Do you want From the Humber up over to join Scotland?

[Mitsuru]

Who wants the North (according to the venerable now Saint Bede the North begins at the mouth of the river Humber) To ditch England and become part of Scotland?

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/lo ... -1-7257054

MORE than 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for the north of England to ‘secede from the UK and join Scotland’.

A total of 5,396 people have signed a petition on Change.org in support of the north of England joining Scotland and ‘regaining control over its own destiny’.

Despite being created a year ago, during the throes of the Scottish independence campaign, the petition attracted a number of signatures following the Conservative Party’s win in last week’s general election.

The petition states: “The deliberations in Westminster are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the north of England.

“The northern cities feel far greater affinity with their Scottish counterparts such as Glasgow and Edinburgh than with the ideologies of the London-centric south.

“The needs and challenges of the north cannot be understood by the endless parade of old Etonians lining the front benches of the House of Commons.

“We, the people of the north, demand that in the event that Scotland becomes independent, the border between England and the New Scotland be drawn along a line that runs between the River Dee and the mouth of The Humber.”

The border between a ‘new Scotland’ and England would see everywhere north of Sheffield joining the newly-created country.One supporter added: “I have more in common with the Scots, than the Etonian-led Southerners who do not care what happens in the North.”

Another pointed out that the petition could bring up the topic of increased Northern representation.

Despite being closed, the petition is still gathering signatures since last Thursday’s vote, partly thanks to the #TakeUsWithYouScotland hashtag on Twitter

The comments are a good red too!

[tractorman]

I'd have thought there were more than 5,000 Scottish people living in the north of England

As someone who can see the south of Scotland from his bedroom window, I would seriously think of moving Sarf if Scotland took over - especially if they became totally independent!

No, I'm not anti-Scotsman (or woman) - my sister is married to one!

[JPB]

Hadrian's wall would surely be the more logical border since that would split the UK based on the historic Roman/Greek divide. This would, in practical terms, simply move the border through an arc so that it would then run east to west, the Cumbrian end being the pivot point.
End result would then be that Northumberland would belong entirely to Scotland instead of being some 70% English - as it is now in terms of the numbers of folk who stay on the English side but commute to work in the capital compared to the number that commutes to the south and works in Alnwick, Morpeth or even that Newcastle place.

The real beauty of doing it my way would be that we'd shake off thae pesky monkey hangers!

[mr rusty]

I'm surprised they want to be Scots, I'd have thought they'd be more interested in resurrecting the old kingdom of Northumbria....maybe they just want free prescriptions!

And can you imagine Yorkshire folks wanting to be anything but Yorkshire folks!!

A daft idea!

[JPB]

resurrecting the old kingdom of Northumbria

It's very much alive if the tourist information literature is to be believed. One major disadvantage of merging our large and sparsely populated film set of a county with the smelly, industrial places to the south would be that people who stay in Hull would have a say in whether our coastline should be wrecked in search of surface coal, or whether the whinstone that's a few inches under our floors around here should be fracked. They'd probably say that this stuff should happen because they're the thick end of 200 miles away and our surface mines don't make their cars' paintwork go black overnight.

Mind you, if someone could invent a means of tapping that rock directly and so avoid having to fork out a fortune every month to a French company for the privilege of using our natural gas, then I'd vote yes to anything, even the idea of parmo being allowed outside the 'Boro area. Yep, we do need a barfing emoticon.

[tractorman]

The wall isn't the ideal boundary - it would cut Bowness-on-Solway in half and make three or more villages between there and about half of Carlisle Scottish!

Not that there's a lot of the wall at this end - a two foot high bit showing in places if you know where to look. I did nearly tip a tractor when working some ploughed land that straddled the wall. Strangely, the boss managed to finish the job that I chickened out of! OTOH, many of the buildings (and the church) seem to have quite a lot of stone from the wall in them, though most of the carvings on them have disappeared now.

I almost feel sorry for the weary souls who have walked along the wall and got to Bowness, where there is little for them to see - apart from a nondescript mound that looks like a hedge has been torn out. Then I remember that many of these people are the ones who like to walk in groups along the middle of the road!

[Martin Evans]

Absolutely not; I believe that united we stand, divided we fall (Or at least we fall quicker). With Plaid Cymru hanging on to the coat tails of the SNP, it fills me with foreboding (They may not have many seats but Plaid have far more influence than their level of apparent support would suggest; they are devious if nothing else). It was once said of Nye Bevan “.He believed, as I believe, that a miner is a miner, whether he works in Durham or Glamorgan, that a steel worker is a steel worker, whether he works at Ebbw Vale, Llanwern, Scunthorpe or Sheffield". Those jobs may have been superseded by shelf stackers or call centre operatives but the principle remains. What nobody seems to mention, is that in many ways, the South East is going it’s own way and leaving the rest of us behind. I’d like to believe that Mr Osborne’s “Northern Power House” will help redress the balance but I am far from convinced that it will make any difference.

I am not against the idea of any devolution (That is why we have local government and perhaps we don’t use it enough?) but I don’t think the UK is big enough to warrant another layer of regional government, between local and national government. So far devolution has simply been a euphemism for nationalism. If this powerhouse idea works, I should sooner see north Wales in with Manchester and south Wales in with Bristol. The roads all go that way, which surely tells us something of the real world!!

Just thought I’d say my piece before this thread gets locked.

[JPB]

The only Power House I know of used to be a really good club, but then they stopped hosting Northern Soul nights and the beer in there is apparently over £2 for just the one pint these days! To put that into perspective; the same product in any one of the many Buffs' clubs and Labour clubs locally costs, as of two hours ago (hic! ), a much less naughty £1.45.

Nye Bevan, one of my all-time favourite figures from the party's history, probably didn't waste his cash in licenced premises. Sensible fella.

[Mitsuru]

John the only 'Power House' I know of which has change locations due to redevelopment and
for safety reasons is that night club in Newcastle I went to it in it's old location but not it's new
location. It was too much trying to find a parking place that didn't rape your wallet for charge!!
That was the last attempt to go out cubbing and try 'The Power House' at it's new location for
the first time!

As for cars on Voyager there was an episode that had the Doctor on the holo-deck with a blue
57 Chevy Bel Air convertible. Another episode I think called 'The 39ers' feature around the
discovery of a Ford flat head V8 pickup floating in deep space!

[JPB]

....the
discovery of a Ford flat head V8 pickup floating in deep space!

Meh, that happens every other day out there in Space, probably also happens in other villages in the same part of Durham..

I've never been to the new location of the Power House as I'm now officially far too old to have a good time, but they only moved about 30 Yards from Waterloo Street across to the other side of Westmorland Road. They're not averse to moving though, the place has existed in at least three locations so far. The properties are probably far more lucrative than the sale of expensive beverages and Amyl Nitrite. Whatever that is..