46 replies to this topic

[MorecambeRam]

[TigerTedd]

young ram15, on 10 February 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

just not true about Parliament, scotland, wales etc have devolved powers, so they have a seperate parliament where they can discuss the powers which they are allowed to have. The Parliament in London, deals with Britain, but also powers for england which in scotland etc they decide in their parliament, so technically it is both an english and british parliament. I don't like God save the Queen and I certainly wouldn't want Jerusulum even worse than god save the queen in my book.

That's interesting. To be honest, I can't really claim to know what I'm talking about. It just seems a bit wrong to me that we have to have a shared parliament with Britain. Until Cameron came in, we had a Scottish prime minister, in Brown, but no separate English rep. I've nothing against the scots, or Britain, it just annoys me that England is synonymous with Britain, and vice versa. We, as the English, have no sense of individual national identity, and, worse still, no real say of what goes on in our own country. The scots / welsh etc. were up in arms when put in a similar position, and we're given their own autonomy by the British government. Fair play to them. Can we get the same now, starting with our own national anthem...

A bank holiday on St. George's day would be nice too, seeing as its my birthday. (Even though old George himself was Turkish or something, but that's an entirely different issue.)

[young ram15]

TigerTedd, on 11 February 2012 - 10:42 AM, said:

That's interesting. To be honest, I can't really claim to know what I'm talking about. It just seems a bit wrong to me that we have to have a shared parliament with Britain. Until Cameron came in, we had a Scottish prime minister, in Brown, but no separate English rep. I've nothing against the scots, or Britain, it just annoys me that England is synonymous with Britain, and vice versa. We, as the English, have no sense of individual national identity, and, worse still, no real say of what goes on in our own country. The scots / welsh etc. were up in arms when put in a similar position, and we're given their own autonomy by the British government. Fair play to them. Can we get the same now, starting with our own national anthem...

A bank holiday on St. George's day would be nice too, seeing as its my birthday. (Even though old George himself was Turkish or something, but that's an entirely different issue.)

But we do have our own autonomy, the scots and welsh were up in arms because their devolved parliaments didn't really decide much at all so they wanted the powers to make some real changes. The reason why they have a seperate parliament is so they can utilise some of that autonomy, In england you just have to think of westminster as englands parliament because on many issues it now does only deal with england now because the powers that are devolved are relatively large.What does it matter if the Prime minister was scottish or not? I think england does have an identity and of course it will be in part shared with Great Britain because that is what we are currently in. We more than have a say at what goes on in our country actually, we have an election, we have the right to protest, their is an opposition in Parliament and the lords can act as a barrier from domination in Parliament. In what way is that not self determination? Please tell the people of Iran that we can't decide anything, because they actually cannot decide anything in their own country.

[TigerTedd]

Yes, we have a right to say what happens in Great Britain, but not necessarily what happens in England. The Scottish get to decide if they want a referendum for independence, the English don't get to help them make that decision. Although the great British parliament has a say over whether they can take that vote, the scots were involved with voting in the British parliament. The English get no votes that are solely English. Any vote about anything that happens in England is a British vote, and the scots and welsh are involved in the vote, but a vote that decides something that happens in just Scotland or Wales is voted on by only Scottish or Welsh people, because they are devolved.

It matters that there was a Scottish prime Minister if you're trying to say that the British parliament is the English parliament. If the welsh assembly had an Englishman in charge, the welsh would be horrified. I have no problem with having a scot in charge of the British parliament, I genuinely like the unity of the united kingdom, but I would be dead against having anyone but an Englishman, or someone voted in by only Englishmen (or women of course, this isnt a suffrage debate), being in charge of an English assembly.

This isn't an immigration debate either, if someone has British / English citizenship, then they're english, I'm happy with that, my wife qualifies for her citizenship later this year.

