Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I suspect that if Scotland secedes from the UK, this will pour fire on the flames of those who see possible secession in the USA, or who want it to happen.

I predicted this would happen, though not this soon iirc.

Nations have gotten a lot smaller in recent decades, and many more of these small countries exist than a few decades ago. Sometimes these countries also join confederations, as has happened in Europe. The USA could be a looser confederation after 2027.

All this is following the path toward a more libertarian society, with far less communal interests and even less cooperation. It seems to be the age of the individual, at a time that individualism is making more trouble than it's solving. Ayn Rand is actually getting her shot. Let's see how badly it falls short.

Originally Posted by Normal

I'm really interested in seeing what happens over in Scotland. The UK has been a United Kingdom longer than we've been a United States of America, so if this break-up goes through, it's nothing to scoff at. If the break-up happens, it would be tempting to draw parallels here and ask if the same thing could happen here (it already has once before).

Drunken Scouser, are you saying that the 1T in the UK didn't start until about 1950 or so? That's what it sounds like you're proposing. I know many people feel that the British saeculum is off by a couple of years, but I've never seen a 1T start date later than about 1947-48 or so. I'm not arguing against you, I'm just making sure I understand your point clearly.

If the UK is truly in a late 3T, then perhaps a break-up of Scotland would be just the thing to catalyze a 4T.

From my amateur historian perspective, around '50-51 was when our 1T began. This is partly because this was around the time the Tories accepted the bulk of the post-war consensus, meaning the big public policy debates were now for the most part settled. With the crucial caveat that I wasn't around at the time, indeed I wasn't even a sperm in my granddad's bollocks yet, the mid-to-late '40s weren't the most saccharine of times from what I know of them. There was serious fear of a return to depression, sporadic anti-Semitic riots, vitriolic opposition to the Labour government's agenda, with Churchill warning that Labour's avowedly socialist agenda was taking us down the road to the Gestapo.

In 1951 the Tories, still led by Churchill, were voted back in and they mostly just presided over the status quo for 13 years.

As for Scotland, had they voted to leave then it certainly could have been a catalyst for the 4T. The thing with Britain is that people often have a dual identity. They identify with both their home nation and with Britain as a whole. English people however haven't tended to make as big a deal out of Englishness as the Scots have with Scottishness and the Welsh with Welshness.

Many of us in England have often cloaked ourselves in the Union Jack in part out of ambivalence about Englishness. If you mean the word 'Englishness' it conjures up images of drunkenness, soccer hooliganism and so on for many people. Mention the word 'Britishness' however and it tends to bring to mind a long, proud history plus a long list of institutions and personal virtues.

Had Scotland voted to end Britain as we know it, then we English would have been left with the task of completely rebuilding our national identity, and that would have plunged us into some very profound soul-searching.

From what I can determine, many Scots wanted "devo plus." More autonomy, but retaining the old central government to handle the rest of the world.

Here is some more detail of youth offending stats. This also includes young adults, which I presume means 18-24 year olds. The drop in youth offending seems to be slowly progressing up the age pyramid. From my very rough calculations the number of young adults being formally reprimanded in some way by the criminal justice system for the first time has gone down by about 40% in 5 years.

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...-data-tool.xls

There's also data here showing the number of suspensions & expulsions from schools down by about half in recent years, with truancy also well down.

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload..._2014_text.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...SFR12_2014.pdf

Cardiff University do a very informative annual survey of hospitals, to find out how many people are turning up requiring treatment having been on the receiving end of violence. The figures for 2014 were released just the other day:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...rious-violence

It's down 10% in a year, down by about a third since 2010, and down by more than half since the survey started in 2001. If you scroll down you'll see that the number of 11-17 year olds requiring treatment has gone down by nearly two thirds since 2008.

It's been greeted by the usual head-scratching among self-proclaimed 'experts', who haven't got the first clue what the driving force behind this is and still think the world works in a purely linear way.

My best wishes to the Plaid Cymru, UKIP, and the SNP in the upcoming election.