Indo-UK News and Discussion - April 2013

[ArmenT]

The "Great" in Great Britain and "United" in UK were the 1800's artificial constructs to project the English as some form of a global power that had a larger home land base than the Spanish or the Portuguese.

Nice try, but no. Great Britain (or its Roman equivalent, "Brittania Major") was in use way before the 1800s. Yes, there is also an area that was historically called Lesser Britain/Little Britain/Brittania Minor. Incidentally, a Scottish king was one of the first to officially proclaim himself "King of Great Britain".

[sooraj]

The "Great" in Great Britain and "United" in UK were the 1800's artificial constructs to project the English as some form of a global power that had a larger home land base than the Spanish or the Portuguese.

Nice try, but no. Great Britain (or its Roman equivalent, "Brittania Major") was in use way before the 1800s. Yes, there is also an area that was historically called Lesser Britain/Little Britain/Brittania Minor. Incidentally, a Scottish king was one of the first to officially proclaim himself "King of Great Britain".

heard the same reference in a new tv series Outlander

[Gus]

there is a little land jutting into the channel in france, called brittany. that is 'lesser britain' and england is 'great britain'.

[rsingh]

there is a little land jutting into the channel in france, called brittany. that is 'lesser britain' and england is 'great britain'.

Then it has to be greater britany and not great britain.

[sudarshan]

The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons invaded the British isles, displacing the original Welsh inhabitants. The Saxons were originally from the areas of Jutland and Saxony in present day Germany (and Denmark?) Their language was a dialect of German - platt Deutsch, or low German. Hoch Deutsch, or high German, evolved into the current German. Platt Deutsch became English. "Anglo-Saxon" comes from the names of these two tribes - Angles and Saxons. "Anglo" eventually became "English." So Indians, when we refer to the British as "Angrez" (or "Aangileyargal" in Tamil) hark back to the original name "Angles."

The Normans then invaded England, displacing the Saxons. William of Normandy triumphed over the original invaders, the Saxons, in the battle of Hastings. So the British isles have been through successive layers of massacring the original natives and take-over by hostile outsiders and invaders. This memory of conquest manifests itself in weird ways. Think "Aryan invasion." Their theory of how India was originally an aboriginal abode, which was invaded by the Dravidians (who themselves are not the original inhabitants, according to the theory) and then the Dravidians were massacred by the invading Aryans - all this is really the history of the British isles, which they transplanted onto India for their own reasons.

It's pretty funny. The isles become "Great" Britain, but their language evolves from "Low" German. They're basically a Germanic tribe, originally looked down upon, who found a new land (after massacring the natives) and then developed delusions of grandeur. When you look at it this way, you will see that the USA is basically British history repeating itself on a larger scale.

[vishvak]

Actually, the invasion theory is projected across all continents. If interested, put a question in OIT thread or search it. There is one such theory in Africa too called Tutsi invasion theory which people of Africa had no idea before being 'educated & civilized'. Probably Aryan horse invasion theory puts pseudo-aryans at the top after equal==equal invasions anyway.

[Paul]

The anglo-scottish rupture needs to become permanent and spread across the anglo saxon world.

[Suraj]

The Scottish independence movement can be seen as a case of the Celtic nations (Scotland, Ireland, Wales) trying to move away from England, who are the Anglo-Saxons. Both the Normans and the Saxons have a history of going after the Celts in Europe and Britain. 2014 is also the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, a major Scottish victory in their first war of independence.

[Lalmohan]

The people of Brittany are Bretons, they are racially Celtic like the welsh, Irish and Scotts

[Shreeman]

The bruces are saying the wurrld is coming to an end..... Prepare for the closeout sales.

[Agnimitra]

The bruces are saying the wurrld is coming to an end..... Prepare for the closeout sales.

Are the fatcats worried that the Scots will do what the Icelandics did? Bail out the commoner and put the banksters behind bars...

[Muppalla]

The "Yes" vote upswing trend.

We should help them. As Indians are all ex-Brit colony and part of commonwealth, do we have a vote?

[anupmisra]

We should help them. As Indians are all ex-Brit colony and part of commonwealth, do we have a vote?

You will have to get residency in Scotland within the next 8 days in order to vote.

[ramana]

You can help by spreading the message to vote for YES on Scotland Independence.


Will make up for all Indians who died under the Brutish Empire.

[member_22733]

Also consider donations for the Yes campaign.

[sudarshan]

We should help them. As Indians are all ex-Brit colony and part of commonwealth, do we have a vote?

You will have to get residency in Scotland within the next 8 days in order to vote.

Or do what Asterix did in "Asterix and the Olympic Games," when told that only Greeks and Romans (Hellenes) could participate.

But by Toutatis...we are Romans!

[Philip]

The most influential eminent UK individuals who have Jewish roots.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/peopl ... 24908.html

Mick 'the Miner' Davis, the mogul who criticised Israel, heads list of Britain’s powerful Jews

Judges select leading 100 with influence and label Ed Miliband as ‘tortuous’
Thursday 11 September 2014

A millionaire businessman who enraged Semitic opinion when he warned that Israel is at risk of becoming an apartheid state over its treatment of Palestinians has been named as Britain’s most influential Jew.

Mick “the Miner” Davis, the former chief executive of Xstrata, has been one of Anglo-Jewry’s most outspoken senior figures after breaking the taboo of publicly criticising the government of Benjamin Netanyahu over its failure to pursue a two-nation solution.