I'm surprised this isn't a bigger issue with more people. If the Scottish are free to be Scottish, I want to be free to be English without feeling guilty about it. My wife, as an outsider looking in, with her friend married to a scot, thinks it's all really silly that England has no national identity (except for two weeks every other summer, when we're suddenly allowed to put red crosses everywhere without being branded as racists... But we still have to sing 'God save the Queen' (see how I manage to bring it back on topic at the last minute... that's skill))

[young ram15]

TigerTedd, on 11 February 2012 - 03:36 PM, said:

Yes, we have a right to say what happens in Great Britain, but not necessarily what happens in England. The Scottish get to decide if they want a referendum for independence, the English don't get to help them make that decision. Although the great British parliament has a say over whether they can take that vote, the scots were involved with voting in the British parliament. The English get no votes that are solely English. Any vote about anything that happens in England is a British vote, and the scots and welsh are involved in the vote, but a vote that decides something that happens in just Scotland or Wales is voted on by only Scottish or Welsh people, because they are devolved.

It matters that there was a Scottish prime Minister if you're trying to say that the British parliament is the English parliament. If the welsh assembly had an Englishman in charge, the welsh would be horrified. I have no problem with having a scot in charge of the British parliament, I genuinely like the unity of the united kingdom, but I would be dead against having anyone but an Englishman, or someone voted in by only Englishmen (or women of course, this isnt a suffrage debate), being in charge of an English assembly.

This isn't an immigration debate either, if someone has British / English citizenship, then they're english, I'm happy with that, my wife qualifies for her citizenship later this year.

I'm surprised this isn't a bigger issue with more people. If the Scottish are free to be Scottish, I want to be free to be English without feeling guilty about it. My wife, as an outsider looking in, with her friend married to a scot, thinks it's all really silly that England has no national identity (except for two weeks every other summer, when we're suddenly allowed to put red crosses everywhere without being branded as racists... But we still have to sing 'God save the Queen' (see how I manage to bring it back on topic at the last minute... that's skill))

Yes we do have a right to say what happens in England and in Great Britain for a lot of decisions. The referendum on independence in scotland is actually only allowed because Westminster is going to allow it, Westminster is mainly an English Parliament which governs Britain, if it wanted it could repeal any devolution powers which Scotland and Wales claim to hold. Scottish and Welsh MPs are part of a vote in the commons, but the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales don't. When the devolved governments in Scotland and wales make a decision that is their business, but they don't have full power, some laws are applied across the board in the UK without the devolved governments involvement and are voted on overwhelmingly by english MPs.

I don't say it is the english parliament, just that your whole assertion is quite false, our destiny is in our hands. The parliament in Westminster deals in Laws which apply to England and to Great Britain. The number of welsh and scottish MPs isn't significant, there are far more MPs from England. We do decide our own destiny and scotland, wales etc do have devolved powers and a budget from Westminster.

[TigerTedd]

young ram15, on 11 February 2012 - 09:27 PM, said:

Yes we do have a right to say what happens in England and in Great Britain for a lot of decisions. The referendum on independence in scotland is actually only allowed because Westminster is going to allow it, Westminster is mainly an English Parliament which governs Britain, if it wanted it could repeal any devolution powers which Scotland and Wales claim to hold. Scottish and Welsh MPs are part of a vote in the commons, but the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales don't. When the devolved governments in Scotland and wales make a decision that is their business, but they don't have full power, some laws are applied across the board in the UK without the devolved governments involvement and are voted on overwhelmingly by english MPs.

I don't say it is the english parliament, just that your whole assertion is quite false, our destiny is in our hands. The parliament in Westminster deals in Laws which apply to England and to Great Britain. The number of welsh and scottish MPs isn't significant, there are far more MPs from England. We do decide our own destiny and scotland, wales etc do have devolved powers and a budget from Westminster.

Bit late on this response, but... I see your point, the number of Scottish and welsh mps may be insignificant, but they are still there. I still don't think it's the same as having our own separate English parliament though. I certainly feel that the scots and welsh have a lot more national pride, and the government could make an effort to increase the English national pride. Starting with an English national anthem. And maybe a national holiday where all British people can be proud to be British, and then a separate day for each country where we can be proud to be English. The scots already have that. I think the British government seems so scared to piss off the scots and welsh, that they won't actually do anything that's specifically English.

[SillyBilly]

I'm a royalist but I don't like GSTQ as a national anthem, it should be reserved for royal occasions. I don't think its an issue with how well it is sung and comes across as I never fail to get goosebumps all over when England are abroad in a major tournament, dominate the stadium and belt out the anthem louder than any other nation. I'd love to see Jurusalem or Land of Hope and Glory given a chance, I think we'd take it to a whole new level and be the envy of the world anthem wise.