Why would you assume that?

According to David Dingleberry on QT last night, only once since 1945 have Labour needed the 41 Scottish Labour MPs to achieve a majority

Me neither, but I can't think of any precedent one way or the other. Be interesting to know what the EU's viewpoint would be on it.

Fair point. The World has changed a lot since '45 though. The Liberals only got 9% of the vote then and it was only up to 11% by '64.

The disappearance of the 59 Scottish constituencies cuts the target for a majority from 326 to 296, without costing them very many even remotely winnable seats.

Personally I'd like the North to jump ship with the Scots if it came down to it, but then I'm half-Scot. Hopefully I'd be able to hedge my bets with dual-citizenship.

They're not keen on each other, though are they? And I bet they wouldn't be so keen if they weren't at the top of it - probably why they want Britain in, but they don't want us making any decisions on it.

A good day for us all, then.

(waits for the obvious backlash, from the usual suspects)

Well countries like Luxemburg afford it by rather dubious tax breaks for companies and whatever. Ireland is a better example and look what happened there. A boom fuelled by ever rising property prices and lending and now they are up the creak without a paddle.

I have been reading various comments on the net for a few days about this and one of the main topics is oil, how much of it is Scotland's and how much it is actually worth per year.

If you believe the SNP oil revenue will turn Scotland into the 6th richest country in the world overnight. If you believe the government even with oil revenue Scotland would still run an annual deficit (so would have to borrow year on year which we know can't go on forever).

Who knows what the truth is.

What is interesting is Alex Salmond saying things like Scotland will keep the pound and Queen as head of state and various other things such as a common defence commitment.

I don't think it is up to him to decide. Why would we want the pounds value kept high by being associated with the "6th richest country in the world"? I'd tell 'em to get stuffed and join the Euro which they may have to do to join the EU which they supposedly want to do.

It seems to boil down to Scotland keeping all the oil revenue and yet benefiting from a common defence policy, currency, the BBC and so on. What would it mean for the NHS in Scotland? Salmond will want all that on the cheap based on Scotland's 5m (and falling) population relative to the rest of the UK.

I think despite the view that Cameron saying get on with it and decide once and for all plays into the SNP's hands in that it will turn more Scots into voting for independence, as the debate develops all the issues about just what independence actually means will have to come out. "Devo Max" or a version of independence where they keep this or that institution is not just for the SNP to decide because that would affect everyone else in the UK from a cost point of view.

The SNP strategy has been for a while to make independence seem reasonable to Scots opposed to the idea (by doing stuff like keeping the Queen as head of state etc) but the more reasonable you make it the less like independence it looks so surely the question then is why bother? The answer is from the SNP's point of view oil. They seem to think they can have that bit of cake and get the rest of the benefits of being part of the UK.

Who is going to invade Scotland? Realistically.

The only point of the British Armed Forces seems to be to intervene in other people's fights, so we can pretend we still matter as a world power. Scotland knows it isn't a world power, so won't care.

Anything is possible in the future, but given enough irn-bru and pirate copies of Braveheart it should be possible to mount an effective insurgency, if required.

Employment and recruitment wise it could be an issue.

So far you've said that the EU is great for the little countries at the expense of the bigger ones.
Now that it is pointed out that the big ones quite like being in the EU, your argument is that the big ones (France and Germany) aren't keen on each other.
What the chuff is that about?
They might not exactly be wanting to have each others' babies but at least they are talking to each other and, let's remember, have been on speaking terms ever since the late 1940's when they realised that having a bit of agreement and compromise might be better all round than periodic outbreaks of war.

A bit like Scotland and England really, who, after periodic wars with each other (with or without France), found themselves sharing a Monarch in 1603 (although they still didn't like each other much) and pooled their sovereignty in 1707 ... and eventually were partners in the greatest empire/enterprise the world had ever seen.

Now Scotland is looking at the EU and thinking that pooling sovereignty with them directly is arguably more secure and more democratic than staying in the UK.

Meh.

People who are pro-Europe would say all that. The rest of us disagree, so best not to get into it really. It's Friday, and I can't be bothered.

No need to wait. If you had half a brain cell, you'd have noticed that the proposition was rubbished well before you chimed in