It’s all about Scotland this election isn’t? How did that happen. The Scots had a democratic vote and they said no to independence. And here they are again. Holding the balance of power. For goodness’ sake, there’s only 5 million of them. Will they wreck the Union?

What’s the best thing for the UK?

Let’s quickly look back at last year.

The Scots had to decide between their hearts, and their head. Having shed hundreds of jobs in the finance industry sector after the 2008 crash, the financial services made very clear to the voters what independence meant: we cannot operate in your tiny country, we’ll fail the exam. Ratings agencies that decide how the wind blows in the markets will get their red pen, look at their models, they will predict the future with equations and they will say: you vote yes, mate, you can forget 5 stars for your Scottish exam. Hell will ensue.

We all heard Standard Life, BP, Lloyds, RBS and their views on Scotland’s independence, the threats to mortgages and pensions. The financial services employ around 95,000 people mainly in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

I understand RBS/Lloyds. I mean, if I was a soulless machine run by numbers in an international financial free market, I would understand RBS/Lloyds. I’d look at this free market on steroids world we live in, and I would far rather keep close to friendly Westminster and its bailout funds, than those lefties in Scotland who want to look after the employees; dammit. And, you know, in case something goes wrong again, and taxpayers’ money is needed. We are, after all, too big to fail.
Not so much cash from stingy wee Scotland is there? Five million of them.

Yet so much power just now. 

What a difference a proper debate and engaged citizens can make. In our world of selfies, trickling down to our children, once the Scots’ jobs have been as secured as can be, now we can all start talking Westminster.

The big palace where the United Kingdom rules get made.

Now we’re talking democratic vote. One person, one vote. One MP, one Scottish voice. Glasgow is singing. A very uncomfortable situation for the English who are rather used to having the government in their back yard with no reason to question the way it is. Sorry dear English reader, but just ask yourself for one second, how would it feel if Holyrood had been in charge of the whole thing for as long as you can remember, and more?

One second is enough, I don’t want to alienate my English friends, let’s move on.

Let’s look at the political parties now. How they’re treating the Scots.

Good old Conservatives, listening to UKIP again, gone all nationalist without hiding it and come out with an English manifesto. That’ll help unite the Union. We’re all outsiders now. That’ll even the playing fields. So long as we play in different fields.

And Labour?

We will not make a deal with SNP.
We will not let the SNP hold us to ransom.
(To the PR agency: You twits, why didn’t we think of an English manifesto?)

When the politicians worked together, you know, when they went to Scotland en masse to tell their Scottish friends “Please pretty please do stay in the Union, we do love you dear Scots” what did they mean exactly?

When it comes to getting Scottish MP’s that speak aloud for, well for the Scots, there is some closing of ranks going on again, isn’t there? Right and Left-ish together, the Westminster club are getting all agitated again. Don’t you think? And scapegoating, at any cost.

Let’s all attack SNP like one man. So long as we don’t get asked about those bloody cuts.

Like their friends in big business, who spoke out when that referendum got close and scary, when the threat of an independent Scotland came along, they all worked together then, didn’t they? So they do know how to. Work Together. So long as it’s not to try and achieve the NHS or education as the vast majority of British people would like to see it.

Is it about the Union?

Or is it about how far Westminster’s ConLibLab power extends?

Could it be about upsetting the continuation of what we have now, in-job benefits from our taxes that benefit the big corporations that thrive on employing below the living wage workers. Rules made by Westminster, Washington, and sometimes Europe that allow corporations to unfairly compete with small businesses by not paying their share of company taxes, paying their small suppliers 60 days after receipt of the goods and other playing fields advantages in law or commerce.

Then you have subsidised dirty energy, another big employer in Scotland. And then, that perfectly fine weapon of mass destruction the main British political parties are very proud of but want to get renewed, bigger, better, bolder, deadlier; yes those Scottish jobs I know, and those unthinkable threats that go with Trident. And those deals with states run by dictators, those deals with anybody who will buy arms. The list goes on, and on, when it comes to these no fixed abode corporations. The ones the SNP and the other real lefties will try and get proper money out of for the general kitty of the nation. Or the nations.

When did we lose sight of individual humans or nature that provides in that quest for the perfect corporation equation?

