Scottish Referendum - What is your prediction?!

[mystery]

They can't tell what we say.

[southbucks3]

That should probably go in most of our favours!

[stroudydad]

They could withold their cheese as ransom! I love a bit of Caerphilly.

Interesting how areas with higher proportion of pensioners had a higher YES vote, a pattern duplicated all over the country apparently. Wonder what the biddies have against us in particular?

Perhaps it's just that they don't have to live with repurcussions long term..

[fairyelephant]

I still think its a rap on the knuckles that so many wanted to separate. We clearly need to do things differently. Maybe we should have the US style federal and state income taxes so people feel more connected to local costs, including education and health?
I have to say I was delighted that the Union is preserved, at least for now. My Scottish ancestry is a bit remote (although the freckles and pale skin might suggest otherwise ) but we came perilously close to a nasty divorce, as Cameron said. The UK isn't a huge country and we share an island with Scotland, surely we should be able to make it work....

[stroudydad]

All that has happened in this referendum is that Scotland have gained more of the good things about independance but without any of the bad things. And for the other members it has just been a costly exersize to prove that actually the scottish don't believe that they can survive on their own..

[Looking for help]

Oh stroudydad, how wrong you are. The scottish people - I am one, but actually totally disenfranchised as I committed the heinous crime of moving to England, will get very little from this shoddy shambles of a referendum.
David Cameron forced an unconvinced Alex salmond into a corner to name the date, some 2 years ago. Salmond was never convinced until a few months ago that things would go his way, and the realisation that a huge proportion of the population were actually going to vote yes was too shocking for not only him but the WM govt , so lip service was paid to 'powers ' for home rule and now we are where we are today !
If I'd have been there I would have voted yes because all my whole life this has been out there and as a proud nation we could have stood up for once and been responsible for ourselves which is what a huge number of us believe
Somebody unthread mentioned Glasgow in a demeaning fashion. Glasgow is a fantastic vibrant city, a whole light year away from Edinburgh in modern upbeat living, with great culture, and a huge desire to improve, whose citizens are not afraid to do something different, and embrace change.
In the aftermath lots of promises have been made but they are very unlikely to come to fruition.

[Looking for help]

People over the age of 65 generally voted no

[Looking for help]

Not that I feel strongly about this or anything

[southbucks3]

Oh stroudydad, how wrong you are. The scottish people - I am one, but actually totally disenfranchised as I committed the heinous crime of moving to England, will get very little from this shoddy shambles of a referendum.
David Cameron forced an unconvinced Alex salmond into a corner to name the date, some 2 years ago. Salmond was never convinced until a few months ago that things would go his way, and the realisation that a huge proportion of the population were actually going to vote yes was too shocking for not only him but the WM govt , so lip service was paid to 'powers ' for home rule and now we are where we are today !
If I'd have been there I would have voted yes because all my whole life this has been out there and as a proud nation we could have stood up for once and been responsible for ourselves which is what a huge number of us believe
Somebody unthread mentioned Glasgow in a demeaning fashion. Glasgow is a fantastic vibrant city, a whole light year away from Edinburgh in modern upbeat living, with great culture, and a huge desire to improve, whose citizens are not afraid to do something different, and embrace change.
In the aftermath lots of promises have been made but they are very unlikely to come to fruition.

I am bouncing in as I believe, I may be that "somebody"

I said they were desperate, I was not being demeaning, I respect the Glaswegians as I do any other human. They are however as a statistical group, desperate:

31% of Glasgow households were workless in April 2014.
They have the highest youth unemployment in the whole of the uk.
They have the highest violence ranking in the peace index, for any urban area in the uk, and the highest amount of homicides per 100,000 per year.
2013 showed it to have the highest suicide rate in the uk, with over a third of the suicides in Scotland being in Glasgow.
The commonwealth games have left a short term legacy of happy rich taxi drivers, (good for them...its normally a thankless job) guest house owners, and has certainly glammed up the extremities, but the reality remains the same underneath the single coat of gloss paint. The jobs created were a temporary respite for some and of course boosted morale, but there is still little long term hope for many.

My brother in law and his family are from Glasgow, his sister and her family have recently moved out as they did not wish to bring their young family up in such an unsettled city.

[Amber]

Doesn't that really support what LFH is saying though SB3? I adore Scotland and have spent many happy times there and have close friends both sides of the border who are Scots. When I am there, what is happening in England seems hugely irrelevant and the news in Scotland is rarely reported 'down here'. I can see entirely why so many Scots people wanted out - it is one thing talking about finances but that is largely because of the inequitable distribution of wealth in the UK. There is a north-south divide anyway; it is even greater when you look at cities like Glasgow. If 'UK' companies insist on having all their offices within a 10 mile radius of the M25, the further north you go the less chance you are going to have to get a share of the spoils.

So many southerners (and I don't mean you, SB3) never venture further north than Watford and hold disparaging views about the north. When I was a very proud student in Newcastle quite a few people sympathised with me - how awful it must be living in such a deprived area. It made me seethe and still does - it is no cliché to say that the people in the north are generally friendlier and more hospitable than those down south, and I remember hearing a report that the Salvation Army in its Christmas collections always made more in the 'bleak' northern towns than the leafy southern ones. Many northern towns are vibrant and affluent and fabulous places to live and visit. But so many southerners have closed minds about it - I have no idea why, but even some of my friends hold distasteful views on the matter, unencumbered by any actual experience.

I have never lived in Scotland but two of my close friends do and this London and the South East bias is exactly what drove them to vote yes. I do hope the politicians who all shot up there in panic last week promising the earth will actually deliver some of the goodies they offered forth in desperation.