a modern European country focused on innovation in science and engineering, areas where Scotland has consistently over-achieved.  Part of the transition is changing our public spaces to reflect our past successes and foster ambition for the future.

The fact that there are diseases which are worse than Covid isn't a reason for catching Covid. 

You can try not to catch any of them.

The movement has been in both directions. Lister moved to Scotland.

It continues to this day. Consider two of the biggest scientific achievements of recent times - discovery of the Higgs boson and the cloning of Dolly the sheep. Peter Higgs, Keith Campbell and Ian Wilmut all moved from England to carry out their research at Edinburgh University. 

Not true, but the same claim could be made about Edinburgh by someone living in Ullapool in an independent Scotland.

You wanted to name streets after many people who were also landed gentry, aristocrats, well off families etc.  Whilst simultaneously slaggjng off those with exactly the same connections in England? 

It would be easy to just presume you were anti English and nothing else. 

Is that true?

I know SNH deliberately set up in Inverness or Perth to spread the power away from Edinburgh. I think they were very aware of that issue. This was all back in the early 2000s when I did my PhD in Glasgow so I'm not sure how it all panned out. But certainly back then there was an aim to develop away from the M8 corridor, and use places like Inverness etc.

"Scotland is the most centralised democracy in the developed world."

Robin McAlpine, Common Weal - https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/1720420/cap...

"Independent Scotland the most centralised country in the world, says think tank."

Reform Scotland - https://reformscotland.com/2014/06/independent-scotland-the-most-centralise...

"Rory Mair is stepping down as chief executive of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) after 14 years and has criticised what he calls "creeping centralisation" in Scotland."

Rory Mair, COSLA - https://www.itv.com/news/border/2016-01-19/council-chiefs-call-to-end-creep...

Right but only because the government is inclined to listen to them.

If the government isn't inclined to listen to the palace, the answer is "nobody cares, sign the bill"

I agree that Britain is regionally unequal. Living outside of London and the Home Counties in England means typically a lot less investment in your local services, lower incomes, less educational opportunities etc. 

Likewise, in Scotland, living outside Edinburgh and Glasgow also means a lot less investment in your local services, lower incomes, less educational opportunities etc. Which is why huge amounts of coastal communities in the Scottish West are struggling.

But don't worry, when you get your independence, you'll be able to fix all that and you won't have to worry about Westminster getting involved in it. Or, you know, blame the country south of your border for all your problems. Enjoy

There's an agenda behind the 'Scotland is too centralised' thing which is being pushed by unionists.   It is a pretext for the Tory strategy to undermine devolution by routing money directly to local authorities, instead of the Scottish Government.  No doubt the money will come with strings like Boris's idea of sticking union jacks everywhere and be disproportionately given to Tory constituencies.  

Ahh.... the Barnet formula. You keep saying Scotland doesn't need it. Maybe hand it back then?

I don't think that being an aristocrat is sufficient reason to refuse someone who has achieved great things an honour like having a street named after them.  That is quite a different position from giving people the honour of having a street named after them just because they were born into a royal or aristocratic family.

Incidentally, Scot wasn't born a Baronet, his father was a lawyer and they lived in an apartment off the Cowgate.  He got rich from his novels and he was made a Baronet because he helped find the crown jewels of Scotland.   There's lots of things in Scot's life that I wouldn't agree with, but he was a world class writer, he has a strong connection to Edinburgh and he deserves to have a street named after him.  King George, on the other hand, does not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott

The Common Weal are unionists? Really? The Common Weal that campaigned for Yes in 2014? Why do you think I chose a quote from them? You're so tediously predictable.

Lol. A nationalist complaining about flags. What a joker. Try the following search, which doesn't contain the term 'flag' and yet, somehow... https://www.google.com/search?q=scottish+independence+marches&source=ln...

Once we are independent the Barnet formula will not exist.

I don't see the English offering to hand back the oil money.  The Barnet formula is minimal and inadequate compensation for the disadvantages the UK places Scotland under.

