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As a Scot living through the referendum, it has been a sea of optimism and YES flags and events. Many people, including myself woke up this morning very disappointed but also wondering how did this happen:

One of the biggest revelations was that The over-65's swung it for No whilst all age groups from 16 to 55 voted for independence. one of the key elements of the YES campaign is that none of the media TV channels or daily newspapers supported independence and so Scots could only get information from the internet. Twitter, websites such as Bella Caledonia, Wings over Scotland have been on the only places to find real information that hadn't been skewed heavily in favour of the No campaign.

The over-65's are the least internet connected and the most trustworthy of the BBC, even though the BBC has been accused of bias in an academic study from a survey of their entire news output over a 6 month period.

Also, the over-65's have the shortest time stake in this. plus have had the trappings of gold plated pensions that the generation behind them cannot look forward to. It's a disgusting state of affairs and as a Scot I am embarrassed for my country.

It should be noted that the nuclear armoury is based only 15 miles from Scotland's most populous area, the city of Glasgow -- which in the politics of the union is totally fine so long as it's nowhere near English cities. The system has had multiple failures and there have been attempted coverups of accidents at Coulport (where the weapons are stored). The Royal Navy also stores the decrepit and rusting nuclear submarines at Rosyth, a mere 10 miles from Edinburgh, our capital city. Again the thought of storing these at Southampton or Portsmouth would not be considered because it's too close to English who don't want rusting nuclear vessels in their backyard.

Senior MOD officials have been on the back foot in this debate even though most UK military assets have already been removed from Scotland (airbases have been shut and army decimated). Rather like in a divorce where one party tries to remove as many assets as possible before a possible split. The problem with the nuclear armoury is that none of the other areas of the UK want it and it would be political suicide for an English MP to accept into their area.

Scotland, if the vote is YES next month, would be a small country and it would not be right to have nuclear arms. Scotland wants to set an example by not having them on our soil. Scotland has only been invaded by one country in the last 1000 years, it's a country to our south. Scots like the English (this is not an anti-English referendum) - we just don't like the arseholes in Westminster telling us what to do (neither does large areas of England as it happens)

To learn more about the Scottish independence, see The Wee Blue Book

you are spot on sir....

It's hardly fucking insightful to watch a state broadcaster, owned and run by the same state that has a vested interest interested in one outcome of the referendum.

It's a ruse by Salmond. He is goading the UK into saying "no" to a shared currency so that Scotland can't, by law, pick up a share of the national debt. George Osboune (the chancellor of the exchequer) is so lame that he walked right into it. Salmond will just use Sterlingisation, suffer short term interest rate rise and then sit on a hugely asset (rather than liability) backed economy. My personal view is that Scotland should share the currency and pay off it's part of the national debt. BoE will have to write a cheque for 4bn of Sco issued notes and many 100's of bn for quantative easing to "buy out" Scotlands share of the UK GBP.

Have you read Scotland's Future or the Wee Blue Book. Both are free and cover the currency question.

It should be noted that the nuclear armoury is based only 15 miles from Scotland's most populous area, the city of Glasgow -- which in the politics of the union is totally fine so long as it's nowhere near English cities. The system has had multiple failures and there have been attempted coverups of accidents at Coulport (where the weapons are stored). The Royal Navy also stores the decrepit and rusting nuclear submarines at Rosyth, a mere 10 miles from Edinburgh, our capital city. Again the thought of storing these at Southampton or Portsmouth would not be considered because it's too close to English who don't want rusting nuclear vessels in their backyard.

Senior MOD officials have been on the back foot in this debate even though most UK military assets have already been removed from Scotland (airbases have been shut and army decimated). Rather like in a divorce where one party tries to remove as many assets as possible before a possible split. The problem with the nuclear armoury is that none of the other areas of the UK want it and it would be political suicide for an English MP to accept into their area.

Scotland, if the vote is YES next month, would be a small country and it would not be right to have nuclear arms. Scotland wants to set an example by not having them on our soil. Scotland has only been invaded by one country in the last 1000 years, it's a country to our south. Scots like the English (this is not an anti-English referendum) - we just don't like the arseholes in Westminster telling us what to do (neither does large areas of England as it happens)

To learn more about the Scottish independence, see The Wee Blue Book

It seems the opposite to me. Economics says stay in the UK,

A few points of information to counter London's propaganda.