So many convoluted deals abound that every day more and more people realise these deals make very little sense except for the ones inside the bubbles, like fishes in so many opaque bowls. Those defence workers could over time be retrained in researching and manufacturing alternative energy sources that would help build a more balanced planet, rather than hinder its climate at the speed of light. The financial services need to be restructured to lend to normal size businesses, less buying of each other, stripping assets, buying in the future, selling games and mad models. They need to remember the meaning of service.

No leftie conspiracy. A rebalance.

The Scots are bound to be better informed politically than the English because they’ve engaged in the referendum like the English have not engaged in politics for, well, yonks. With a Westminster bubble that takes the electorate for granted, and for numpties, it’s hardly surprising.

Yet the more Westminster go on about the SNP threat, the more the English feel some kind of buried hatred mounting in their stomachs against the Scots. So desperate are our politicians to keep the Union that they happily bring back good old visceral fear of the other. It wasn’t enough to bash the foreigners, now let’s have a go at the Union. Talk of losing common sense. Stands to reason mind, when the House of Commons has few common people in it, let alone enough that make it to Cabinet to represent the electorate, we’re not going to find much common sense in there.
Common, Commons, a word of so many meanings in English.

When the meaning of words shifts, so does our perceived and accepted reality.

The more the out of touch Westminster bubble go on about the threat of SNP, portraying Scots like terrorists about to hold the beautifully perfect Union to ransom, the more Scots will see themselves as freedom fighters and will vote SNP. They will happily lead the fight against austerity. Like the Greeks. Like Podemos. Like the Greens.

Red Ed? You’ve got to give it to The Sun and the Daily Mail, they do shift the meaning of words don’t they? Red is long gone in the new international world of trade and financial deals. For most voters, it’s the ultramarine blue that’s threatening our future, even Conservatives, many of whom are really more conservative than Conservatives are thinking: how do even things out?

As for the Scots, they look at history from a different angle to the English, obviously.

Believe me, I know. I am very welcome in Scotland. We love to hate the English at rugby. Our history is about fighting the English. And then working together. But if you rile us, deep down in our belly, we will retaliate. Or as I shockingly read one rugby nut one day ‘I want to see them annihilated’  (he was talking about the French, so it’s OK). It’s a political game, but when push comes to shove, it can become a proper battle.

Does it have to be a war? Again? In 2015?

Decentralisation is inevitable within England. So, yes the Scots will want independence tomorrow, the day after. They sure will if Westminster treats them like dangerous outsiders. Does a separate state, which already exists, a separate government, which already exists, a separate bank, which already exists, a move away from Westminster where they are clearly made to feel like pariahs, have to mean that Britain as an entity, as an economic mass, as people, dies? Why can’t they keep the British pound?

Britain has common weapons with France for goodness’ sake. This is the 21st century. Citizens have no wish whatsoever to go to war with either France or Scotland. Borders are lines in the sand. Or a wall. But it can be climbed. Is there no common economic ground that can be negotiated? Is Westminster not capable of working out a fair way forward?

Or is Westminster about wasting precious days of proper constructive negotiations with filibustering (what I would call talking out of one’s ass for hours whilst the opposition sits on their hands powerless to bring a law to discussion)?

Is Westminster about a handful of whips shoving our elected ministers like cattle towards one door or another so the vote goes the way lobbyists want it to go. For the few companies that can afford to second their own employees in government because the law allows it, for the companies that have convinced our politicians to vote on a law that prevents charities, who look after the vulnerable or campaign for human rights, or clean energy, to get politically involved before the general election. Because the 2014 Gagging Law ensures they must remain silent.

Unlike what happened in Scotland for the referendum when Westminster was not supposed to interfere, as the Scots understood it, but Westminster did what they wanted to do anyway.
And won the battle.

Issues that make a difference to the day to day life of citizens is what matters.
English and Scottish lives.
Laws to really help small and medium size businesses is what is needed.

Are these not the issues British ministers should represent?

So when they get shoved by the whip, they can push back and say.
No.
My constituents don’t want that.

Would that not give a better chance at a more balanced society?

English, Welsh, Northern Irish; and Scottish. Together.
In the House of Commons.
As voted by the citizens of Great Britain.

Not that I would know. I am none of the above.