WTF do you think people on a demonstration for independence are going to carry?

Maybe a message that there's more to independence than a bunch of flag shagging pricks cosplaying Braveheart. But they can't, because there isn't. There are no ideas, no answers to the big questions. Just the same old mind-numbing, wombat-thick grievances trotted out day after day by the likes of yourself about how everything bad is the fault of those other folk.

You clearly don't understand scratcher's post. I am sure he expects people to carry flags on independence rallies. I am also sure that part of his point was that you criticise and drizz on and on about a (the union) flag being widely flown to promote a national identity,  yet you want to fly a (different) flag as widely as possible to promote a (different) national identity. You want to have your cake and eat it.

I understand it fine.

The difference is between people choosing to carry a flag at a demo and Tories in London deciding that things paid for by taxpayers must have their union flag on them.  

If the Tories want to cover Scotland in union jacks the very least they need to do is get elected in Scotland.

Dross couldn't even admit that if the SNP won a majority it would be a mandate for a second Indy ref.  He wants the English to impose his views because the Scots won't vote for him.

There are plenty of ideas.  The first idea is to run our own affairs rather than being dictated to by the 10x larger population of England who clearly want different things.

Go and vote Tory in May if you want.   Every age category except the oldest one is pro independence, the younger age categories overwhelmingly so.  Independence is becoming inevitable.  There will be referendum after referendum until enough old unionists die off and there is a majority.

Scott still wasn't a commoner(didn't his father have some honoury positions something?). I think all bare Burns in your original list had a massive head start in life because who their parents were, inherited wealth, titles, private education. The very things you complained about, but now say are OK because they are Scottish? Which is it? Or is it only English elite that are or were bad? 

You aren't listening.  Scott deserves to have a street named after him because he was a great author.  King George doesn't deserve to have a street named after him because he happened to be born into the royal family.

If King George had been an author of the standard of Scott maybe he'd deserve to have a street named after him too.  Because of his books, not because he was king and not in Edinburgh because he had f*ck all connection to Edinburgh.

This is what Wikipedia says about Scott's birth (not that it matters).  It also mentions he had polio as a child.   

"Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771, in a third-floor apartment on College Wynd in the Old Town, Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the Cowgate to the gates of the University of Edinburgh (Old College).[2] He was the ninth child (six having died in infancy) of Walter Scott (1729–1799), a member of a cadet branch of the Clan Scott and a Writer to the Signet, by his wife Anne Rutherford, a sister of Daniel Rutherford and a descendant of both the Clan Swinton and the Haliburton family (the descent from which granted Walter's family the hereditary right of burial in Dryburgh Abbey).[3] Walter was thus a cousin of the property developer James Burton (d.1837), born "Haliburton," and of his son the architect Decimus Burton.[4] Walter subsequently became a member of the Clarence Club, of which the Burtons were also members.[5][6]"

You are against folk who have some hereditary advantage, would you say all bare Burns had a good leg up? If you inherit the right to be buried in an Abbey, you aren't a commoner? 

You might want to read up on his dad, writer to the signet and what it was. Or his mother's family. 

I don't give a f*ck if Burns had a leg up.  The fact is he was a great poet.

If you want to achieve on the level of Scott at that time you probably needed some money, and you probably needed to be white and male, you definitely needed to work hard.  But those factors were nothing like sufficient: most of all you needed to have prodigious talent.  Millions of people had all the other factors and didn't become world class authors.    Someone who excels at the level of Burns or Scott or Hume deserves to be celebrated for their achievements whether or not they had advantages.

Writer to the signet is a title for a lawyer.  The signet library is the law library, it still exists, you can visit it when they have their doors open day once a year. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Writers_to_Her_Majesty%27s_Signet

I knew what signet was already, Scott's father by virtue of his seniority as writer of the signet he was entitled to use the King's seal on legal documents, hence the name. As you say just an average Scott, who rose from humble origins. 

Try telling that face to face with someone just over the border in Cumbria, where their kids have a pittance spent on them at school in comparison.

