Aibu thinking Scots shouldn't be wanting Argentina to win against England?

[Engerlund]

It's getting beyond banter now imo.

I know plenty of Scots agree with me.

I'm half Scottish (dad) so always support both. In the past I'd probably want Scotland to win if it was them against England to be honest. Although now because of the Argentina support I'm going off supporting Scotland.

I desperately want England to win this one more than against any other team.

They were arrested and dealt with BY BRAZILIAN AUTHORITIES.

Let’s be clear.

It’s not hypocritical because it’s not the same. It would be like us losing a war to France, them seizing Liverpool and Birmingham as “spoils of war” and then them being returned to the UK.

It's hypocritical for someone who resents being "ruled" by England (and compares that to being ruled against their will by China) to then also support the Falklands being ruled against their will by Argentina as revenge for the fact Scotland is ruled by England. None of those situations are the same as each other. That's true.

The Scots are really sore losers. Imagine an actor who is only doing local amateur theatre.

And then they sit and watch the Oscars, where somebody they know has been nominated as best actress. They then scoff and slag them off and are overjoyed when they don’t win the prize.

That’s the Scottish.

Xenophobia on here is appalling.

That's quite a disgusting comment. The 'Scots' are not one hive mind that think alike and from what I saw, they were just glad to be part of the competition. As a country of around 5million people, Scotland did pretty well. England were ranked fourth in the world cup so have achieved as expected and that should be celebrated, rather than turning on another country. Celebrate the players for getting so far rather than blaming everyone else for losing one football game.

An example of the language I heard yesterday (on the radio, discussing the match) the broadcaster spoke about being proud of ‘our men’ Now don’t tell me that when talking about the Scottish football team that language was used? The bbc radio stations serve us all and there’s the assumption that everyone listening regards the English team as ‘ours’ That’s what we mean when we say that we have to be part of it all because we share the same media, it doesn’t work both ways though.

I listened to the match Scotland qualified on I think BBC sports and the 2 commentators were definitely referring to the team as "we" and getting very excited. Fairly certain they were Scottish though.

Well yes, if they are Scottish then absolutely but I’m referring to the ‘news’ describing the English football team as ‘our men’ when the BBC is broadcasting to more than just English citizens…that’s the difference. Reporting on the BBC news wouldn’t have described the Scottish team that way?

God is this still wittering on. Who cares, it's only football.

Of course there will be a media bias to some extent because there are over 60 million people in England and just 5 million in Scotland. Sometimes presenters may slip up and say 'us' or something like that. But definitely, there was loads of coverage when Scotland were in it. And many BBC / ITV / Sky presenters are Scottish anyway!

I never said "all" you're misquoting me. Why?

As for her being in on it for personal reasons. Again, as I said, many and maybe most (quote me correctly please) are in it for the gain. For selfish reasons, to make money, etc.

And if you don't believe that English PMs have denied Scottish governments' requests, over the last 12 years, their independence referendums, because they don't want to go down in history as the man/woman who lost England the union, then I have a bridge to sell you.

We have seen all sorts of political corruption going on in Westminster, for various politicians to enrich themselves. Mandelson, being one of the latest but by no means, the only example.

"I don't think human nature differs that much across the world and there are definitely people in Scotland with a similar thought process but a different hero."

I don't think it's remotely the same. Independence has always been far bigger than any one person. Bigger than Sturgeon, bigger than Salmond, bigger than Swinney. And it's also more diverse, we have who I consider unpleasant politicians in the party, and politicians I like. Though I have never liked the cult of personality I see around some politicians. I am a policy first sort of person. I honestly can't think of anyone, celebrity, or politician, sports person, or musical artist I am obsessed with like many people get. I care about policies, and the most boring politician in the world, will get my support if they share the same views as me. But I'll drop them as soon as I get disappointed by them (I never liked Salmond, for example, though he managed to do great things for the SNP, so i respect what he accomplished.

Bottom line, no single politician is needed for independence, in Scotland. It's been a movement slowly bubbling away for centuries, and more prominently for decades, in Scotland. It doesn't matter who's leading it. For example, the SNP scandal hasn't diminished support for independence, it's higher in fact. Support for the union has never been as low as it is currently.

"I like football banter etc. but you were the one who said you would support Argentina because of all the people Edward first killed. "

That has NEVER been my position. I do wish you'd not misrepresent my views. It's been a few days, but anything I have said in regards to that, has been IF I am to decide who I support based on Scots being killed in war (a lot of English people were trying to arm-twist Scots into supporting them vs Argentina, by mentioning the Falklands. Which is something I couldn't care any less about. Then if death and war matter, then the death and war Scots suffered in the wars of independence, matter much more.

There's nothing wrong with supporting Argentina (apart from the open racism shown by the team in this tournament

As with the war claim, Scots get much more ethnic based abuse from England fans than Argentinian. We're called all sorts of nasty names for having the audacity of not supporting England, another country's team.

I never asked about the Falklands or Hong Kong in that question, I asked about the UK being subsumed by a much larger entity, and how they (the person I was responding to) would feel about it.

The Scottish independence referendum was well over a decade ago. And Scottish people were promised things that we were never given, and then we were dragged out of the EU, when two thirds of Scots voted to stay.

And worse, the EU was used as part of blackmail to coerce us into staying in the union. Scots like the EU more than we like the UK (check the two referendum results). So UK politicians threatened that we'd have any application we made to join it, vetoed by rUK, if we left the UK.

So as far as I am concerned, the situation is far from settled. And polls back this up, support for the union is currently in the low 40s. It's lost on average 1% annually, since 2014. And support for the union, is focused in those in their sixties and older. It's only going to continue to fall. And it's only a matter of time.

