This SNP rout…..

Although, a query, can you really class a Pictish battle as the defining of the scottish nation? When the structure of it become largley Celtic, with the assimilation of the picts? Surely when ever the moment Scotland becomes a nation is when this happened? (given that the gaelic that survives today is closer to ulster gaelic and not welsh/britonic type gaelic of the picts?)

Willing to be educated here, I’ve only ever read bits and pieces here and there. Personally, my sense of the formation of scotland is that it is a coming together of native mainland tribes and ulster tribes that moved over, albeit with the latter being the dominant?

You really can’t. You could hypothesis lots of reasons, but you can’t infer anything, as you have no data.

What data like post election polls you mean?[/url]

So obviously you also think the current government lacks a mandate

Not quite, the current government aren’t proclaiming themselves across the media to be the voice of a nation, merely the majority vote winners.

Anyway, this thread seems to have taken a far more interesting turn, so I’ll shut up now 🙂

Not quite, the current government aren’t proclaiming themselves across the media to be the voice of a nation, merely the majority vote winners.

Cameron’s already stated he has a mandate to hold the EU referendum, so not quite.

What data like post election polls you mean?

That’s taking inference from data collected after the election and is of course valid. But that’s different from inferring things from the mere fact that someone didn’t vote.

Regardless though, I’m still of the opinion that unless you actually can’t get to a polling station you should spoil your vote. I’d be pretty obvious if Candidate x got 25% share of the valid votes but 50% were spoiled….

Aye, the Romans invented a magical Legion disappearing machine.

Iirc the members of that legion that kept turning up in other legions and other parts of the Roman world.

piemonster – Member
Iirc the members of that legion that kept turning up in other legions and other parts of the Roman world.

Got a reference? I chased this up a few years ago but couldn’t find anything and I thought there would have had to be survivors. (In Latin is ok)

It was on the telly.

TBH, the more I think about it the more sketchy my memory gets. Made worse by being on the telly and all that a producers influence entails.

I’ll try and remember what it was on though. It’s one of those things where the legend gets the most focus because it’s the most exciting.

Nobody wants to hear about the vanishing of a legion due to an administrative decision from the finance department.

***goes digging into the dark recesses of my mind***applies strong content filter***

Try using “prosopography” in your search

piemonster – Member

Next you will be telling me the SNP’s new MP’s didn’t walk in Westminster yesterday wearing only woad paint and with their boabies hanging out! Especially Mhairi Black,she will have one like a bairns arm holding an orange.

Pictures or it didn’t happen

Iirc the members of that legion that kept turning up in other legions and other parts of the Roman world.

If that’s the Ninth Hispanic Legion you’re talking about, another story was that it was disbanded in disgrace which is why it suddenly disappeared from the record books

(In Latin is ok)

nono legio hispaniola – don’t know the Latin for “try googling for”

can you really class a Pictish battle as the defining of the scottish nation? When the structure of it become largley Celtic, with the assimilation of the picts? Surely when ever the moment Scotland becomes a nation is when this happened? (given that the gaelic that survives today is closer to ulster gaelic and not welsh/britonic type gaelic of the picts?)

yes – the Romans identified the tribes and documented that they were largely seperate, the first time they united (or at least the first time it was documented) was at this battle. That would argue that this is the point at which Scotland as nation was first conceived. the result of the battle was that the invading Northumburians (later merged into England) were pushed back to the Tweed, largely defining the southern border to where it is today, so going some way to defining the land mass that’s Scotland. The emergence of the Celts as the dominant culture did not change the ruling class structure, although there would have beena n impact on language given that the Scots came from the north of Ireland. Kings of Scots from Cionad mac Alpin (first celtic king) to Macbeth were buried at the Row of the Kings on Iona, so the cultural effects of the battle of Dunnichen Moss survived till 1057. so I’d say yes, that’s a defining moment in the birth of a nation.

No one defining moment in history defines a nations right to exist. We are all part of a polyglot society formed through countless assimilation of migrations of people. A nation will exist when the people today vote for it. They said no.

Some doubt now being placed on Dunnichen Moss as the battle site. It may actually have been at Dunachton near Loch Insh in Strathspey and Badenoch

One of the very few stones celebrating an event rather than having some form of religious significance = Big Event
Battle scenes = Important battle, probably not a Halo 3 tournament
Mounted soldiers wearing what looks like Saxon headgear (noseguards) = getting into a fight with someone from Down South

All points to the biggest event of the time, which for me was battle against the Northumbrians.

However, bottom right hand corner, guy being eaten by dinosaur whilst trying to fight it off with a fish – not really sure what that’s about
EDIT – BUT, top right hand corner – mirror. We all like to look our best for historical events, you never know when someone’s going to turn up witha big block of stone and a hammer and chisel.

1.5 million people voted SNP and got everything.

Yes, but they only stood in 59 seats. To give is some context, if they got the same proportion of votes all over the UK, they would have got 16,525,000 votes. The Tories only got 11,334,520 but got a majority in the UK.

Yeah, and to put that in context, if KHHC had got the same proportion of votes all over the UK in 2001 they’d have got 15,309,537 votes.

It’s a shame that they didnt.

KHHC – Kidderminster Hospital and Health and Concern ?

On the topic of Proportional Representation I had forgotten the Tory manifesto pledge to redraw constituency boundaries so they are more equal population wise, more proportional 🙂

Lib Dems and Labour voted this down in 2013 but Tories now have a majority. Large inner city constituencies will be broken up to be more representative. I linked to a Vice News story on the Tory thread. Copied here

Jambalaya said

Large inner city constituencies will be broken up to be more representative

The Vice news article jambalaya linked to said

If you live in a city in the midlands or north of England and you’re a Labour voter, it’s likely your vote will be worth less than before. Labour will now need more votes to win enlarged seats in those cities.

Yes more representative. Larger constituencies will be broken up to be more equal in size to smaller ones. Not all inner city constituencies are large, some are some aren’t.

It only makes sense tbh- to me trying to make our electoral system fairer is a bit like rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic but still, if a change from fptp isn’t on the cards then we should make fptp work a little better.

People’ll howl because it’ll favour the tories but **** ’em, fair/unfair is above parliamentary lines. Whether they can resist the urge to gerrymander while they’re at it will be interesting though

I agree that we aren’t well served under FPTP. Jambalaya the article only refers to enlarging constituencies. I think we need a form of pr which retains a representatives link to their constituency. I think constituencies can be enlarged well beyond their useful size. I live in Ross, Skye and Lochaber which is vast far too large an area for one person to cover despite its small population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross,_Skye_and_Lochaber_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

@gordimhor – right you are.

Of course if we really want to change things we could return power to communities with genuinely local councils and participatory rather than representative democracy. 💡