South African-born Mr Davis, a leading Tory donor who has given large amounts to Kew Gardens and the Royal Opera House among many charities, was appointed chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Commission by the Prime Minister last year and also heads the Jewish Leadership Council – one of the community’s most powerful bodies.

The 56-year-old tycoon banked £75m last year following the takeover of the company he built by giant commodity trader Glencore in a deal which is said to have offered him continued access to the company’s private jet and a suite of offices in London’s Mayfair, where he is building a new venture.

He leads a list chosen by a panel of judges which includes 19th-placed celebrity chef Yotam Ottolenghi who has introduced audiences to the delights of modern Israeli cuisine through his television programmes and restaurants. The former intelligence officer with the Israeli Defence Force and one-time journalist took up professional cooking after moving to the UK in 1997.

Harry Styles, from One Direction; Actor Maureen Lipman; chef and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi, all featured on the Jewish Chronicle’s Power 100 list Harry Styles, from One Direction; Actor Maureen Lipman; chef and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi, all featured on the Jewish Chronicle’s Power 100 list (Getty; Charlie Forgham-Bailey)
One Direction star Harry Styles achieves 73rd position in the list despite not being Jewish. His achievements include sporting a Star of David at the Teen Choice Awards and regularly taking to Twitter to proclaim his love for kosher food to his 21.5 million followers.

David Cameron, who has described himself as “evangelical” about his own Christian faith, is also included in the Power 100 published by The Jewish Chronicle. The Tory leader, who ranks 15, is praised for having “repeatedly expressed his support for Israel and his determination to protect Jewish practices in this country.” Mr Cameron is just seven places behind the Labour Leader Ed Miliband, who, the newspaper points out, could be just eight months away from becoming the first Jewish-born Prime Minister since Disraeli.

However, it notes that Mr Miliband’s relationship with both his religion and his community has been “tortuous” and he is criticised for his condemnation of Israeli military action in Gaza this summer.

Rising star Labour MP Luciana Berger comes in at number 37 – nearly 20 places higher that Chief Whip Michael Gove, who this week warned of a rising tide of anti-Semitism creeping across Europe. Ms Berger is among a significantly increased number of women to appear in the Power 100. Twenty nine this year are female compared to just 19 when it was last published in 2008.

In sixth place is Baroness Neuberger, Britain’s second female rabbi, who is just one place behind the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who it is claimed “has yet to put his stamp on the job” after taking over from third-placed Lord Sacks last year.
Who’s who: pillars of the community

1: Mick Davis, 56, businessman: Super-rich mining tycoon who shocked the Jewish establishment when he publicly condemned Israel in 2011. He steadfastly backed the country during the recent intervention in Gaza. A leading philanthropist, his generosity has extended to a £500,000 donation to the Tory Party.

2: Trevor Pears, 48, businessman: Along with brothers built a multi-billion pound property empire from family greengrocer shop business. The Pears Foundation, which he heads up, supports Jewish social action projects and education.

4: Dame Vivien Duffield, 68, philanthropist: “No nonsense Dame noted for her steely exterior” is among the most generous individuals in the UK and the highest ranked woman. Donated £40m to the creation of the JW3 Jewish community centre in north London where she grew up.

8: Ed Miliband, 45, Leader of the Opposition: Despite being set to become the first Jewish Prime Minister since Disraeli the Labour leader has done little to endear himself to the community with his condemnation of Israel although he remains well-connected with senior Jews

48: Hannah Weisfeld, 33, founder Yachad: Leading voice of the pro-peace, pro-Israel centre left was a regular media commentator during this summer’s Gaza crisis calling for compromise approach to ending the conflict.

62: Maureen Lipman, 68, actor: One of Britain’s best loved actors is also one of the highest profile Jewish entertainers and advocates who is a “definite candidate for national treasure”, the judges noted

73: Harry Styles, 20, musician: The One Direction star might not be Jewish but his love of the culture, his close Jewish friends and taste for kosher food has made him a community pin up.

[SSridhar]

Amidst the chaos of scotland referendum, racist brits never forgot 'cashmere' issue.

Debate on Human Rights Situation in Kashmir Causes Stir in UK Parliament

Let's watch the debate. If there is anything that we do not like, the Modi government must make the British government feel the pain of taking a patronizing stand and for having discussed an un-necessary issue in their Parliament.

[Shanmukh]

Amidst the chaos of scotland referendum, racist brits never forgot 'cashmere' issue.

Debate on Human Rights Situation in Kashmir Causes Stir in UK Parliament

Let's watch the debate. If there is anything that we do not like, the Modi government must make the British government feel the pain of taking a patronizing stand and for having discussed an un-necessary issue in their Parliament.

The guy who initiated the debate, the Libaral MP, Ward, is from East Bradford, which, if my memory serves me correctly, is a Pakistani constituency. He is doing it to curry favour with his constituency. I don't think the Brits will allow the debate to proceed to any diplomatic complications with India. Most likely, the guy will yammer about Cashmere, and everyone will yawn, and continue to the next topic. But it will be interesting if someone in Indian Parliament gives a notice to speak about the Scottish independence movement.

[anupmisra]

Was there ever any such sentiment in Quebec against the No voters there? Just curious.

Still there, stronger than ever. In rural areas, particularly.

[anupmisra]

The guy who initiated the debate, the Libaral MP, Ward, is from East Bradford, which, if my memory serves me correctly, is a Pakistani constituency. .