1. Scotland's per capita GDP is roughly similar to the rest of the UK's when you exclude oil and gas £20.5k v £20.8k. When you include oil and gas, it's £26.4k v £22.3k in Scotland's favour. This puts Scotland as the 6th richest country in the world in GDP/head terms, between Hong Kong and Switzerland
2. Scotland contributes 10.5% of the UK's tax revenues, on 8.5% of the population (higher GDP is certainly a part of that)
3. We wouldn't be splaffing our revenue on fripperies like CrossRail (a national project with zero benefit to Scotland), HS2 (similar), Olympic Games (we got 2 no-one cares football games) or Nuclear Weapons (Dear Bad Guys, please set your targeting scopes for Glasgow).
4. S&P announced this week that they'd happily rate Scotland as AAA, even without oil. Current UK rating is AA.
5. Westminster's insistence that only the rump UK would have rights to UK's non-geographic assets. It has also stated that only it is responsible for UK's debt. Now while I'm convinced that this is a negotiating strategy (a stupid one if so), then Independent Scotland will be born debt free. Scotland will only need to accept a share of debt as a freely entered negotiation outcome.
6. Scotland's territorial waters contain 50% of Europe's exploitable renewable energy, and most of its fish. Plus all the strategic shipping routes into Northern European ports. The EU (which is explicitly expansionist in policy) is gagging for Scotland to join. It already meets all the EU convergence criteria, and (like Sweden) cannot be forced into the Euro. There are no experts anywhere arguing that Scotland's entry into the EU could not be easily negotiated in the period between the referendum and Independence day.

If you compare Scotland with Norway, a similar sized country, with similar natural resources, we see the scale of mismanagement by HM Treasury. I'm particularly incensed that the UK is just about the only Oil rich country without a Sovereign Wealth Fund, whereas Norway (who only started theirs in 1990) has $1trn of assets, and 1.3% of all global market capitalisation. And all that economic goodness without even being in the EU.

and the independence movement is most driven by emotion.

Actually, quite the contrary. If you see any flag wrapping going on, it'll be the Union Flag, not the Saltire. And if you hear 'braveheart' mentioned, it'll be a British Nationalist trying to create the illusion you have fallen for. It's Cameron who is trying to whip up British sentiment. Last year it was the Olympics and the Jubilee and the Royal Wedding. This year, it's celebrating (yes, celebrating. Makes me sick) the start of WWI and holding every possible military event in Scotland. Thing is, he hasn't realised that we've noticed that he's closing Scottish bases and merging regiments at the same time. I forecast a massive backfire.

The independence movement as a whole is that oddest of things: a non-nationalist independence movement.

Your statement would also be true if Scotland and England were interchanged.

But budget issues are not the only things that the UK parliament votes on.

No, but budgetary issues have not been divorced from everything else. The devolution settlement did not result in a proper separation of concerns. With a Scottish block grant, a Welsh block grand and a Northern Irish block grant, but no English block grant, the system is completely borked.

IMHO, the simple fact is that Scottish MPs are largely aligned with the Labour party and, when in power, Labour would be unable to do anything without the support of Scottish MPs.

"Your opinion" and "fact" are two very different things. The figures do not support this assertion.

As for english opinion on independence, you don't get a say because that is not how it works globally. Read the news and educate yourself chappy.

As for Labour government, you would have voted for it all by yourself
.
I'm Scottish but have lived in London and have done for 10 years so I can't vote either. I think the only way you will see sensible change in England is when an independent Scotland performs much better. Or maybe the McCrone Report is too scary.

Who was it that had to bail out the British banks RBOS and HBOS? That's kind of a silly question, the British government of course. You can't decide something is British in the good times, absorbing corporation tax, national insurance, PAYE and % of bonuses in the good times then deciding it's Scottish in the bad because you feel like it. This isn't Andy Murray we're talking about. As far as bank bailouts go, could an independent Scotland's banks have avoided collapse during the economic crisis? The experts think yes. Then remember that the US Fed bailed out Barclays to the tune of £552Bn, much less that UK contributions to RBOS and HBOS, themselves large chunks of which are actually English banks of which the investment banking arms based in London. In Europe, considering an independent Scotland may have been in the Eurozone at that time, bailouts were across country boundaries so other avenues. Then again, who's to say Scotland wouldn't have had regulation to prevent the kind of excess we saw in London where the distressed investment banking arm of RBOS is based? That's without even considering a long term oil fund.

Before we joke more about Gordon Brown, remember that the English voted for him. Even if Scotland wasn't in the UK, the outcome of the general elections in the rest of the UK would have been the same. In other words, the rest of UK voted wanted Blair (and Brown by extension), Thatcher etc. It's not something the Scottish force on the rest. The same is not true in reverse. The Scots never vote Tory.

This article explains the difference between the Scottish NHS and other parts of the UK. This is becoming a political hot potato in the run up to the 2014 Referendum for Scottish independence from the UK because whilst the English NHS is suffering huge setbacks after much of the service was privatised, Scotland's NHS was more tightly controlled by the devolved Scottish Government and less was outsourced to private consortia.

Even though Scottish tax payers pay the same as those south of the border; they receive much better treatment, free prescription drugs and many other benefits.