[thechat] Curling

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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To:    thechat at lists.evolt.org
Subject:    Re: [thechat] Curling


>Martin wrote:
>> Yay - we got our first gold since 1984... and it's an
>> all Scottish team!

>You confused me for a minute.  I was thinking to myself, "Scotland
>didn't win a gold medal in curling.  Great Britan did." <pause> "Oh
>yeah."   I keep forgetting that Scots think of themselves as part of
>Great Britain.

Well that's an interesting question. It's more of a legal and
constitutional
question than how people think of themselves (although most surveys
find that an overwhelming majority of people in Scotland think of
themselves
as Scottish first, and a fair number don't think of themselves as British
at all).

FWIW the only reason Scotland is part of Britain is that the Scottish
Parliament voted to adjourn itself in 1707 and join the English one,
in the face of overwhelming public opposition. There were riots in
the streets of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling the day the Act was
signed.

If you think that today's politics is corrupt, you ain't seen nothing.
The vast majority of the Scottish MPs were bribed to vote in favour
of it, not least the leader of the anti-Union party, who waited until
all his compatriots had left for the night before withdrawing the
party's opposition.

As Robert Burns wrote: "We were bought and sold for English gold,
sic a parcel of rogues in a nation"

But then, you're not allowed to say you're Scottish if you're at the
Olympics:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/winterolympics2002/hi/english/alpine_skiing/newsid_1830000/1830432.stm>

>Do you think that Scotland will declare independence anytime soon?
Don't know. The usual levels of opinion are a third pro-union, a third pro-
independence, and a third not really caring either way. It would depend on
how a referendum were counted. We had a devolution referendum in 1978
where all those not voting were counted as voting 'no'.

Of course, to have a referendum, you'd need to get a party into Scottish
government which supported holding it...

My own opinion is that European integration will make it matter less and
less,
particularly as the powers reserved to the UK parliament go upward to a
European
level.

Cheers
Martin


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