I pop up to North Britain now and then, cybernautically speaking, to see what The Scotsman has to say. And today I see that some denizens of the Northern Isles would prefer to go it alone, perhaps as a Crown Dependency à la Isle of Man, rather than remain part of an independent Scotland. That would scupper the new Scotland’s financial plans which are based on oil galore, much of which is in the ‘territorial waters’ of the Northern Isles.
Which set me wondering whether this modern fad for home rule shouldn’t be allowed to benefit any community with enough wonga ‘of its own’. Knotty Ash, awash with treacle. Cornwall, replete with pasties. You get the idea. What about Knightsbridge and its resident billionaires? There could be hundreds of little Liechtensteins all over the country, independent in all but reality. Slackey Bottom would ally itself to Monaco and have the best casino ever.
Just a thought.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Knotty Ash has no treacle, alas. The famous jam butty mines are still going strong though. My one claim to fame is that I went to school with the sons of the then vicar of Knotty Ash as few people outside Liverpool know that it is a real place.
As an aside, back in the day before the plod went paramilitary, police cars on Merseyside were all white with a reflective red stripe along the side and were known universally as ‘jam butty cars’.
OZ
Yes, If I were Alex Salmond I wouldn’t rely on the Shetlanders following Scotland into independence.
I agree, Jazz.
This should be interesting.
I suspect that the majority of Scots will be too sensible to vote for the idiocy of Wee Eck, but if they do, who knows where it will lead. Home rule for England, maybe!
I couldn’t help smiling when I read about the bid for Orkney and Shetland to become independent. I’d love to have been the fly on the wall when Salmond was given this news.
Dear boy! Too slow by years!
I’ve had my own autocratic despotism for decades!
Dissenters have been hurled from the ramparts into exile with impunity!
All boarders, ne’er do wells, brown nosed govt. snoopers and TV detector vans have been refused admittance at the portcullis!
One really must think a little bigger than jam sarnies!!!
And now I shall repair to my secondary kingdom to pot the ‘imperial’ peas, (with an A!)
CO, I hate to revive the gender debate, but do you really have a ‘kingdom’? 🙂
An empire, I think. Saves worrying about gender.
I think in CO’s case it’s a ‘principality’. 🙂