SCOTTISH 'NO' VOTE MEANS MORE CHAOS FOR ENGLAND.

And so, after an increasingly frenetic few weeks, the people of Scotland have rejected the idea of full independence. The pollsters who told us that the vote was 'neck-and-neck' have, once again, got it horribly wrong and Alex Salmond's dream has been dashed at least for now. By 55.3% to 44.7%, the United Kingdom will remain united for a few more years.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of our problems. Despite saying that he accepts the verdict and that the independence debate is now closed for a generation, or even a lifetime, it's a racing certainty that many of his colleagues won't see it that way; the likelihood of another referendum within a decade or so has to be very high. Even before that, we're now faced with fulfilling the assorted promises made by Cameron, Miliband and Clegg and trying to make sense of these not only for Scotland but also for the rest of the country. The 'West Lothian' question has already come dramatically to the fore with many people now asking how Scotland can be granted virtual independence within the Union while the same privilege is denied to England; the implications for the future of the UK constitution and Parliament are mind-boggling.

Cameron has said that everything should be resolved by the time of the General Election in May of next year. This is clearly nothing other than political bravado as he tries to pretend that he's in control; the simple truth is that he and the other main party leaders panicked and made a raft of stupid promises without having any idea as to how they would be fulfilled or what effect they would have elsewhere. Once reality is restored, there'll be rapid realisation that what we actually have is a nightmare situation which will take years to resolve if, indeed, resolution is possible.

All the main parties are focussed on next year's election and, as the date approaches, they'll become more and more terrified. The winners, certainly in England, may well be UKIP who should be able to profit from the total disarray of the rest allied to an upsurge of English nationalism. Oh, what fun it's all going to be !

SCOTLAND ON THE BRINK.

As we move into the last week of the Scottish Independence campaign, it is increasingly apparent that the result will be very close. Whichever way it goes, the implications for the whole of the UK will be significant and, quite probably, traumatic.

If Scotland votes 'Yes', it raises questions about the future of Sterling and the national debt, the financial services industry, many of our major institutions and businesses, our defence forces, and many, many more areas. It raises possible questions about next year's General Election and what will be done about the 59 Scottish MPs who may then be returned to a Parliament in which they will have no more than a couple of years service. In Scotland itself, decisions will have to be made about the currency, membership of international organisations such as the EU, NATO and the UN, border controls, defence, and so on. It may be many years before all of the questions are resolved.

If the vote is 'No', Scotland will be given much greater control over it's own finances and services and many of the same questions arise. The granting of much greater autonomy to the Scots will lead to an upsurge in demands for similar treatment for Wales and, perhaps, the more remote English regions; there will be questions raised about the future of the 59 Scottish MPs at Westminster and demands for an 'English only' parliament. Worse still, a narrow 'No' vote will almost certainly mean a further referendum within a decade or so, one which will almost certainly result in a 'Yes' vote.

One way or another, Scotland will almost certainly gain independence within the not very distant future and we will have to deal with the issues outlined above, plus many others. Currently, our political masters claim to have made no contingency plans and are panicking greatly. No doubt there are some contingency plans somewhere but it may be that we should hope for a 'No' vote next week in order for there to be some more comprehensive planning for the future. It would also give Alex Salmond and his mates time to work out some proper plans for the management of an independent Scotland, though this would probably not be in their interests as proper plans are the last thing people relying on emotion would want.

Roll on next Friday, Scotland's 'D-day'.

ENGLISH DEVOLUTION A STEP NEARER.

The "Curly, Larry and Moe" of British politics have set themselves up for another right constitutional mess with their latest self-serving pronouncement about Scotland. All 3 of these stooges have committed to devolving more power to the Scottish parliament in the event of a 'No' vote in next month's independence referendum while giving no apparent thought to the implications for the Westminster parliament or, indeed, for England.

It's now being proposed that the Scottish mob will be granted extensive tax raising powers plus some serious autonomy with regard to social security provision. It won't be long before all of the major issues, except for defence and some of the Treasury's higher responsibilities, have been devolved, leaving one wondering what on earth a raft of Scottish MPs will be doing in the House of Commons. It also raises, yet again, the infamous 'West Lothian' question - if Scotland has a large dollop of autonomy, why should their representatives have any say at all over devolved matters when it comes to discussion in the House of Commons ?

Whether or not the Scots vote for independence, it is surely time for this issue to be resolved. It is ludicrous to allow Scottish MPs at Westminster to vote on matters which do not concern Scotland while denying English MPs a similar say on Scottish matters. For that matter, the same applies, though currently to a lesser degree, to the Welsh. In all of this, the English are in danger of being ruled by the votes of Scottish and Welsh socialist MPs at Westminster, while themselves being largely excluded from the government of Scotland and Wales.

This is not right and must be resolved.

CAMERON'S EU PLEDGE JUST A CON TRICK.

So David Cameron has finally made his long-awaited speech about the European Union and the UK's position in it - or out of it.

 

Members of the Conservative party seem to be very happy with his apparent committment to hold a simple 'in / out' referendum sometime in 2018, but this date really is far too distant for Cameron's words to hold much water. There are too many imponderables raised by his speech for anyone to draw any real meaning from it.

 

Will Cameron be in a position to carry out his pledge in 2018 ? Will he still be Prime Minister or, indeed, even leader of his party by then ? Precisely what will be renegotiated ? What will count as 'success' in any negotiations ? What will happen if Scotland votes for independence in its own referendum ? Etc., etc.

