Scotch broth becomes more savoury as Yes campaign grows - Commentators - Voices. On this point, I think he is right. But there is something else: he is also suggesting that the Yes campaign can win. On this, I think he is also right. Tory-mp-wants-100000-britons-to-hug-scotland-to-keep-the-uk-united-9113269. Tory MP Rory Stewart has called for 100,000 Britons to effectively hug Scotland into staying in the union, by forming a coast-to-coast human chain along Hadrian’s wall, this summer.
With a gesture of love and respect to Scotland, Mr Stewart hopes to introduce an emotional slant into the independence debate, which he claims has so far been too focused on economics. Using his own experiences as an example, Mr Stewart recalled a canoeing expedition he undertook with the Scottish National Party's Angus MacNeil, saying he would miss the MP from the boat and would be embarrassed to be part of a country without him in it. His suggestion comes during the run up to the referendum on Scottish independence to be held 18 September this year.
He told the Commons: “It cannot be simply economics. If a relationship is going wrong, if a marriage is going wrong, the answer cannot simply be to say 'you can't afford to break up because you are going to lose the house'. Owen Jones: What a fairer Scotland would look like - Comment - Voices. I have my own personal reasons for an interest: most of my family live and work north of the Border, and I spent two years of my childhood in Falkirk.
In March 1990, my family went to the great Glasgow anti-poll tax march, just one visible expression of seething anger at a Westminster government that Scots did not vote for. Scotland has changed dramatically. Why an independent Scotland could become the richest country on Earth - Comment - Voices. An independent Scotland could become the richest country on earth.
I’m not joking. It has all the necessary ingredients. Let me explain. Each year the World Bank, the IMF and the CIA each independently publish a list of the richest countries in the world - as measured by GDP per capita at purchasing power parity. The UK sits at a rather disappointing 21st, but topping those rankings you have the likes of Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, Brunei, Norway and Switzerland. If I were young and Scottish, I would vote yes to independence - Comment - Voices. It is because in Scotland you can divine a long-standing sense of nationhood and a strong sense of national identity that have flourished under devolution. Some say that Scotland is by now so separate, de facto, that there is no need for full independence; it would make no difference. Or if there were a difference, it would be an increased sense of precariousness and risk, outside the warm security blanket of the UK.
I disagree. Scotland is a nation. It has a well-developed sense of common purpose and it has a chance to be formally recognised as a nation state. That view was only reinforced when the First Minister, Alex Salmond (with his increasingly impressive deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, beside him), presented the White Paper on independence this week. If I needed any further convincing that Scotland not only can, but should, go it alone, it came from the grudging and simplistic attacks on the day from Alistair Darling. This should be a national decision. UK most unequal country in the West - News. Detailed statistics in the Human Development Report published last week also demonstrate that inequality has grown sharply during Conservative rule and that the poor in Britain now have to live on much the same incomes as their equivalents in Hungary and Korea.
While growing inequality might once have been a cause for congratulation - Margaret Thatcher called on us to "glory" in it - the consensus among experts in such bodies as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the rich nations' club, and even the World Bank is now moving against. Lady Thatcher, like Ronald Reagan, believed that if the rich got richer, everybody would benefit. Now many economists believe that inequality hinders growth. In an unpublished paper Michael Bruno, chief economist of the World Bank, says: "Reducing inequality not only benefits the poor immediately but will benefit all through higher growth. " Editorial: The Scottish question - Editorials - Voices. Strangely, his problems began when the SNP won a majority in the Scottish Parliament last year.
Suddenly, he had a mandate for a referendum on independence and could not hide behind London's obstruction. Almost immediately, he temporised, knowing full well that winning a referendum was a tall order. Tuesday's i front page - "PM considers lower benefi. Owen Jones: The incoherence of Englishness, and why Ed Miliband's England is a lost country - Commentators - Opinion. No other demographic in Britain spends more time mulling over what "Englishness" means than a well-connected coterie of think-tankers, political advisers and certain academics.
Their efforts came to full fruition yesterday with Ed Miliband's much-trailed speech on Englishness. "Presidential State of the Union speeches are less worked on this one," one Labour MP told me. It is an intervention that bears the hallmarks of Jon Cruddas, the new head of Labour's policy review. Labour politicians had "been too nervous to talk of English pride and English character," Miliband argued, for fear of undermining the Union and being tarred with racist nationalism. The Labour leadership is talking about Englishness for a number of reasons. How black gold was hijacked: North sea oil and the betrayal of Scotland - This Britain - UK. The Freedom of Information Act has yielded many insights and revelations into the working of the British government, but none so vivid as the contents of Professor McCrone's paper, written on request in the dog days of Ted Heath's Tory government and only just unearthed under the FOI rules.
Earlier this week, the Chancellor Gordon Brown underlined the vital revenue stream that North Sea oil still is in the context of British politics. In his pre-budget report, Mr Brown extracted an extra £6.5b in tax from North Sea oil and gas producers, to be taken over the next three years. So, what have the Scots ever done for us? Just 101 of the innovations Caledonia gave the world - This Britain - UK. Misappropriated as the philosophical father of our money, money, money culture, the absent-minded Scottish Enlightenment philosopher spent a decade writing The Wealth of Nations.
He studied at the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford – and considered the teaching at the former superior. Bank of England Sir Mervyn King has Sir William Paterson to thank for the second-oldest central bank in the world. The Scottish trader proposed the idea of the BoE. In 1694, Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, adopted his idea, founded the bank and was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Bay City Rollers The tartan One Direction of their day, the Seventies teen sensations gave us endless meaningless pop nonsense such as "Bye Bye Baby" and "All of Me Loves All of You".
Best-ever World Cup goal Bicycles Blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan made a pedal cycle based on a hobby horse, with horizontal pedal movement. 'Braveheart' Britain's greatest tennis player Burns Night Canals Carnegie Hall Chicken Tikka Masala Dunces. Cameron's plan to take charge of Scottish independence vote - UK Politics - UK. Some of the Prime Minister's aides want him to organise a Scottish independence referendum, set and run by Westminster – and they are in discussions with Labour to seek cross-party support.
They believe this referendum could be held in 2012 or 2013 – much sooner than the 2014-15 timetable favoured by Scotland's SNP First Minister, Alex Salmond – and it would contain a straightforward Yes/No question on independence. It is understood that the Prime Minister has yet to make up his mind but he has allowed soundings to be taken, both on his own side and on the Labour benches, to discover whether there is widespread support for this ploy of hijacking the referendum issue from the SNP. David Mundell, a junior minister at the Scotland Office, admitted yesterday he had been "testing the water" with Labour MPs and peers. Mr Mundell said: "I have spoken to a lot of people about what their views are in relation to a referendum and all the issues around it.
" Lottery winners to fund SNP bid.