h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everybody else seems dissatisfied with the way the UK works and complains that the government is too Westminster-centric. So lets go and leave them to it.

Obviously there would be some problems, but there would no longer be the complaints from the satellite principalities.

We would no longer have to worry about the Barnett Formula which is a little impenetrable.

And since we would be taking about 83% of the army with us (83% of the UK population lives in England), if we wanted, we could just invade and take them all over.

PP.

Oh ye fk'n think so do ye? And how did that work out every other time you tried it?

The United Kingdom as we know it, is a historical anomaly, anyway. It has only existed for a couple of hundred years, and even in that time it has changed shape quite a bit.

If Scotland had left, the UK could have been renamed the Untied Kingdom.

Field Marshal George Wade made a fair go of it SWL and given today's ease of access the results could be a little different.

The best monument to the Scots is the very real contribution they made to the foundation of the former commonwealth countries.

And Wade couldn't have done anything without the active help of Scots. He wandered into a sectarian fight that was ongoing before he was born.

Would give Flag Manufacturers a great deal of work.

All flags incorporating the Union Flag would have to change!

MMF

No need to separate..just need to devolve some stuff out and away from London.. and major cities.

We didn't have nukes last time.....

PP.

Should England leave the UK?

You mean the way Russia left the USSR, leaving the other SSRs to settle things for themselves?

Oh, now that's an interesting comparison. Russia/USSR and England/UK.

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Hmm. And where exactly are these nukes?

...and does Scotland own any of them?

if this is the level of debate I'm glad I decided not to discuss it on h2g2.

"if this is the level of debate I'm glad I decided not to discuss it on h2g2." [KB]

I'm having trouble finding very much to discuss. Physically removing England from its current location would take more energy than those nukes would contain, assuming that anyone can remember where they even are. Those who do know would probably guard the locations as a matter of national security.

"There'll always be an England"

"There'll always be a North Pole, unless some fool goes and melts it"

[Flanders and Swann. Words may not be exact]

I saw a clip from Fox News t'other day in which the presenter was talking about Scotland voting on whether to leave Great Britain. Um, no.

TRiG.

The nukes are parked in the Clyde. Feel free to get rid of the bloody things.

That's a *very* kind offer, but I'd rather not glow in the dark.

Wade was an engineer - it was the "butcher" Cumberland that defeated the Jacobites (not all of whom were scots)in 1745 in what was an extention of the European wars of religion - sad to say sectarianism still occurs in some parts of Scotland - with a strong element of the scottish nobiltity selling out, as Burnes wrote....

What force or guile could not subdue
Through many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitors wages
The English steel we could disdain
Secure in valours station.
But English gold has been our bane
Sic a parcel of rogues in a nation

The rogues in question were always the scottish lairds.

The Union came about because England wanted to secure its northern border from nuisance raids which were drawing troops away from the more important business of fighting serious empiral rivals like France and Spain, and Scotland had bankrupted itself in a farcial attempt to found its own overseas empire and was desperate for English gold

On the origin question I do not think that people in Plymouth, Sheffield, Manchester or Newcastle want to be governed according to the needs of the City and the home counties anymore than people in Glasgow, Stirling, Ayr or Fort William. There are also a lot of people in the Highlands and Islands who woud rather not be be governed according to the needs of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and people in North Wales who have no love for Cardiff and south Wales.
The is a lot to be said for a federation of regions.