Posted on 11/08/2013 9:15:49 AM PST by Smartisan
Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, triggered a huge political row by announcing that shipbuilding will end at the historic yard at Portsmouth next year, while Govan and Scotstoun on the Clyde remain open. Furious English MPs accused him of attempting to bribe the Scots into rejecting separation, despite his insistence that the defence giant BAE Systems had reached the decision on purely commercial grounds. Both Mr Hammond, and Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish Secretary, gave clear indications that a pledge that went with the announcement - to award the next multi-billion pound naval contract to Scotland - would be reversed in the event of a Yes vote. The Defence Secretary said the Government only ordered warships from UK yards, while Mr Carmichael said Portsmouth would be “well placed” in the event of the break-up of the UK. A final decision on the contract for 13 Type 26 Global Combat Ships will not be made until after the referendum, when there would still be time to reprieve shipbuilding at the Hampshire yard.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Brilliant! /s
Alienate Scotland for having the backbone the UK didn’t.
What? So the UK should leave itself? How would that work?
Balls. This is quite right. An independent Scotland cannot expect to benefit from UK military orders if it is no longer in the UK.
Sovereign capability and all that.
Also, if you’d actually do some background (stunning I know), you;d actually see that the Clyde just got a reprieve in a bid to keep Scotland in the UK. Portsmouth (that’s in England) lost out, bringing an end to 500 years of shipbuilding in the city. But its for the greater good of the Union, so a good political decision.
If Scotland goes, how does the North Sea oil get divvied up?
Actually, it was pointed out to me that I was off base with my comments. I apologize for that.
Folks, I had skimmed this and thought it was E. U. rejection related. Wrong!
Seeking Independence does have it’s down sides. This is merely one of them.
My mistake here.
If Scotland leaves, does Labor leave with it, in terms of political relevance in the UK?
I believe the Conservatives are the big winners if Scotland leaves.
I dunnae support their socialist tendencies, but I wish the Scots all the best as they strive for their freedom lost in the unification of the crowns in 1707.
Thats the Conservatives in England.
I wonder how many Conservatives (big and small c) can't say it out loud, but would really whoop it up if Scotland left.
We weren’t pressganged/conquered into that union though.
Scotand has still lost many jobs at 2 shipyards. This idea the Scots have been left off lightly is a nonsense.
70/30 to Scotland supposedly.
After a couple Marys, a few regents, a French queen, a John Knox, three changes in religious affiliation and French troops on Scottish soil ya'll were just too exhausted to fight about it.
All due respect, this decision was a political one, and indeed one that will be met with the clause of reintroducing these jobs back to Portsmouth if/when Scotland choose to take independence.
This decision was made (as in, not to close down shipbuilding in the Clyde) in order to protect/coerce the Scottish vote next year. Jobs have been lost through all the yards yes, but only one of them is closing and its the site on the south coast of England that pays the price. I’ve toured those yards myself, a site that has more current knowledge of shipbuilding (other than carrier) than the Clyde.
I’m not arguing the rights or wrongs, only to say that this was a political, not industrial, decision.
Well, I gotta admit, "Charles III" does have a couple of negative associations to it.
A very solid portion of Labour support would go with it yes. Certainly far more than Conservative or other parties.
Hands up if you don’t know the difference between England and the UK.
It’s Scotland’s choice if they want to become independent, a choice I believe is unavailable to the states of the US.
however, generations after the joining of the crowns had to put up with English influence. I have stood on the battlefield at Culloden, and felt the helpessness of the Jacobite army armed with claymores against the Duke of Northumberland's army armed with cannon.
I ran into Scots in Inverness who still held a grudge all these years after the Clearances.
The owner of our B&B in Inverness asked me to spit on the doorstep at Dunrobin Castle for her to show her feelings toward her Southern neighbors. I had not done my homework, but she graciously told me storiesof what her family endured under the English.
Wm Wallace was not wrong fighting for freedom 500 years earlier.
Have a great evening.
I am not denying that, I am saying too many pundits/mouthflappers south of the border are talking as if Scotland has lost no jobs.
1—The Scots put up with nothing. In fact, in the century after the union, it was the Scots who started to run the Empire, expand it, and it was the Scottish Enlightnment that drove Britain forward.
Sorry, but the idea that Scotland has suffered because of the union is nonsense. Quite the opposite, Scotland thrived under it and the Empire, and we are better off in it than we would have been out of it. To blame the English for our ills post 1707 is bad history, romantic tosh.
2—Culloden?. You mean the famous battle where more Scots fought AGAINST the Jacobites than for them?. Where most of Scotland, inc half the Highlands, and both sides of my family, OPPOSED the Jacobites?.
The Jacobites weren’t and aren’t patriots like Wallace or Bruce, they were set on restoring a Catholic monarchy, one which most of Scotland opposed. Also they wished to restore a line of the Stuarts that had left nothing but civil war in the 17th C behind it. To the point of a civil war which killed over a million British and Irish, and made Britain a republic 127 years before the US.
3—The Clearances are a black mark, BUT again, here we have bad history. As it was Scottish lairds and landowners who drove their own people off the land, not the big bad English.
AND nobody remembers the LOWLAND clearances!. The victim is always the Highlander. Lowlanders and Borderers suffered, but we don’t count. The perennial Highland whinge gets annoying.
4—Your b&b lady is the kind of narrowminded Scot that makes me cringe, with their rather sad bigotry towards the English. Thankfully the younger Scots are rejecting that kind of anti-English mindset.
5—No, he wasn’t.
6—Same to you.
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