Trust has gone and with it the unity of the UK.

[Suff]

I don't blame Brexit as the driver for this WM. I don't even say that Brexit was the final catalyst which drove the situation over the edge. It was a combination of Brexit, Covid and the natural tensions created by the regional governments/assemblies.

Before the regional devolvement, people in Scotland, Wales and Ireland only had Westminster to raise their issues in. It is fairly easy to block out Scotland at 10% of the UK, let alone Wales and NI.

In FIFE the miners strike had an absolutely devastating effect. The mines flooded, none of the miners went back to work. Whilst England just went back to the mines and started working again, FIFE went 50% on the dole and the economy was still transitioning and not up to absorbing so many unemployed. Even today FIFE has the second highest drug usage in Scotland and the third highest in Europe.

FIFE was by no means the only part of Scotland, or the UK, which paid the price for the excesses of the Unions in the 70's and early 80's, but it was a glaring example. FIFE is heavily rural, NE FIFE was a Tory seat for a long time with Sir John Gilmour, but nobody would vote Tory there now.

It's like a tree which is rotten to the core and suddenly struck by lightning, it explodes.

[Workingman]

I would love to blame Brexit, the disaster that keeps on giving, but I can't.

That is what I said, but let me try again - I DON'T BLAME BREXIT!

It is about the UK - all of it. It is not just the devolved nations falling out with each other and Westminster it is regions within them also falling out, friends and families falling out. Orkney and Shetland have no more influence with Holyrood than Anglesey has with Cardiff or Newcastle, Leeds and Liverpool have with Westminster, and we have all got tired of the imbalances.

Covid, ironically, has given us a voice. More people are now interested in the workings of Westminster (devolved governments), politicians and civil servants than ever before. They are not liking what they see and are starting to speak out. This has been brewing for decades and, as I said earlier, there is no one thing or point in time to pin down as to when it began. It has festered within us and like a boil it is about to burst unless something is done to heal it. Covid has changed things.

[Workingman]

I see that rioters in the Netherlands have trashed my favourite city, 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch). When will it happen in the UK? We have had raves, protests and marches, but not riots - not yet.

[medsec222]

Over 100,000 deaths in the UK and another 1,600 deaths today. Yet Nicola Sturgeon still bleats on about Scottish Independence. If she had any decency she would let this lie for the moment.

[Suff]

I know you don't WM. Just making my statement that I don't either.

It used to be that periods of threat brought us together as a country and a nation. Apparently that has gone. Maybe because the "threat" is seen to be inside instead of outside, I don't know.

All I do know is that as things calm down and as the pandemic burns out, the focus on Government and voting and all those other annoying things we can ignore, will fall as well.

Leaving us back in the same malaise we have been in for some time. The only outliers being Scotland and Indyref2 and NI with their border woes. Aye weel, come May there will be some sort of reckoning.

[cromwell]

I see that rioters in the Netherlands have trashed my favourite city, 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch). When will it happen in the UK? We have had raves, protests and marches, but not riots - not yet.

There's a very good article on the Dutch riots here WM.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/2 ... e-rioting/

They have been going on for three nights in towns and cities across the Netherlands. Very unusual for such a peaceful country.

[Kaz]

They are usually very peace-loving, but also very hot on personal freedom, so that might go some way towards explaining it.....

[cromwell]

I think you are right Kaz. They knew they were being lied to as well (just like us) with the lockdown will be lifted on 9th January.

[Suff]

They are usually very peace-loving, but also very hot on personal freedom, so that might go some way towards explaining it.....

100% spot on Kaz. When I worked in NL the one thing likely to get them riled up was reductions in their freedoms. It felt like the only reason they were laid back was because of the freedoms. Touch that and you find that living in a country which looks like it is full of overtall Vikings (at 5'10" I was quite small), suddenly becomes a country of Vikings determined to keep their way of life. Force being an option as it always was in the Viking world.

[Kaz]

I've had Dutch friends, and have visited, and you do kind of get that vibe from them