Most so-called Kashmiris from the PoK side are not even that. They are from Mirpur. A true Kashmiri will never accept a mirpuri as one.

[Yagnasri]

[/quote]

The guy who initiated the debate, the Libaral MP, Ward, is from East Bradford, which, if my memory serves me correctly, is a Pakistani constituency. He is doing it to curry favour with his constituency. I don't think the Brits will allow the debate to proceed to any diplomatic complications with India. Most likely, the guy will yammer about Cashmere, and everyone will yawn, and continue to the next topic. But it will be interesting if someone in Indian Parliament gives a notice to speak about the Scottish independence movement.[/quote]

No politico wish to do this to other power say China or Germany. These people are doing it knowing they will get away with it. Just kick their HC out of India with 24 hours notice and ask all their people leave here in a week and see the fun. You will find Brits begging us.

By the way why we need to be part of the so called common wealth???

[kmkraoind]

Has Scotland has any rights to ask a fair share in islands of the UK, especially the global ones.

[Suraj]

Scottish independence: Britain is facing its greatest constitutional crisis in 300 years

More than two years have elapsed since David Cameron gave the green light to the Scottish referendum. At the time, it didn’t seem that big a deal, either to the Prime Minister or to anyone else. It was generally assumed that only a minority of Scots would vote to end the Union. There is some evidence that Alex Salmond thought this. He wanted to put a third option – greater powers falling short of independence – in front of the voters.

However, Mr Cameron thought that he could put Mr Salmond on the spot with a simple Yes/No referendum. This has proved a giant miscalculation. Last weekend, panic-stricken Westminster politicians offered the SNP leader his “devo max” anyway.

Yet it still looks possible that Scottish voters will support full independence. Such an outcome would create our greatest constitutional crisis in more than 300 years, dwarfing the famous clash between the House of Lords and the Asquith government 100 years ago, or the Great Reform Act of 1832.

[KLP Dubey]

We should fly the desi "referendum experts" (Khujliwal, Bhushan, etc) over to Scotland in order to agitate and ensure full participation. Should make sure we get some photos of these dudes in skirts (kilts) too.

[panduranghari]

Scottish indepence will shake the global system
By George Friedman of Stratfor

Polls released today showed for the first time that a majority – an extremely small majority, but a majority nonetheless – of Scots favor independence, although other polls suggest the no camp remains in the lead. A poll is not the election, which will be held Sept. 18, but it is still a warning that something extraordinary might happen very soon. The political union between Scotland and England might be abolished after 300 years. The implications of this are enormous and generally ignored.
Obviously, this raises a host of question about how such a divorce might take place, whether the expected time frame – divorce by 2016 – will be adhered to, and how state property might be divided. It also raises the question of Scottish foreign policy. Will Scotland remain in NATO? Will it have membership in the European Union? Will it continue to use the pound sterling, and if not, how will it roll out its own currency?
These are important questions, but far more important issues will follow. One of the principles of the postwar world was the inviolability of Europe's borders. Border disputes were the origin of centuries of war, and so Europe's borders were frozen after World War II to avoid discussion. This may have left some people of one nationality on the wrong side of a border, but this was accepted since the risk of opening the door to border redefinition was considered far greater than any discomforts stemming from the borders that were locked in place.
This principle has been weakened since the end of the Cold War. Still, though the disintegration of the Soviet Union created fully independent states, these were recognized republics within the context of the Soviet Union. One could argue that this did not in fact represent border change. Later, the "Velvet Divorce" of Czechoslovakia into Czech and Slovak successor countries represented another shift, but in a country that had only existed since the end of World War I. The separation of Kosovo from Serbia was a more radical shift but was justified by claims of Serbian oppression. Though each shift weakened the principle of inviolable borders, each came with an asterisk – that is, each had an aspect that stopped it from being the definitive case.
Scotland separating from England, by contrast, can't be minimized. If that centuries-old union can be revised, then anything can be revised. Scottish separatists' reason for splitting is that they are a separate nation, that each nation has the right to its own state and the right to determine its own destiny, and that they no longer choose to be in union. But if they have the right to determine this, why shouldn't others in Europe enjoy the same right?
For example, modern Spain is an amalgam of regions. One, the Catalan region – which contains Barcelona – has a strong separatist movement. If Scotland can leave the United Kingdom, then why shouldn't Catalonia be allowed to leave Spain? Farther east, the Treaty of Trianon gave Romania and then-Czechoslovakia large portions of Hungary along with the Hungarians living there. Why shouldn't Hungarians living in those territories have the right to rejoin Hungary? Meanwhile, if French-speaking Belgians and Dutch-speaking Belgians wish to part ways and return their two regions to their respective countries of origin, why should they not be allowed to? And why shouldn't the eastern part of Ukraine be allowed to secede and join Russia?
Raising the stakes, this is an issue that goes far beyond Europe. There are seemingly innumerable separatist movements in India, China, Africa and so forth.( ) If Scotland has the right to leave the nation-state it is part of and form a new one based on ethnic identity, why can't anyone follow suit? And if anyone can do it, but they are blocked by the state they wish to leave, is resorting to violence in pursuit of independence legitimate?
The Scottish issue – the claim that the Scots are a separate nation and that all nations have a right to self-determination – simply cannot be asterisked. Having this happen in the heart of Western Europe would set a clear precedent that would expand geographically and conceptually. It would legitimize similar movements globally and force a reconsideration of what a nation is. Ultimately, a nation would be whatever the majority says it is.
It is doubtful that the Scottish precedent could be contained in Europe. And it is hard to imagine how this precedent might not lead to conflict somewhere, not in the British Isles but somewhere where the existing state would be less inclined to grant the right of self-determination to a separatist movement.
Of course, the separatists in Scotland may well lose, sentiment might change in the post-election negotiations, and so on. But if England and Scotland divorce, the right to separate will become an integral part of international custom – and it will arouse other movements.

