Thursday, March 1, 2012
Sports / News Open for discussion
Posted by Michael Miner on 03.01.12 at 10:00 AM
"What becomes of the UK?" is possibly the more urgent question across the pond. Scotland's first minister—and leader of the Scottish National Party—has proposed a referendum for 2014, and as Neal Ascherson explained this week in the New York Times, the possibility that the Scottish people will vote to walk is considerable.
If the UK breaks up, everyone over there will have plenty to sort out—such as what to call the piece that isn't Scotland. With all due respect to Wales and Northern Ireland, the kingdoms united in 1707 were England and Scotland. United Kingdom would hardly do after the divorce.
As for Britain—that's actually the name of the island that the English, Welsh, and Scottish share. Calling all the people on it, plus the institutions they share, British has been a handy way of papering over the differences among them. If Scotland bails, continuing to call everyone British, though technically correct, would make as much sense as calling Spanish and Portuguese Iberians or Haitians and Dominicans Hispaniolans.
So again, what about the British Open? Though officially it's simply the Open Championship, the world knows it as the British Open and doesn't want it messed with. It's a premier international sports event, and it's intimately identified with Scotland, where the game supposedly originated in the 15th century. Of the nine courses that take turns hosting the British Open, five are in Scotland—Turnberry, Muirfield, Carnoustie, Royal Troon, and, preeminently, the old course at St. Andrews—which golfers the world over dream of playing once before they die. Every five years, St. Andrews hosts the British Open.
The British Open will be back at St. Andrews in 2015—unless, I suppose, there's no longer a Britain. Has the Scottish National Party thought this through?
Comments (14)
Showing 1-14 of 14
This has been going on for centuries. The Scottish economy is entirely dependent on oil and London. (And oh excuse me. Selling tartan and whiskey to tourists on Princes Street.) It's a teensy country populationwise, it's full of terrain that makes travel difficult, and cut loose from Britain it'd make EU-Ireland look like booming cosmopolitan society.
What would happen to Britain? Nothing. The benches in Commons would be ever so slightly less crowded at big votes and speeches. It'd be a wash or an improvement economically. From London, in other words, you wouldn't know the difference, except in the headlines as things devo'd to the max up north.
I don't see it going anywhere. The referendum issue itself is primarily a form of alimentation for the SNP. (Of course, if they do win, SNP will be able to realize its dream of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Fly the flag about that. Unless of course they still can't because they need the revenue from hosting Britain's nuclear subs.) The Welsh have their own Quebec syndrome; I like it best in Anthony Burgess' Any Old Iron.
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I'm going to guess that you actually know even less about the Scottish economy than IAC knows about Germany's.
I don't see where you get the idea that London is a source of income for Scotland, it's been out in the open for months that it has been Scotland that subsidises England not the other way round. Yes Scotland would rely on Oil as a source of income which would make it one of the wealthiest small countries in Europe with oil supplies expected to last well into 2040, giving sufficient time to invest into renewable energies. If your argument is based on a financial consideration Scotland would be VERY well off post-split. Its England that needs Scotland at this point not the other way around..
Well Sparky Malone, I guess you haven't been to Scotland recently and are US based; the giveaway is in the whiskey.
Scotland will do just fine economically without having to subsidise England. Slowly the ball of hidden subsidies Scotland pays England is unwinding and in fact Scotland, evene without il, would be a very viable wee nation.
Digging deeper we find that the BBC takes in tax, yes it is a tax, 10 times more than it spends in Scotland. The Ministry of Defence take about £3 billion a year from Scotland and sends £0.78 billion.
The real wee cracker is that Scotland, with an abundance of hydro, and potentially revewable wave and wind power is surcharged to supply this electricity to London.
Access to the National Grid is charged on a formula based on distance from London. So a power station near London receives a transmission subsidy per KwH whilst one in Scotland is surcharged to the following effect. Scotland produces about 12% of the total generation capacity of the UK but consumes about 9%. Scottish generated electricity actually pays about 50% of the National Grid cost. So, Mrs Trump in Aberdeen in mid winter, much colder in Scotland remember than London, worries whether to heat one room because the cost is so much shivers and dies. A millionaire leaves the window open in Mayfair and pays considerable less than Mrs Trump per unit.
Oh, there is another wee point here, there is a thing called a "cold heating allowance" which is triggered for pensioners if the temperature has been below a certain figure for an extended period of time. The point of calculation of that temperature is in SW England, the warmest place in the UK.
Sparky, stop getting your information for the London based press. They just print Brit propaganda for the swivel eyed readers in the English home counties.
Maybe then you would be able to post an opinion based on facts that could engender a decent debate.