 

Cameron is actually running scared of both his own MPs and UKIP and that's the only reason for his speech. He has no intention whatsoever of really giving us an opportunity of a fair unbiased vote as whatever the outcome of his 'renegotiations' he would claim a huge success and campaign vigorously to stay in this corrupt club. The Liberal Democrats and Labour parties will do the same and we'll be left with exactly the same situation as we had back in 1975 - the Government and major parties all on one side while a relatively small number of right wing Tories and UKIP would be on the other. Campaigning would be skewed strongly in favour of a vote to stay in, mainly because that is the option that most politicians prefer; after all, it is the option that offers them the chance of an alternative career and lots of 'jollies' all at the tax payer's expense.

 

Given that Cameron's chances of still being PM after the 2015 election are slim, most of the above is probably nothing but pointless conjecture. Even if he does somehow hold on to office, it's still more than 2 years to the election  and a further 3 before he would have to fullfil his committment. Harold Wilson famously said that "a week is a long time in politics"; on that scale, 5 years is an eternity. Cameron's speech has meaning for the moment and, perhaps, for the next week or two; beyond that it has no meaning other than as an attempt to safeguard his own position and we all know how precarious can be the positions of political figures.

 

For anyone who really wants to see a change in the relationship between the UK and EU, there is only one option - vote UKIP. Firstly in next year's European elections and then in the General Election of 2015. Forget Cameron's promises, he's already shown himself to be as slippery as any of them when it comes to finding ways out of sticking to them and this will be no different.

EUROZONE STUMBLES ON AS GREEKS DROP THE BALL.

Less than a week ago I wrote that the solution to the latest Eurozone crisis might well last no more than 2 or 3 weeks, but I didn't reckon on the Greek Prime Minister throwing all the balls into the air with his announcement that the deal reached last week would be put to a referendum of the Greek people.

The Greek people are not a happy bunch, despite the fact that they've been enjoying a lifestyle in recent years that's way beyond their ability to pay for it and that a substantial part of the cost of putting things right was now going to be picked up by other European Union member countries. For some reason, the Greeks think that it's all very unfair for them to have to be 'put upon' in this way and the initial reaction to Mr Papandreou's statement is to expect them to vote the Greek equivalent of 'Up Yours', when it comes to the referendum in December or January.

Why Mr Papandreou has, effectively, reneged on the agreement reached last week is anyone's guess. His announcement certainly seems to have come as a complete surprise to all and sundry and stock markets have nose-dived as a result. Is he playing a game designed to screw a few extra drachmas out of Brussels ? Is he simply trying to save his own political skin ahead of a confidence vote due on Friday ? Whatever the reasoning, the view of most pundits seems to be that he may well lose Friday's vote, thus precipitating a general election. The announcement of a referendum on the proposed solution to the Greek debt crisis, while unsettling to say the least, is probably no more so than would be the collapse of the Greek government and so Papandreou really had very little to lose, but quite a lot to gain, at least in the short term.

What will happen next is in the lap of the Gods, almost literally so in the case of Greece, the home of Mount Olympus. Will Papandreou survive ? If he does, which way will the Greek people vote in the referendum ? If he doesn't, will there be a referendum at all ? Should the people vote against the proposed deal, it seems quite likely that Greece will then have to leave the Eurozone, possibly to be followed by others such as Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. If they vote for the deal, or don't get the chance to vote, the Eurozone will likely hold together for a few more months, until the next crisis, unless the fall-out from the current meleé proves too much for Italy to withstand, as already seems a possibility.

What fun times these are.

WHAT IS A TRILLION, ANYWAY ?

Eurozone leaders meet to discuss how to resolve their ongoing financial crisis and the commentators throw around numbers that are simply mind-boggling - not mere billions any more, but we are now into trillions of Euros, pounds, dollars, or anything else you care to mention. Does any of it make sense or even really matter ?

What we have is a crisis caused by governments and economists. Forget all the ire aimed at 'bankers', other than the entirely incompetent ones like Fred Goodwin and Eric Daniels, they've done no more than apply the rules that applied to their businesses, rules that were set by governments. Additionally, they responded to the pleas of their governments to lend, lend, lend, as much as possible so as to 'stimulate the economy', in pursuit of an economic theory that has now been shown to have been rather flawed, to ever greater growth. That they didn't really have the money to lend and that most of the loans were unsupported by sound business cases was of minor importance.

In the Eurozone, we have the scenario outlined above multipled by a factor of billions as a result of the utterly impossible Euro project. Anyone with a brain cell knew that trying to cram together many nations with disparate economies under a single currency was doomed to failure, and so it has proven. Perhaps those that chose this path actually did so knowing that it would fail and that they would then have an opportunity to propose even closer union as the only logical step - this has only just occurred to me as an option but it makes terrifying sense.

Thinking more about this, it's bloody obvious that the original perpetrators of the Euro knew full-well that 'stage 1' was doomed to failure; they also knew that the only realistic solution to that failure was a 'stage 2' that involved even greater union between the member nations. What they didn't, and couldn't include in their calculations, was the financial crisis that has occurred quite independently of the inevitable Euro mess. When both crises are put together, the result is a total melt-down of the Euro, which is exactly what has happened.

It is now being reported that the Eurozone leaders have been discussing a potential change to the European Treaty as part of the resolution to their problems, something that should automatically lead to a referendum in this country; being a cynic, I wonder if this is a manufactured move designed to 'head off' Monday's debate and vote in the house of Commons. Of course, DC has said that any change would be in our interest, no doubt another attempt at a Monday bypass; one also wonders whether his words may be a precursor to an attempt to say that a referendum is unnecessary as we won't be affected by any consequent change.

We all know what a bunch of prevaricating and disingenous crooks and liars our politicians are. We also know that whatever they come up with, it's us, the people, who will pay. Is it any coincidence that the country currently doing best in Europe is Belgium, and they've been without an effective government for months.

To answer my original question, "Yes, it does make sense, even if the numbers are beyond our comprehension and it matters far more than the vast majority realise or even care."