The UK now faces years of Volatility
By Anatole Kaletsky

e probability that the United Kingdom will break apart now appears to be at least 50%. The weekend’s crop of opinion polls agree with each other, and support last Tuesday’s poll showing a powerful swing in favor of a ‘Yes’ vote in next week’s referendum on Scottish independence. Given that up until last Tuesday most investors and analysts (including me) saw no more than a 10%-20% probability of independence, what has happened in the past few days amounts to a genuine exogenous shock of seismic proportions. In response to such a shock it is reasonable to expect further large market movements, especially in the pound, which has now fallen 2.4% against the US dollar in just one week
The biggest risk to the pound sterling and gilts lies not in the economic uncertainties that will be generated by future arguments about Scotland’s relationship to sterling, the sharing of the UK’s national debt, or the distribution of North Sea oil revenues. These are all issues with relatively marginal investment impact, which will only be felt in the long term.
Much more important are three political questions, not about abstract ideology, but of a kind that is highly relevant to investors:
1) What will a Scottish independence vote mean for British politics and economic management in the next nine months?
2) What will be the impact on the 2015 UK general election and subsequent economic policies, especially taxation?
3) What will all this imply for Britain’s membership of the European Union?
The answers to all three questions are more alarming than almost anyone would have predicted a week ago:
1) If the Scots vote for independence it is likely that David Cameron will feel forced to take responsibility and resign as prime minister. If he fails to stand down, a putsch against him by right wing Tories is almost certain. A mutiny may or may not succeed, but Conservative Party politics is extremely febrile and ruthless, and the risk to Cameron’s position is not remotely discounted in the markets. In September 1990 nobody imagined that Margaret Thatcher was vulnerable; less than two months later she was ousted by her closest supporters. Whether Cameron is replaced or not, Britain’s government will be reduced to lame duck status between now and the May 2015 election. The only issues on the political agenda will be the terms of Scottish separation and apportioning blame for the referendum debacle.
2) The sense of shock and national failure resulting from an independence vote would make it much more difficult for the present coalition to win the 2015 election. The probability of a Labour-led government would rise from 40%-50% today to something like 70%. This prospect should be very alarming to investors in sterling. Labour will campaign on a platform of higher taxes and public spending, a tougher property tax regime, hobbling and shrinking the City of London, and abolishing the concessions to foreign residents which make Britain one of the world’s most effective tax havens. If anything, the Liberal Democrats, who would probably be Labour’s coalition partners, would be even tougher both in terms of personal tax reform and in their antagonism to the financial sector. To make matters worse, a Labour or Lab-Lib government would lack the political legitimacy to enact the measures promised in its manifesto, since the government’s majority would rely on Scottish members due for expulsion from the English parliament in 2016. A constitutional crisis would therefore ensue. Presumably Labour would respond by promising another general election in mid-2016, immediately after the Scottish secession. The result would be two years of unprecedented political and fiscal uncertainty for all businesses and investors in Britain.
3) Even in the unlikely event that the Conservative Party or a Conservative-Liberal coalition is re-elected in a 2015 election after a Scottish independence vote next week, the political consequences would be dire. In the event of such an unexpected victory, the Conservative Party would regard its hold on power as assured following the expulsion of Scotland’s 59 members of parliament (only one of whom is Conservative). As a result, the party would swing decisively towards the Euro-skepticism favored by its grassroots activists. A referendum on EU membership would be held in 2017 in which the new prime minister (who might conceivably even be David Cameron after a Damascene conversion to Euro-skepticism) would either adopt a neutral position or actively campaign for an exit. Either way, the odds on the UK leaving the EU would climb above 50%.(What about UNSC? UK of great britain and northern ireland constitute the veto holding P5 seat at UNSC. Not just England, Wales and Northern Ireland?)
In the more probable scenario discussed in option (2)—that a Scottish independence vote would lead to a Labour-Liberal victory in the May 2015 general election—there would be no EU referendum in 2017 as promised by the Conservatives. At first that might seem to offer some relief on the European front. In reality, however, it would do nothing to secure Britain’s EU membership. On the contrary, a Lab-Lib government would have to call another general election immediately after Scottish secession in 2016; an election in which EU membership would be straight back on the agenda. The Conservatives, emboldened by their ‘natural’ majority in the UK-minus-Scotland would swing towards outright Euro-skepticism and campaign for an immediate post-election referendum, laying down conditions for renegotiating EU membership which Brussels, France and even Germany would be sure to reject.
Thus a Conservative victory in a 2016 election would make Brexit almost certain a year later. If, as is quite possible, the Euro-skeptics overplayed their hand and the Tories lost the 2016 election, the UK would be saddled with a high tax Labour-Liberal government until 2021.
As a result, if Scotland does vote for independence next week, it is hard to come up with a positive scenario for British assets, whatever happens subsequently. Of course, there is always the hope that the polls may be wrong or the Scots will change their minds at the last moment once they realize what a Pandora’s box of political uncertainties they are about to open. But hope is not a strategy. We recommend selling sterling and other British assets, apart from those such as resource shares which have little exposure to British politics and which benefit directly from a weak pound.