However, this is all a side point to the question I asked. I asked how would they personally, and for that matter, the English population in general feel, if a much larger political entity, like China or the US, dominated their politics? If Westminster was relocated to Beijing, and the UK got 8% vote share in it, when the most important issues were being voted on. Where the party they vote for is considered moot in the grand scheme of things, because, in this fictional version of China, the Chinese vote almost always determines which party forms the government.

They voted us all out of the EU for far less. Yet we're told that Scots are being unreasonable, and anti-English for wanting out of this undemocratic (for Scotland) arrangement.

And again, I don't care about the falklands. It's none of my business. I care about the land I live on, and that's the only land we should be managing, and by we, I mean Scotland.

😂

Yes, there's nothing "sore loser" about an entire nation embarking on a tear-stained toddler-tantrum every second year.

Sounds like you're trying to defend racism? It's funny actually that the least diverses places in England seem to get higher shares of Reform support.

With significantly less funding to go with it. You love to talk about populations, but not funding.

London has the top hospitals in the UK.
NHS England is far superior to Scotland,

I agree. I don't know why Twitter/X hasn't been banned in the UK yet, considering its AI generates illegal material, and he's trying to start a civil war in the UK, and there's no hate speech moderation.

The UK government sit on their hands like cowards. And it's not just the WM lot. ALBA recently invited Musk to build one of his gigafactories here.
They've no shame.

You spend more per head on the NHS in Scotland. 3% more per head.
Yet it is failing its population.
same with your education system.

Good job you don't live here any more then isn't it.

😂

That's not my position. I don't care about the Falklands, They very, very rarely enter my consciousness. It's a piece of land many thousands of miles away. I'm far more concerned with Scotland securing its own independence, right here.

The only land I am interested in myself and other Scots being in control over, is our own.

I compared the UK being dominated by China, in a fictional political union, to Scotland being dominated by the UK, in that hypothetical, to try and help you understand how it feels from our point of view.

I know it's not a like for like comparison. China's not even a democracy. The point was, imagine a government and its population ten times the size of yours, always being in charge of the big issues, regardless of how your country feels, and how it voted, and it was often at odds with it (see Brexit, where almost two thirds of Scots voted to stay in the UK, and against every Tory gov for the last 70 years, yet still got stuck with them).

All we independence supporters in general desire, is regaining full autonomy over Scotland again. What Scots vote for should determine what happens with Scotland.

And devolution is not the answer. It's a loaned thing that can be taken away by any government the English elect, because it's not truly our right, it's "loaned" to us.

That and many of the more important decisions are reserved to Westminster. A political body largely voted in by an electorate in another country, who are beholden to them and their wishes, not ours. The Tories have managed to win all their recent elections, bar one (2010) without relying on any Tory MPs elected in Scotland, to put them over the 325 majority in Westminster.

To oppose this is not to be anti-English.
If anything creates hostile feelings towards England, it's the response to this (in the media and online and in WM).
Claims made that we're asking for more than what we deserve. That we're ungrateful, that we need England and can't run our own country, our own way (when we have for much of our history).

It's more expensive (per capita) to fund education and medical care for a more spread out population. So it's entirely justified that it costs more per capita in the conparitavely sparsely populated Scotland to London. Rural parts of England and Wales have the same issues. Either it costs a lot more, or services provided are much less. Or both.
I think some of the decisions around the education system in Scotland in recent years have been quite faddy. But my kid doesn't go to school there so not my business really....

No, that's your wild imagination, working its wonders.

Yup, that's extremely common. More than once I've heard the BBC (which is supposed to be British, not Scottish, or English or Welsh), say "the whole of the nation is on their feet. But which nation are they referring to? I know it's being hyperbolic, there's lots of people in England who couldn't care less about football, never mind Scotland or Wales.

Also, James O'Brian had a rant about the England team yesterday. And he said there were millions of people in Scotland watching. He was trying to make it sound like we were only watching because England were playing, or that we supported them.

But many of the same people were also watching the France vs Spain match. Football fans watch football. It was a semi final, they weren't just tuning in because they wanted England to do well. Many of us were wanting them to be knocked out, if anything. And many would have been watching regardless of who were playing.

And this was James O'Brian, one of the more I like to think enlightened people in the UK media, expressing this sort of arrogant view, that thinks he's/his team/his country is special, and is entitled to people in other countries support.

And there was also Charles, Starmer and Badenoch requesting that we Scots support their team too.

They can't help themselves, can they?

It depends. At times, recently, the NHS Scotland, has been better performing than the NHS in England, and vice versa.

I don't keep track of it, I just see it in the news. I don't really form my opinions on how health care in one nation is doing compared to another. But how well it's doing in general, in my country.

And what I see in general is that most people in most countries seem to be dissatisfied with their health care quality.

Personally, I have had both a good and a bad experience, recently with Scottish NHS.

My father died last year from something probably treatable,(a form of vasculitis), if they'd been able to detect it, but it's quite rare, and with dealing with treatment, they tend to rule out the most common diseases first. So unfortunately, there wasn't enough time. And the nurses on his ward seemed to be overworked too, so his care wasn't the best.

On the other hand, I had been referred by my GP to have my kidneys looked at via ultrasound because my eGFR results were below 6. The whole experience, from being referred to getting the scan and my results, which fortunately came back good, happened within a couple of weeks. Much quicker than I expected.

So it's been both good and bad, depending on the case, for me. And I'd choose this over what they have in the states, any day.