Scotland can't do referendums any time they want

You've forgotten the Darien Scheme, then, which was a purely Scottish mass colonisation attempt in central America, and which precipitated the destruction of Scotland's finances and directly led to the need for the English bail-out.

Yes, but are enough Scots sufficiently annoyed at the recent referendum result such that they would vote for independence?

As soon as independence is mentioned that description of Scotland as "well-off" seems to turn into "impoverished wasteland.

As well as recieving more public spending per person than the UK average, it has also brought in more income per person than the UK average.

And most parts of the UK should consider their involvement in the exploitation of countries and people for the benefit of the British Empire. I'd say Scotland is a little ahead of England in that regard.

Quite so.

Revenue raised in Scotland: £53.4 billion
Expenditure on Scotland: £68.4 billion

Pretty big gap, eh?

The problem is that you're looking at the two in isolation. So while it's true to say there's (by a fraction of a percentage point) higher than average revenue raised in Scotland, there's also vastly higher expenditure, giving us a fiscal gap of around £10 billion with the rest of the UK - and that gap is growing, not shrinking.

Scotland's economy may be OK in a UK context - average is hardly something to slap backs about - but what these figures show is that Scotland benefits from massively higher public sector spending due to fiscal transfers from other parts of the United Kingdom. It's down to nationalists to say what they'd do without that money and how they'd avoid that sort of cut causing an enormously long and deep recession, as well as the major cuts to public services it represents.

Really? I think the rest of the UK does a far better job commemorating slavery, for example. A proposed monument to Glasgow's role in the slave trade (as if Glasgow itself isn't the biggest monument to that you can imagine) seems to have been quietly shelved. Indeed, historians like Tom Devine (a nationalist, incidentally) have suggested quite the opposite: that Scotland is denying its legacy in that regard.

The rhetoric around an independent Scotland is largely about choice, self-determination and working with the rest of the world. The rhetoric in England is largely about Rule Britannia and not being dictated to by Germany again.

In both cases, there was rhetoric about working with other countries around the world. In both cases, I see it as paper-thin: you don't enhance co-operation by loosening co-operation with your nearest neighbour.

So suddenly it's not actually about how much we raise in tax or how much we spend, but about this "wider issue". Hmm.

As for the regional point, I'm not sure you can validate that. GERS figures are published for Scotland on that topic, they're not published for any other part of the United Kingdom - and certainly not at regional level.

You see, when you say "self-determination" and "not being dictated to by Germany", it amounts to the precise same thing. The nationalists in England are not fundamentally much different from the nationalists in Scotland and in both cases it's this ridiculous idea about sovereignty that largely appeals to the jingoistic.

In both cases, there was rhetoric about working with other countries around the world. In both cases, I see it as paper-thin: you don't enhance co-operation by loosening co-operation with your nearest neighbour.

For my part, I see choice in a globalised world for me as an individual. I have more choices as part of the UK, as part of the EU and from our governments' relations internationally. You talk about choice in the same sense that English nationalists do: that "Scotland" can choose things. It cannot: only individuals can - states, be they large and small, are simply cobbled-together amalgams of these individuals.

I was looking at the data on spending and tax raised in regions of the UK this afternoon, I'm off out soon but I'll dig it out at some point.

I don't contest that Scotland runs a deficit, as does pretty much every part of the UK bar London unless the data I was looking at is wrong. I do dislike the implication that the "rest of the UK" is propping Scotland up, as if we aren't all collectively screwing over future generations just as has been done to us.

I would prefer a united UK within the EU, but sadly that choice doesn't seem to be there!

There is a huge difference. The SNP always maintain they want MORE immigration not less. That is the big big big difference.

From white paper via BBC:
"

But not in Scotland. Unlike almost every other Nationalist party in Europe, the SNP has set out in its White Paper the ways it would seek to increase immigration should it gain independence in September's referendum.

It's too early to say for sure, but I believe that yes, they are sufficiently annoyed. The referendum has had a double impact: firstly taking Scotland as part of the UK out of the EU against the wishes of the majority of Scottish voters and secondly of reminding Scotland how little sway it has in significant decisions affecting its future.