[panduranghari]

Has Scotland has any rights to ask a fair share in islands of the UK, especially the global ones.

What about the 310 tons of UK gold reserves. Scotland has a proportional right over it too.

[K Mehta]

India should raise the issue of denial of human rights to the original inhabitants of the chagos and Diego Garcia and the incomplete decolonization in the world.

[pankajs]

Saar if we have the guts we need not look outside. Just setup a parliament hearing on Bengal famine and threaten to label the Bengal famine as genocide in our books. Followup with a big bang TV documentary abt Bengal famine, Jaliwala bag, etc. Name some days in a year as remembrance days related to some British atrocity or if we already have some such days make it into a big TV event just like Modi did on Teachers day.

That will put the brits in their place but alas the last Indian PM went to londonistan and praised them sky high for their contribution towards India instead of reminding them of their sins of the past 200 years. We have let the brutes off the hook and all such memories have vanished for the mango junta.

[vishvak]

Al-motormas from UK are running al-pimp brigade for ISIL. What if these women come back.
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 4#p1715124

They believe the militants can use these women as they please as they are non-Muslims.

Motormas in Khanasa brigade of Islamic state helping massive slavery in Iraq and Syria.

[ramana]

Has Scotland has any rights to ask a fair share in islands of the UK, especially the global ones.

What about the 310 tons of UK gold reserves. Scotland has a proportional right over it too.

Biggest question is will Scotland get its share of nukes and two of the Tridents submarines as their share. The base is in Scotland.

If Scotland votes Yes, lets have a BRF meet in Edinburgh next year. Celebrate completion of "End of Colonialism" started by India in 1947.

[Yagnasri]

After Welsh and Irish independence along with Dego garicia and other islands etc.

[Suraj]

Scottish indepence will shake the global system
By George Friedman of Stratfor

Polls released today showed for the first time that a majority – an extremely small majority, but a majority nonetheless – of Scots favor independence, although other polls suggest the no camp remains in the lead. A poll is not the election, which will be held Sept. 18, but it is still a warning that something extraordinary might happen very soon. The political union between Scotland and England might be abolished after 300 years. The implications of this are enormous and generally ignored.

Yes there are enormous implications. And the first of them is not "don't let it happen! It could also happen elsewhere!" like this Friedman joker suggests. The first implication is that nations will be more serious about managing their separatist movements. The Scottish independence drive is a saga of bluster and stupidity on the part of England.

They forced Scotland into an alliance 300 years ago, promising them a share of the spoils of looting India. The alliance should have crumbled in the 1950s/60s, but oil was found, that brought more wealth. Yet, there remained a thriving independence movement. Westminster refused to devolve powers under a federal system, remaining resolutely unitarian and London-centric. When the Scots chafed, they were ignored.

Finally, the Scots demanded a yes/no/devomax (maximum devolution of powers, i.e. federal system) option referendum. Cameron refused the devomax choice and said "go ahead, vote yes or no" (snigger), daring them. Three years later, to Westminster's great astonishment, it became obvious that they could vote yes, and they all go begging to Scotland and what do they do - they offer the same devomax option that they previously haughtily declined to force the Scots to pick one of two choices.

So here's the conclusion of the whole thing - don't be a moron. Take your separatists seriously. Don't bury your head in the sand and pretend they don't exist. Don't play games with their demands and force them to choose a binary option even if they're supposedly a fringe element, because they might just make the most astonishing of choices.

Regardless of what happens next week, Cameron has destroyed the facade of unity of the UK, and the credibility of London in the eyes of rUK, as well as everyone else. The rest of the world will look down on them as a weak power who can barely hold their country together (even more so if Scotland actually secedes). The matter was always there in the background, but the fact that it was rapidly brought to the foreground and turned into a critical part of UK's existence, is entirely London's own idiocy in action.

Cameron himself will be remembered as the man who wrecked the UK, regardless of whether Scotland actually leaves. The very fact that they got this far due to his own stupid political miscalculation, will be a political embarrassment he will never recover from. His party will be crippled. The Labour will not do any better because Scotland is historically Labour territory, and therefore they will face accusations of having done too little for unity. This is a situation where the country is falling apart, and both parties are seen as equally incompetent at the task of maintaining the unity.

From our perspective, the situation could not be better - no matter what happens, they're screwed. Not just that, but they screwed themselves over.

[Prem]

Current era will be the most beneficial era for Unnat ,Urjit,Utkirsht, Samridh Bharat. PakiKiAmmi Brishit now soon going to be F UK, Pakanimals butting head with each other to claim the right to F their own, Modi on the helm and Brihat Asia calling India again to create the equilibrium , show the Middle path to Middle Kingdom and beyond. We successfully passed economic crisis of the century. Only thing left is now for Dharmic values to be strengthened and Sanskritic people to consolidate and formally put end to both political Imperialism and religious imperialism as symbolized by UK and Poaquukay next door. Did any one expected such interesting exciting time when BeeR started?

[Ranjani Brow]

North Korea 'backs Scottish independence'

[member_22733]

^^^ Our DIEs are too Dhimmi to do the same, and our leaders (barring Modi and a few others) are inward looking. Without giving Jhapads like that Brishits will not "come down" to planet earth.

