The England/Scotland thing...

[max_tranmere]

The England/Scotland thing...

The SNP have said a lot recently how "we [the Scots] have a government we didn't vote for". I find this an odd statement, have they ever considered that England is very dominated by Scots in terms of the ministers who run them, and often the ruling party of the day as well. I wonder if the SNP ever considered these facts:

* England, and the rest of Britain, had a Scottish Prime Minister until 4 years ago (Gordon Brown). No one wanted him he just arrogantly imposed himself. The Chancellor under him was Scottish too, Alistair Darling.
* The Prime Minister before that, Tony Blair, had a Scottish Chancellor as well (who later became the PM) and at least one in three ministers under Blair were Scottish. Scotland makes up 10% of the British population so they were more represented, proportionately, amongst that government's ministers than English people were.
* One of Blair's Home Secretaries, John Reid, was a Scot - who only had jurisdiction over England and Wales - something even the senior Labour man Roy Hattersley said at the time was unfair and wrong to have him doing that job.
* If only English voters elected the Westminster government, there would have been a Conservative administration in Westminster from 2005-10, but because of the number of Labour MP's returned by Scotland there was a Labour government for those 5 years (I've stated this in a couple of other debates on here in the past, some people have agreed and some haven't).
* The current Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, is a Scot.

These facts confirm that Scotland not only has huge input in Westminster, but often sees them over-represented in senior roles with power making decisions over England. The SNP's comments about how they're dominated by England, when often it's the other way round, are rather stupid.

People's views please.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Wise words Max. Add in the power Sir Purplenose wielded in English Football and all the Scottish born businessmen and women who are in powerful roles across England. My Chief Exec is Scottish. My previous local Director was Scottish. My local MP is Scottish. I bought a car from Arnold Clark...not forgetting the Soutar Stagecoach empire....and of course McBroon, Captain Darling and the CIA's number one Scottish operative VP Tony McBlair.....2 PMs, 2 Chancellors and would you believe the current PMs surname is eeeerrrrr Cameron.

[Sam Slater]

I don't mind a little over representation of a minority because minorities usually have to shout twice as loud to be heard.

The most under-represented in Parliament isn't the English, Welsh, Northern Irish or Scottish; it isn't gays, ethnic minorities, Christians, Muslims or Jews....it isn't women or men. It's the working classes. 60% of the nation consider themselves working class. Only 4% of MPs come from working class backgrounds.

[max_tranmere]

I forgot to mention about Dave having a Scottish surname, obviously meaning having ancestory from there; also Tony Blair spent part of his childhood in Scotland and he attended Scotland's equivilant to Eton (I forget the name of the school). Blair's dad was raised in Scotland but was (from memory) born in Yorkshire. Add all that to what I've detailed in my comment andwhat you've said in yours and there is/has been a Scottish mafia running the country. The SNP's attempts to convince everyone that the Scots are run by the English is crazy!

[max_tranmere]

Not many working class people in this administration, there were quite a few in the Blair/Brown outfit which we had for 13 years. John Prescott was a waiter on a ship years ago (if memory serves) and Alan Johnson is about as much of a geezer as you can get. Deputy PM and Home Secretary respectively.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Alan Johnson was a proper Labour politician and everyone who met him, no matter what political leaning found him to a sound bloke.

[Sam Slater]

You're just talking about those in the spotlight, Max. I'm referring to all MPs.

[number 6]

I think you will find more than half of the parliamentary Labour Party come from working class backgrounds and have done "proper" jobs if you do some reasearch and don't keep believing this rubbish the media feeds you.

[Sam Slater]

Is 'Labourlist.org' part of that rubbish-spouting media?



Or how about 'Labour-Uncut.co.uk' and an article written by Hezel Blears?



I know.....you're talking about 'leftfutures.org' the 'forward thinking website for the democratic left', right?



Ok, ok......do you think the 'SocialistWorker.co.uk' are printing shit too?



A privately educated student working behind a bar for 3 months while they're studying at Oxford doesn't mean they're now 'working class'.

[max_tranmere]

Alan Johnson was also a career politican and would kiss arse to whoever he needed to in order to retain and advance his career. I remember when Blair quit and Brown was taking over Johnson said a lot of kiss arse things about Brown in interviews - obviously in the hope he would be given a nice ministry of State under the new leader.