By the way we have an open challenge for the unionist parties, to actually make a positive case for the Union. This is important, in the run up to the referendum, that a case should be put forward. The silence is deafening.
Every time toffy nosed Cameron opens his mouth and tells us what we can and can't do, what he will and will not allow, the membership of the SNP jumps and their Treasury kerchings with donations.
I have a wee bit of advice for any US investors out there. Don't buy UK Gov bonds because when Scotland breaks the Union, they are going to go under water.
Oh, I forgot, it is actually The Open not the The British Open.
It was the first and sticking the Britword onto it helps our N American cousins differentiate it for their US version.
A bit like NASA, USASA, or is that the other way round?
Mr Malone purveyor of the too wee, too stupid, too poor Scotland line ... more of you later .. to the chase:
as the R&A is based at St Andrews in Scotland runs the Open Championship and is the most reactinary of sporting bodies I would suggest the 'British Open' will remain in safe hands including its new foray into Northern Ireland. I do not think that likes Royal St Georges or Liverpool would be best pleased if the new English Parliament sought to prevent them holding the 'Open' on grounds of mere spite. So the most famous Golf Championship in the world is safe for the odd aeon or so.. as a golfer I am assured that is the case.
Mr Malone - I find it worrying that folk like you seem to take the greatest of joy in running Scotland country down and belittling those who hope for better. For our US friends a few stats to think over when reading the likes of Mr Malone's UK Government propaganda stance:
The figures are all from UK Government Sources:
Scottish GDP 2009-10 £145 billion
Tax input to the UK 9.4% from 8.4% of the population
Contribution to UK Foreign exchange £46 billion (according to the UK Government record in Hansard approximately half of the UK's foreign exchange in 2009-10)
An independent Scotland would be in 6th or 7th place in the world for GDP per head of population - just behind Norway.
If Scotland takes on a per capita share of the UK Sovereign debt, on the day of independence that debt will represent 64% of Scotland's gdp
If Scotland had been independent at the time of the City of London / Wall Street banking crash in 2008 we would have been exposed to liabilities of £8.8 billion
The North Sea Oil and Gas fields have between 40 to 100 hundred years of production according to the UK Oil and Gas Trade Federation estimates and the expect tax take at present levels of production and taxation is estimated to be in the region of £1 trillion over the next decade. If the international boundary is returned to pre 1999 Blair fudge position around 93% of the oil and gas assets will lie on what will become Scottish waters in accordance with international treaty.
So - the Open is safe as 'British' is the appendage others give it and would the money people in Chicago be sensible to listen to UK Government too poor, too wee, too stupid propaganda and miss out investing in a Scottish economy that is powerful even under the dead hand of Westminster and can only get better once we have dropped the weight of Westminster's self agrandising attempts at remaining a 'world power'.
Sorry to see Sparky's unionist myths sullying the good name of your newspaper. They are being exposed as myths and lies day and daily, so I don't need to say anything about them. However as James and Peter have correctly stated it is the Open, that's to help people who think that Britain and England describe the same country
"Mr Malone"
Just for the record, I believe that "sparky" is a woman. Here's an entertaining thread if you'd like to see just how much she knows about economics.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archi…
FGFM: Apples and oranges. The Germans have an economy.
Bobby Burns' team: God, you're a twitchy bunch. Google Leuchars.
Mike: they'll be at this for years, no point sticking around.
As much as I enjoy the direction this conversation has taken, I'd like those who know something about The Open to inform me on what concerns me: Who will manage The Open once Scotland goes its own way, and where will it be played? Might it continue to be played on English courses and Scottish courses? And if it is, will it continue to be known familiarly on this side of the ocean as the British Open when there is, otherwise, no Britain?
Michael Miner
Britain is a shortening of Great Britain meaning Large Britain or more correctly Large Britanny (in France)
It is a geographic description of one of the British Isles which consist of hundreds of islands whose two largest are Britain and Ireland..
In fact, if Scotland breaks the Union, the island of Great Britain will still continue to exist, unless it could be towed, preferably towards somewhere warmer.
So, as the "British" Open is also played in Northern Ireland there seems loads of elastic for you to call it the British Open.
In fact, Scots after independence, will still be British, as in a geographical description but not citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
"FGFM: Apples and oranges. The Germans have an economy."
There are reasons why I work on LaSalle Street and you are a temp.
"And if it is, will it continue to be known familiarly on this side of the ocean as the British Open when there is, otherwise, no Britain?"
Do the City Colleges still offer a remedial geography course?
No the London government deemed it as unnecessary so it scrapped it along with a whole bunch of other courses.