In any case, if the "Yes" folks lose by a small percentage the issue will leave a festering wound, ripe for exploitation, and it should be exploited every time some Brishitstaini raises their d1ck over cashmere.

[Hari Seldon]

[ramana]

We will even name the new kid James.

[MurthyB]

How the English viewed the Scottish:

It is not easy for a modern Englishman, who can pass in a day from his club in St. James's Street to his shooting box among the Grampians, and who finds in his shooting box all the comforts and luxuries of his club, to believe that, in the time of his greatgrandfathers, St. James's Street had as little connection with the Grampians as with the Andes. Yet so it was. In the south of our island scarcely any thing was known about the Celtic part of Scotland; and what was known excited no feeling but contempt and loathing. The crags and the glens, the woods and the waters, were indeed the same that now swarm every autumn with admiring gazers and stretchers. ... Yet none of these sights had power, till a recent period, to attract a single poet or painter from more opulent and more tranquil regions. Indeed, law and police, trade and industry, have done far more than people of romantic dispositions will readily admit, to develope in our minds a sense of the wilder beauties of nature. A traveller must be freed from all apprehension of being murdered or starved before he can be charmed by the bold outlines and rich tints of the hills. He is not likely to be thrown into ecstasies by the abruptness of a precipice from which he is in imminent danger of falling two thousand feet perpendicular; by the boiling waves of a torrent which suddenly whirls away his baggage and forces him to run for his life; by the gloomy grandeur of a pass where he finds a corpse which marauders have just stripped and mangled; or by the screams of those eagles whose next meal may probably be on his own eyes. ...

[The poet Oliver] Goldsmith was one of the very few Saxons who, more than a century ago, ventured to explore the Highlands. He was disgusted by the hideous wilderness, and declared that he greatly preferred the charming country round Leyden, the vast expanse of verdant meadow, and the villas with their statues and grottoes, trim flower beds, and rectilinear avenues. Yet it is difficult to believe that the author of the Traveller and of the Deserted Village was naturally inferior in taste and sensibility to the thousands of clerks and milliners who are now thrown into raptures by the sight of Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond.

His feelings may easily be explained. It was not till roads had been cut out of the rocks, till bridges had been flung over the courses of the rivulets, till inns had succeeded to dens of robbers, till there was as little danger of being slain or plundered in the wildest defile of Badenoch or Lochaber as in Cornhill, that strangers could be enchanted by the blue dimples of the lakes and by the rainbows which overhung the waterfalls, and could derive a solemn pleasure even from the clouds and tempests which lowered on the mountain tops.

The change in the feeling with which the Lowlanders regarded the highland scenery was closely connected with a change not less remarkable in the feeling with which they regarded the Highland race. It is not strange that the Wild Scotch, as they were sometimes called, should, in the seventeenth century, have been considered by the Saxons as mere savages. But it is surely strange that, considered as savages, they should not have been objects of interest and curiosity. The English were then abundantly inquisitive about the manners of rude nations separated from our island by great continents and oceans. Numerous books were printed describing the laws, the superstitions, the cabins, the repasts, the dresses, the marriages, the funerals of Laplanders and Hottentots, Mohawks and Malays. The plays and poems of that age are full of allusions to the usages of the black men of Africa and of the red men of America. The only barbarian about whom there was no wish to have any information was the Highlander. ...

In the reign of George the First, a work was published which professed to give a most exact account of Scotland; and in this work, consisting of more than three hundred pages, two contemptuous paragraphs were thought sufficient for the Highlands and the Highlanders. We may well doubt whether, in 1689, one in twenty of the well read gentlemen who assembled at Will's coffeehouse knew that, within the four seas, and at the distance of less than five hundred miles from London, were many miniature courts, in each of which a petty prince, attended by guards, by armour bearers, by musicians, by a hereditary orator, by a hereditary poet laureate, kept a rude state, dispensed a rude justice, waged wars, and concluded treaties. While the old Gaelic institutions were in full vigour, no account of them was given by any observer, qualified to judge of them fairly.

Had such an observer studied the character of the Highlanders, he would doubtless have found in it closely intermingled the good and the bad qualities of an uncivilised nation. He would have found that the people had no love for their country or for their king; that they had no attachment to any commonwealth larger than the clan, or to any magistrate superior to the chief. He would have found that life was governed by a code of morality and honour widely different from that which is established in peaceful and prosperous societies. He would have learned that a stab in the back, or a shot from behind a fragment of rock, were approved modes of taking satisfaction for insults. He would have heard men relate boastfully how they or their fathers had wreaked on hereditary enemies in a neighbouring valley such vengeance as would have made old soldiers of the Thirty Years' War shudder. He would have found that robbery was held to be a calling, not merely innocent, but honourable. He would have seen, wherever he turned, that dislike of steady industry, and that disposition to throw on the weaker sex the heaviest part of manual labour, which are characteristic of savages. He would have been struck by the spectacle of athletic men basking in the sun, angling for salmon, or taking aim at grouse, while their aged mothers, their pregnant wives, their tender daughters, were reaping the scanty harvest of oats . Nor did the women repine at their hard lot. In their view it was quite fit that a man, especially if he assumed the aristocratic title of Duinhe Wassel and adorned his bonnet with the eagle's feather, should take his ease, except when he was fighting, hunting, or marauding. To mention the name of such a man in connection with commerce or with any mechanical art was an insult. Agriculture was indeed less despised. Yet a highborn warrior was much more becomingly employed in plundering the land of others than in tilling his own.

