But Scotland is a lot bigger than countries like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - it is indeed bigger than the now eminently prosperous countries Norway, Finland and Ireland!
I find it pretty hard to see any reason for Scotland’s relative lack of prosperity - when compared to such similar countries - other than its government from London.
other than its (unwelcome) governance from London surely - Scotland has it’s own (devolved) Government.
Is Scottish independence any less of a gamble than Brexit?
I’ve never thought of either Scottish independence or brexit as gambles. The UK can only lose through brexit - not a great bet! - and as I said it’s difficult to see how Scotland can lose through independence, when all the comparable countries in northern Europe seem to be doing so much better.
The main difficulties I see are the currency and the border with England. I have no doubt that Scotland would be welcomed back into the EU, which could resolve the currency issue (by joining the Euro) but make the border issue trickier. But by then maybe the UK will be back in the single market / customs union anyway…
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Scotland has it’s own currency - it’s just the same name as the stuff from south of the border but they do have their own bank…
The Sasanachs nicked all the oil revenues Geof. Otherwise Scotland would have a sovereign fund to rival Norways’s.
Yes, I have no doubt EU membership will also entail Euro membership but I’m sure a sensible transition period could be arranged.
I think is is the diametric opposite of the Brexit risk Tim. Staying with the UK (as a poor relation of the Home Counties) is the risk IMO. In fact everywhere north of the Watford Gap should go with them.
True, but size isn’t everything. Very small states can prosper within the EU, whilst much larger, medium sized states such as a post-UK England might find it difficult to go it alone.
Incidentally, if I remember correctly, Lithuania was once the largest country in Europe, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea
Apropos oil revenues, perhaps they could now be left under the sea because Scotland probably has greater potential for off-shore wind power generation than anywhere else in Europe (weather is why although I like the idea of Scotland as somewhere to go forvery short visits, I wouldn’t want to live there).
Watford Gap is as far as I know a Motorway service station in Northamptonshire on the M1 and 75 miles north of London. I think you mean north of Watford, which is in Hertfordshire and not far north of London.
Sigh… 
No, it’s the service area Peter. That’s where the “North” starts.
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Since when and who says? I am a Brummie and Birmingham (well north of Watford Gap) isn’t and ńever was “the North” of England. The term ‘North of Watford’ was coined long before the M1 was constructed in the 1950s, I recall its use in the Observer in those times.
Londoners
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That confirms this Brummie’s dim view of his half-pint sarf-of-the-North-Circular compatriots… 
That would be the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Thanks, but I think my reply should be ‘yes’ and ‘no’!
Polish-Lithuanian history’s complexly convoluted and not knowing enough, I had to go back to Norman Davies’ magisterial Europe: a History to check that out. His maps of C15th Lithuania (1996:1256) (earlier than the one below) show that even before the founding of the Commonweath and excluding the much smaller Kingdom of Poland, the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ran from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Reminds one of Horace Smith’s reworking of Shelley Ozymandias, setting it in London.
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw192.html
I wonder how long it will be before people come to regard the former imperial capital of L’île de la Peste in a similar light…
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What a good idea! I believe Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle for example voted to remain in the EU. Living in Manchester, I always found those signs, “The NORTH” on the M1, annoying.
They call it the “frozen north”. Bargepole.
Ooh my (step)father’s birthplace is on that map - Königsberg, in Teutonic knights’ territory. I’d love to visit but it is in Russia now.
My 2nd daughter is off to Gdansk on Wednesday, I hope I shall be able to go and see her later in the year.