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That may be true, but it's irrelevant to this discussion. Scotland is part of the same small island as England and, for all the faults of our mutual history, acceded to the union voluntarily, so the rule of Scotland from Westminster is neither 'imposed' nor 'from afar' in any common meaning of those terms.
'Voluntarily'?
In the sense that an unelected clique of landowners and lords got together having bankrupted both themselves and the country and performed the merger without the consent of the population at large to save their own privileges?
That they then followed this up with what can only be described as cultural genocide in forcibly clearing people of their lands, burning houses and putting them on ships to the colonies where they were then used to displace other vulnerable people is pretty indicative of how 'voluntary' it was.
I'm also curious as to how you're arrived at the declaration Salmond was only acting in self-interest? Surely he could do all these things as he likes now instead of quitting?
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'Voluntarily'?
In the sense that an unelected clique of landowners and lords got together having bankrupted both themselves and the country and performed the merger without the consent of the population at large to save their own privileges?
That they then followed this up with what can only be described as cultural genocide in forcibly clearing people of their lands, burning houses and putting them on ships to the colonies where they were then used to displace other vulnerable people is pretty indicative of how 'voluntary' it was.
Once again, even if sung by an Irishman:
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'Voluntarily'?
That's why I said "for all the faults of our mutual history". The English population had no more choice in the matter than the Scots did, but it's still very different from conquest by arms.
I'm also curious as to how you're arrived at the declaration Salmond was only acting in self-interest? Surely he could do all these things as he likes now instead of quitting?
As first minister, even a British politician might feel constrained from maximising his earnings from outside sources. It's clear that back-benchers feel no such compunction. Hence he needs to cash in now, albeit on a more modest scale than Plan A which was to serve one term as Great Leader and retire to spend more time with other people's money as a scaled down Tony Blair.
Oliver Schick
gbj_tester
What is fair about a 100m running race in which one person wins and another loses?
In both cases, a set of rules which apply equally to everybody who starts.
Elites and underclasses existed long before parliaments, so you can't really say that anything in our current forms of government gave rise to them. At best, you might say that our form of government perpetuates them, but then so does every other form yet devised, many more so than representative democracy.
That may be true, but it's irrelevant to this discussion. Scotland is part of the same small island as England and, for all the faults of our mutual history, acceded to the union voluntarily, so the rule of Scotland from Westminster is neither 'imposed' nor 'from afar' in any common meaning of those terms.