The religion of the greater part of the Highlands was a rude mixture of Popery and Paganism. The symbol of redemption was associated with heathen sacrifices and incantations. Baptized men poured libations of ale to one Daemon, and set out drink offerings of milk for another. Seers wrapped themselves up in bulls' hides, and awaited, in that vesture, the inspiration which was to reveal the future. Even among those minstrels and genealogists whose hereditary vocation was to preserve the memory of past events, an enquirer would have found very few who could read. In truth, he might easily have journeyed from sea to sea without discovering a page of Gaelic printed or written. The price which he would have had to pay for his knowledge of the country would have been heavy. He would have had to endure hardships as great as if he had sojourned among the Esquimaux or the Samoyeds. Here and there, indeed, at the castle of some great lord who had a seat in the Parliament and Privy Council, and who was accustomed to pass a large part of his life in the cities of the South, might have been found wigs and embroidered coats, plate and fine linen, lace and jewels, French dishes and French wines. But, in general, the traveller would have been forced to content himself with very different quarters. In many dwellings the furniture, the food, the clothing, nay the very hair and skin of his hosts, would have put his philosophy to the proof. His lodging would sometimes have been in a hut of which every nook would have swarmed with vermin. He would have inhaled an atmosphere thick with peat smoke, and foul with a hundred noisome exhalations. At supper grain fit only for horses would have been set before him, accompanied by a cake of blood drawn from living cows. Some of the company with which he would have feasted would have been covered with cutaneous eruptions, and others would have been smeared with tar like sheep. His couch would have been the bare earth, dry or wet as the weather might be; and from that couch he would have risen half poisoned with stench, half blind with the reek of turf, and half mad with the itch.

This is not an attractive picture. And yet an enlightened and dispassionate observer would have found in the character and manners of this rude people something which might well excite admiration and a good hope. Their courage was what great exploits achieved in all the four quarters of the globe have since proved it to be. Their intense attachment to their own tribe and to their own patriarch, though politically a great evil, partook of the nature of virtue. The sentiment was misdirected and ill regulated; but still it was heroic. There must be some elevation of soul in a man who loves the society of which he is a member and the leader whom he follows with a love stronger than the love of life. It was true that the Highlander had few scruples about shedding the blood of an enemy: but it was not less true that he had high notions of the duty of observing faith to allies and hospitality to guests. It was true that his predatory habits were most pernicious to the commonwealth. Yet those erred greatly who imagined that he bore any resemblance to villains who, in rich and well governed communities, live by stealing. When he drove before him the herds of Lowland farmers up the pass which led to his native glen, he no more considered himself as a thief than the Raleighs and Drakes considered themselves as thieves when they divided the cargoes of Spanish galleons. He was a warrior seizing lawful prize of war, of war never once intermitted during the thirty-five generations which had passed away since the Teutonic invaders had driven the children of the soil to the mountains. That, if he was caught robbing on such principles, he should, for the protection of peaceful industry, be punished with the utmost rigour of the law was perfectly just. But it was not just to class him morally with the pickpockets who infested Drury Lane Theatre, or the highwaymen who stopped coaches on Blackheath. His inordinate pride of birth and his contempt for labour and trade were indeed great weaknesses, and had done far more than the inclemency of the air and the sterility of the soil to keep his country poor and rude. Yet even here there was some compensation. It must in fairness be acknowledged that the patrician virtues were not less widely diffused among the population of the Highlands than the patrician vices. As there was no other part of the island where men, sordidly clothed, lodged, and fed, indulged themselves to such a degree in the idle sauntering habits of an aristocracy, so there was no other part of the island where such men had in such a degree the better qualities of an aristocracy, grace and dignity of manner, self respect, and that noble sensibility which makes dishonour more terrible than death. A gentleman of this sort, whose clothes were begrimed with the accumulated filth of years, and whose hovel smelt worse than an English hogstye, would often do the honours of that hovel with a lofty courtesy worthy of the splendid circle of Versailles.
Though he had as little booklearning as the most stupid ploughboys of England, it would have been a great error to put him in the same intellectual rank with such ploughboys. It is indeed only by reading that men can become profoundly acquainted with any science. But the arts of poetry and rhetoric may be carried near to absolute perfection, and may exercise a mighty influence on the public mind, in an age in which books are wholly or almost wholly unknown. ...

There was therefore even then evidence sufficient to justify the belief that no natural inferiority had kept the Celt far behind the Saxon. It might safely have been predicted that, if ever an efficient police should make it impossible for the Highlander to avenge his wrongs by violence and to supply his wants by rapine, if ever his faculties should be developed by the civilising influence of the Protestant religion and of the English language, if ever he should transfer to his country and to her lawful magistrates the affection and respect with which he had been taught to regard his own petty community and his own petty prince, the kingdom would obtain an immense accession of strength for all the purposes both of peace and of war.

