Farewell UK. Breakup inevitable says top civil servant

ruggedtoast

Keeping the United Kingdom together over the next few years will be an "enormous challenge", Britain's most senior civil servant has warned.

Sir Gus O'Donnell, who is stepping down as cabinet secretary and head of the civil service on 1 January, has used an article in today's Daily Telegraph to question how long the union can survive amid growing calls for Scottish independence.

"Over the next few years, there will be enormous challenges, such as whether to keep our kingdom united," he writes.

The SNP administration in Scotland is committed to holding a referendum on independence before 2016 and two months ago, its leader, Alex Salmond, said he expected Scotland to become an independent country within the European community.

The longer this issue has to settle in our cultural awareness the more likely it becomes. There also doesn't seem to be much hunger on either sides of the border to speak up for the Union.

The drags on an eventual yes vote however appear to be whether Scots will seriously question Salmond's somewhat optimistic vision of a post UK Scotland, or if they will suck it and see just to have notional independence.

In any case, the words "independence" and "EU" are looking ever more like a non sequitur.

wellused

"Scotland will be in an arc of prosperity stretching from Ireland in the west to Iceland in the north", Alec Salmond.

jamespmg44

I'm a Republican and Nationalist at heart, and living in Scotland I would like to see an independent Scotland one day.

However, the SNP are a party trying to govern and create laws based on reactionary politics rather than sensible policies. They would struggle to arrange the preverbial p1ss up in a brewery and this will be what damages the case for independence before any referendum.

RenovationMan

I would love for Scotland and Especially NI to leave the union. Shame they didn't do it before the credit crunch. Can you imagine?

property.advert

I am quite happy to throw away Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and the crap bits of the UK such as Liverpool, Manchester, the Midlands, that dross east of London and other places and just keep the decent bits.

Insurance would go down for a start !

jamespmg44

RenovationMan wrote: »

I would love for Scotland and Especially NI to leave the union. Shame they didn't do it before the credit crunch. Can you imagine?

RBS and HalifaxBOS had their investment groups registered in London?

Road_Hog

I'm Welsh (and my mum's Scottish), I'm pro Union. But the sooner the Sweaties fark off, the better it will be for England, Wales and NI.

They've got a massive chip on their shoulder and they need to go, and go soon. English people, don't tar Wales & NI with the same brush as the Jocks.

Scotland, vote for independence and go your own way. Please shut the door on the way out and do it quietly.

chewmylegoff

jamespmg44 wrote: »

RBS and HalifaxBOS had their investment groups registered in London?

it is not possible to be "registered in london". companies are incorporated in a country, not a city. in the uk that means either "england & wales" or scotland. RBS and HBOS both have (or had in HBOS' case, prior to its failure and takeover by Lloyds) a group parent company which is incorporated in scotland.

regardless of what operations they may have in england, or london specifically, if scotland had been a separate country to england prior to the credit crunch, both banks would have been scotland's problem. as you may have noticed, the uk government didn't have to go around bailing out all the foreign banks which operate in london. (nor did the dutch government have to bail out RBS, which was brought down by huge losses on sub-prime in ABN AMRO. ABN AMRO is now called Royal Bank of Scotland Holdings N.V. / Royal Bank of Scotland N.V. - i.e. the company which incurred most of the losses is a Dutch company which was effectively bailed out by the UK govt).

edit: furthermore, the losses within HBOS were mostly on rubbish corporate lending, not spiv gambling in the investment bank.

wellused

Great Britain would never have reached the level of excellence that it has if it wasn't for the Scots, Scottish engineers and soldiers built the empire. And where would we be today without the input of their football managers and of their political classes?

Wookster

I say let them go.

I'd love to see that little rogue Alex Salmond bail out RBS/ HBOS without English money.

stonethrower

I'd love it because it would damage Labours chance of getting into power.