You can apply that to any industry, through the centuries, as technologies change different regions natural resources fall in and out of favour; Tin, lead, copper mines, clay pits, coal, iron ore, woollen mills, slate....

10.34%... not a fortune but I'm sure local authorities in England wouldn’t turn it down. 

What did you think of the funeral then?

He must have enjoyed it, what with the royals being photographed in tartan and a piper on parade.

Tom, just this evening I've had a brilliant revelation, supported by my deep insight......

It seems to me that you might just possibly want an INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND!!!

Am I right?????

I was asleep.  Been working at night for the last few months.

Not that I would have watched it if I had been awake.

Philip visited my work once and I took the morning off to avoid meeting him.

Yes.  Some regions in England are even more f*cked by centralisation in London than Scotland is.  We have a degree of protection thanks to the Scottish Government.

However, the fact that someone else is getting f*cked worse than you is not a reason for letting yourself continue to be f*cked.  Scotland is a country.  It has the right to leave.

You obviously don't have much of a clue about Scotland.   The origins of the name are from the signet ring of the king but just like Queens Council it doesn't mean you have any kind of royal connection.  It definitely doesn't mean you are an aristocrat.  It is common for law firms to have 'writers to the signet' on their letterhead.

https://www.wssociety.co.uk/about/who-we-are

I have a serious question for you. If everybody in the whole of the UK was given a vote on Scotland leaving the Union to become a completely autonomous country, with it’s own currency (which would have no links whatsoever to the pound), and no finance from anybody else in the Union - how do you think people would vote? I strongly suspect the response from the rest of the people who are fed up  with subsidising you moaning gits might be a two fingered wave and a cheery “bye then, away ye go, tarra”.

Great - why not write to your MP and tell him you want Boris to sign the s30.  Scotland has asked nicely for an s30 for Indyref 2 on multiple occasions and been told to f*ck off by Tories elected by England.

The subsidy narrative is total bullsh*t but I really love the way Tory voters in England have internalised it and it is becoming a lever against the union by swaying English opinion against Scotland.   The unionists are kind of snookered - they need to argue Scotland is subsidised in Scotland to scare Scotland into staying but the same argument makes England want us to go.

I don't. Because people who aren't spiteful like you actually want the union preserved. Fracturing the UK and EU is a backwards regressive stop.

There's is the argument that we need less bloody borders..

That is what REALLY PISSES me off about you Scots Nats, that you're quite happy to throw shed loads of English under the bus in your deluded fantasy of greener grass.

Self centred, egotistical, selfish pricks the lot of you.  Tartan clad Brexit you idiot.

a) you haven't answered the question.

b) I'm not now, nor have I ever been,  a Tory voter, nor will I ever be

c) I genuinely don't care whether you get independence or not. 

And your evidence for this is ...?

The EU and UK are alternatives for a small nation which needs to be part of a larger market.  If Scotland can have the EU we don't need the UK, it is a redundant level of hierarchy above our government.   Why have our voice overruled by the 10x larger population of England at the UK level before it even reaches Brussels when we can be a member of the EU in our own right like Ireland.

The optimal solution would be Scotland and England as members of the EU with additional agreements for further co-operation just like the UK has with Ireland.   The EU would provide a single market with no border controls and freedom of movement.   But the English took that option off the table.   Now we have to choose between membership of the UK and membership of the EU.  It is an easy choice: the EU lets you leave whenever you want, it interferes in relatively few area of your affairs and it takes a relatively small amount of money.  In return it provides access to a far larger market and a genuine world class currency.

When Scotland goes back in the EU we will get rid of a border with 26 countries in exchange for having a border with 1 country.

If the English voted to kick Scotland out of the UK I'd be happy.  It would save time.

I have no idea whether opinion in England would be in favour of that today. 

You reckon the Irish should have stopped campaigning for their independence because the English treated India worse than Ireland?   Or because some English cities had worse poverty than Dublin?

The fundamental point is I, and if the polls are to be believed most people in Scotland, don't want to be ruled from London by governments elected by England.  