Such would doubtless have been the decision of a well informed and impartial judge. But no such judge was then to be found. The Saxons who dwelt far from the Gaelic provinces could not be well informed. The Saxons who dwelt near those provinces could not be impartial. National enmities have always been fiercest among borderers; and the enmity between the Highland borderer and the Lowland borderer along the whole frontier was the growth of ages, and was kept fresh by constant injuries. One day many square miles of pasture land were swept bare by armed plunderers from the hills. Another day a score of plaids dangled in a row on the gallows of Crieff or Stirling. Fairs were indeed held on the debatable land for the necessary interchange of commodities. But to those fairs both parties came prepared for battle; and the day often ended in bloodshed. Thus the Highlander was an object of hatred to his Saxon neighbours; and from his Saxon neighbours those Saxons who dwelt far from him learned the very little that they cared to know about his habits. When the English condescended to think of him at all,—and it was seldom that they did so,—they considered him as a filthy abject savage, a slave, a Papist, a cutthroat, and a thief.

This contemptuous loathing lasted till the year 1745 [when Bonnie Prince Charlie, Pretender to the throne lost by the Stuarts in 1688, led an invading Highland army to within 100 miles of London], and was then for a moment succeeded by intense fear and rage. England, thoroughly alarmed, put forth her whole strength. The Highlands were subjugated rapidly, completely, and for ever. During a short time the English nation, still heated by the recent conflict, breathed nothing but vengeance. The slaughter on the field of battle and on the scaffold was not sufficient to slake the public thirst for blood. The sight of the tartan inflamed the populace of London with hatred, which showed itself by unmanly outrages to defenceless captives. A political and social revolution took place through the whole Celtic region. The power of the chiefs was destroyed: the people were disarmed: the use of the old national garb was interdicted: the old predatory habits were effectually broken; and scarcely had this change been accomplished when a strange reflux of public feeling began.

Pity succeeded to aversion. The nation execrated the cruelties which had been committed on the Highlanders, and forgot that for those cruelties it was itself answerable. Those very Londoners, who, while the memory of the march to Derby was still fresh, had thronged to hoot and pelt the rebel prisoners, now fastened on the prince who had put down the rebellion the nickname of Butcher. Those barbarous institutions and usages, which, while they were in full force, no Saxon had thought worthy of serious examination, or had mentioned except with contempt, had no sooner ceased to exist than they became objects of curiosity, of interest, even of admiration. Scarcely had the chiefs been turned into mere landlords, when it became the fashion to draw invidious comparisons between the rapacity of the landlord and the indulgence of the chief. Men seemed to have forgotten that the ancient Gaelic polity had been found to be incompatible with the authority of law, had obstructed the progress of civilisation, had more than once brought on the empire the curse of civil war. As they had formerly seen only the odious side of that polity, they could now see only the pleasing side. The old tie, they said, had been parental: the new tie was purely commercial. What could be more lamentable than that the head of a tribe should eject, for a paltry arrear of rent, tenants who were his own flesh and blood, tenants whose forefathers had often with their bodies covered his forefathers on the field of battle?

As long as there were Gaelic marauders, they had been regarded by the Saxon population as hateful vermin who ought to be exterminated without mercy. As soon as the extermination had been accomplished, as soon as cattle were as safe in the Perthshire passes as in Smithfield market, the freebooter was exalted into a hero of romance. As long as the Gaelic dress was worn, the Saxons had pronounced it hideous, ridiculous, nay, grossly indecent. Soon after it had been prohibited, they discovered that it was the most graceful drapery in Europe. The Gaelic monuments, the Gaelic usages, the Gaelic superstitions, the Gaelic verses, disdainfully neglected during many ages, began to attract the attention of the learned from the moment at which the peculiarities of the Gaelic race began to disappear.

So strong was this impulse that, where the Highlands were concerned, men of sense gave ready credence to stories without evidence, and men of taste gave rapturous applause to compositions without merit. Epic poems, which any skilful and dispassionate critic would at a glance have perceived to be almost entirely modern, and which, if they had been published as modern, would have instantly found their proper place in company with Blackmore's Alfred and Wilkie's Epigoniad, were pronounced to be fifteen hundred years old, and were gravely classed with the Iliad [e.g., James MacPherson's hoax epic Ossian, published around 1760]. Writers of a very different order from the impostor who fabricated these forgeries saw how striking an effect might be produced by skilful pictures of the old Highland life [e.g., Sir Walter Scott]. Whatever was repulsive was softened down: whatever was graceful and noble was brought prominently forward. Some of these works were executed with such admirable art that, like the historical plays of Shakspeare, they superseded history. The visions of the poet were realities to his readers. The places which he described became holy ground, and were visited by thousands of pilgrims.

Soon the vulgar imagination was so completely occupied by plaids, targets, and claymores, that, by most Englishmen, Scotchman and Highlander were regarded as synonymous words. Few people seemed to be aware that, at no remote period, a Macdonald or a Macgregor in his tartan was to a citizen of Edinburgh or Glasgow what an Indian hunter in his war paint is to an inhabitant of Philadelphia or Boston. Artists and actors represented Bruce and Douglas in striped petticoats. They might as well have represented Washington brandishing a tomahawk, and girt with a string of scalps. At length this fashion reached a point beyond which it was not easy to proceed. The last British King who held a court in Holyrood thought that he could not give a more striking proof of his respect for the usages which had prevailed in Scotland before the Union, than by disguising himself in what, before the Union, was considered by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief.

This is from History of England, by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1855

[ramana]

Thus wrote the author whose country gave birth to Dick Turpin!!!

Walter Scott chronicled the Highlanders in his series of books. Waverly novels are one set.

Someone tweet a link to the above post on Macaulay's view of the Scottish.