[DISCUSSION] Scottish Independence - It's a No!

I'm thinking about an 82% voter turnout.

After my earlier rant in this thread I kind of want it to be 61% no but that's highly unlikely. I still think the status quo will win out easier than is generally considered, and will go 55% no. Gonna check the odds in a sec and might put my money where my mouth is.

Can I have a 57% No please? Thanks.

Christ, betfair have paid out on no winning already.

Unfortunately I'm going 53% Yes 47% No.

62% Aye.

Either way, half of the country is going to feel incredibly upset come Friday. If Yes wins, the No's will begrudgingly accept it and work to make the best of it as they won't have a choice. If No wins, Yes will keep whining about how undemocratic everything is and continue to push for another referendum when more people will give the "right" answer.

Should be a cap on these things so you can only have an independence referendum every 30 years or so.

[iup=3566156]Meep[/iup] wrote:Let's see who get my the closest to the actual result. My prediction:

53% No

[iup=3566104]Eighthours[/iup] wrote:So what are everyone's predictions for the result?

I predict (based on a belief that my pro-Union opinion is the smarter option and that the silent majority will see this) that the opinion polls are hopelessly wrong and that the result will be somewhere around 65% NO, 35% YES.

I think that many people have been intimidated by the Yes campaign's aggression and are keeping quiet in fear of being labelled 'unpatriotic'.

Yeah, people are "intimidated" into saying yes in anonymous polls. Seriously, I appreciate your conviction in your own beliefs but one should not be so blind as to render oneself unable to reconcile that with reality.

Not just me saying it:

It is feared the surge of support for the Yes campaign amongst people who don’t normally vote, and No supporters afraid of being accused of lacking patriotism misleading pollsters, are leading to a skewed picture being painted.

http://www.dailyfail.co.uk/news/article ... z3DVTO564b

[iup=3566108]Lagamorph[/iup] wrote:I think common sense will win out and the final vote will be No, though I don't think it's going to be by much of a majority.

You know how unbelievably condescending this is?

Common sense would dictate that a country is not almost entirely governed by a parliament in another country. Common sense would dictate that a country and its peoples would be able to make their own decisions rather than bow to the will of disinterested pricks who have no interest in their wellbeing.

Some Yes supporters act like idiots and don't exactly help their campaign's image:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... -walkabout

There is definitely a more prevalent ugly element among the Yes supporters than No, letting the rest of them down. I'm really worried about what will happen if there's a narrow No victory.

59-41 No is what I'm predicting. If anyone is undecided now most of them will vote no I imagine. You need to be 100% sure to go for a Yes vote, you just need a 1% doubt in your mind to vote no.

I think it's going to be 50.7% to 49.3% in favour of Yes.

The Yes vote will win by 99%

[iup=3566269]Eighthours[/iup] wrote:Some Yes supporters act like idiots and don't exactly help their campaign's image:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... -walkabout

There is definitely a more prevalent ugly element among the Yes supporters than No, letting the rest of them down. I'm really worried about what will happen if there's a narrow No victory.

https://twitter.com/stvclaire/status/511896606707568640

Agreed on your first sentence, though.

[iup=3566029]Dan.[/iup] wrote:I consider myself British, English, and a Yorkshireman. If Scotland decide to go it alone then all power to them, but I wouldn't want Yorkshire to detach from the rest of England anytime.

Something like that?

Glorious Empire of Mercia will rise again. (Not Coventry though)

With London being so big, I don't think the mediaeval borders in southern England would make a great deal of sense nowadays. Arguably, though, splitting England into local assemblies based in the North (capital Manchester), the Midlands (capital Birmingham) and the South (capital Southampton, obviously) could be a decent enough idea. Anyone want to draft the whitepaper?

Bristol would be on the border between Wessex and Mercia (I think the city would be split in two due to the river Avon being the border). I am all for splitting England back to the old kingdoms, it would be great to walk to another country to go to work.

That map seems off. If there were British Federation then surely London would have a enough population to be its own state.

If you cast your mind back to 2004, the NE voted 77% against an elected regional assembly and scuppered the proposition of elected regional assemblies for the rest of Merrye Olde England. It was *gasp* John Prescott's baby.

I like the idea though, the federal system works pretty well in Germany. It has its downsides such as increased bureaucracy, but never mind.

I'd advocate something more along the lines of the old ITV network. Scotland could be split into three states. Remember Border and Grampian TV? I'd be a happy citizen of Granada Land.

Then of course there are the Shetlands and Hebrides who, if "The Wicker Man" is to be believed, are scary and strange and probably best left to their own devices.

[iup=3566396]Octoroc[/iup] wrote:Remember Border and Grampian TV? I'd be a happy citizen of Granada Land.

Haha, yes. I was a Grampian boy.