"the rest of the people who are fed up  with subsidising you moaning gits might be a two fingered wave "

And this is a thread about a funeral so please be respectful and don't curse..

Are you saying the Barnet foruma doesn't exist? Scotland isn't receiving 10.34% more than neighbouring English counties? 

Not again.

You can't tell whether England is subsidising Scotland just by looking at government expenditure - or the part of government expenditure which the government chooses to report in a way which allows comparisons.

Private sector expenditure as influenced or controlled by government policies which favour the region around London and particular industries and activities which centre around London and the drain of talent from Scotland because of lack of opportunity caused by economic centralisation in London are far larger, but harder to quantify factors.

There is also the minor matter of the theft of about 1 trillion dollars of oil money.  Theft because it was obtained by deception, specifically the blatant lying about the amount of oil in the north sea in order to influence the first devolution referendum.

Look at any other region in the world with the same amount of oil as Scotland and the wealth in the cities near to the oil.  Look at the skyline of Houston or Dubai, then look at Aberdeen or Edinburgh or Glasgow.  Then look at the skyline of London.  BP employs far more people in London than Scotland and all that tax gets booked as coming from London.   But the oil is in Scotland.  If Scotland had been independent the well paid jobs associated with oil in Scotland would have been located in Scotland, not in London.   

Not that long ago Dolly the Sheep was cloned in Scotland.  That kind of scientific breakthrough in most other parts of the world would have resulted in a huge local biotech industry.  Didn't happen in Scotland.   It would have in Ireland or the US or Oxford/Cambridge.    Scotland is systematically disadvantaged by being governed from London and the centralisation of financial decision makers in London.

Just 10.34%.

You made no comment about other natural resources elsewhere in the uk over the centuries; iron ore, woollen mills, tin, copper, lead, slate, clay....

Oil is a 40 year blip in the last 300 years, what about revenue before that, or in the future.

Perhaps Scotland's not attractive to investors, perhaps the Scottish government isn't offering the right incentives, it has devolved powers. 

Maybe the snp needs to focus more on improving Scotland rather than simply pushing the anti English agenda. It's a one trick poney. 

Absolute rubbish. RBS was briefly the largest bank in the world by assets, managed from its HQ in Gogarburn, Edinburgh. The sorry tale of RBS demonstrates two things that blow your tiresome arguments out of the water -

• There is nothing about Scotland being in the UK that prevents Scottish businesses thriving and becoming world leaders
• Moving "decision makers" out of London to Scotland guarantees absolutely nothing. The fateful decision making at RBS, carried out with the blessing and encouragement of then First Minister Alex Salmond, took place in Edinburgh. Two Scots were particularly culpable - Fred Goodwin and Tom McKillop and their decisions were spectacularly bad. Of the 5 key reasons that banks got into difficulty during the financial crisis, RBS alone was singled out as exhibiting all 5 - https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/378462125376557056

He's just another thief.

This thread is about Philip's funeral.  I think the diversion to whether royalty should be abolished and streets renamed was semi relevant but now we are just rehashing arguments about Scottish Independence.   

If only we knew who it is that always derails threads with the same rehashed arguments about Scottish Independence, we could ask them to stop.

It was you that mentioned oil revenue, what's the connection to Phil the Greek there? 

Even smaller companies like Prudential which have been at Stirling for years recently opened an Edinburgh office too. 

Start with yourself, summo and nickinscottishmountains.

I only mentioned oil revenue because someone came out with nonsense about England subsidising Scotland and the Barnett formula.

As others being have been saying, I suggest this thread is well past its sell by date

The thread topic is the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral

So can we stop BANGING ON endlessly about the independence of Scotland - go ahead guys, split away

In fact Scotland should clearly split into 4 separate independent countries, and England should split into 3 separate independent countries, and Wales should split into 2 separate independent countries, and Northern Ireland should split into 2 separate independent countries

Because splitting up countries has ALWAYS gone so very well historically, hasn't it??