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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25222891

Some of them are rather interesting.

Nothing will ever Beat that

I think we should stick with the one we have got, even if the Scots decide to bog off out.

 Orlanth wrote:
I think we should stick with the one we have got, even if the Scots decide to bog off out.

But it'd be like clinging on to the past.

I like the traditional one:

 Ninjacommando wrote:


Nothing will ever Beat that

Indeed. We have a winner

I like the one with the dragon in the upper left corner.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I like the one with the dragon in the upper left corner.

We can't let the welsh have that...
One day we give them a spot on the flag and the next thing you know they'll be able to vote!

We can't let the welsh have that...
One day we give them a spot on the flag and the next thing you know they'll be able to vote!

Haha well said.

To be fair there a very low chance of Scotland actually leaving, and if they do I hope they get someone better than Alex Salmond to lead the country.

My vote goes to this one:

BBC wrote:Kris Taylor, aged 32 ½, appears to have been inspired by the spirit of Jackson Pollock in his composition entitled My New Flag.

[grumbles] jack staff..... union jack.......flag staff......union flag [/grumbles]

Why waste time and money changing it?

Used the saved money of keeping it to rebuild Hadrians Wall and a Giant flag our side of the border. You know North Korea style but with the Western luxuries Scotland lacks.

Oh here's one you forgot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Mexico

It should incorporate the flag of St Piran.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
It should incorporate the flag of St Piran.

That flag should be retired, it is frayed at the edges.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ninjacommando wrote:


Nothing will ever Beat that

Indeed. We have a winner

Dunno if you've heard, but Scotland might be seceding from the union after the referendum next year. In which case no more blue i'm afraid.

commisar rhodes wrote:
To be fair there a very low chance of Scotland actually leaving

Are you so sure about that? They seem to have pulled out all the stops to help get a yes vote. Lowering the voting age, the whole "celebrate scotland" event (or whatever it's called) next year.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:It should incorporate the flag of St Piran.

Who?




Only joking, MGS. I wouldn't be against Cornwall being represented on a new flag.

You don't dare let the Scots secede. Thats all the enemy have been waiting for. As soon as you do, and the threat of haggis is past, Nazis will invade the UK from their hidden moon base.

Haggis - pah. We'll just feed em Kendle Mint Cake until they melt from to too much sugar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendal_Mint_Cake

The Nazis would be unable to fight against the warcrime that is Marmite anyway.

 Velour_Fog wrote:
Are you so sure about that? They seem to have pulled out all the stops to help get a yes vote. Lowering the voting age, the whole "celebrate scotland" event (or whatever it's called) next year.

Lowering the voing age seems to have backfired on them slightly, which I was kind of surprised about.

I wouldn't be against Cornwall being represented on a new flag.

I know I have spoken with MGS about Cornwall before but I would be against this, for the same reason I would be against putting all the other counties on the flag.

Personally I would go for something very English... like a wellington boot standing on France with tea and crumpets in the background or something

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
The Nazis would be unable to fight against the warcrime that is Marmite anyway.

Or bovril.

Bovril = cow in a blender.

The only thing worse that hitting someone with a jar of it would be to make them eat it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Personally I would go for something very English... like a wellington boot standing on France with people queing for tea and crumpets in the background or something

Fixed

Just a flag of the globe with "Haec est nostra" emblazoned across it.

Are you so sure about that? They seem to have pulled out all the stops to help get a yes vote. Lowering the voting age, the whole "celebrate scotland" event (or whatever it's called) next year.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516317/Poll-reveals-just-QUARTER-Scots-want-leave-UK-following-launch-referendum-campaign.html

It seems even with the younger voters there a long way off independence.

Also there wish list for what Scotland will get if they leave the UK was called a fantasy list which will only put more pro independence voters off.

Obviously I don't get a vote, but (in no order whatsoever), I think y'all should go with one of these.... (I really like the last one)

I'd prefer the last one if the kiwi was facing the other way. He looks like he's investigating something the kangaroo left behind

I say keep the flag as is... people don't realise the cost of having the change all the flags/symbols/pamphlets/branding/etc. all over the country.

 PredaKhaine wrote:
I'd prefer the last one if the kiwi was facing the other way. He looks like he's investigating something the kangaroo left behind

I'd agree with that one, seems like a bit of an oversight really.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gossipmeng wrote:
I say keep the flag as is... people don't realise the cost of having the change all the flags/symbols/pamphlets/branding/etc. all over the country.

Well, see the thing is that the flag IS a symbol, and part of that symbol is the flag of Scotland, and to keep the elements of that flag in the Union Jack, when it is no longer part of that Union, doesn't make any sense. In fact, to keep it could be interpreted symbolically to imply that the UK seeks to "reclaim" Scotland, which is bad for international relations.

chaos0xomega wrote:
to keep it could be interpreted symbolically to imply that the UK seeks to "reclaim" Scotland, which is bad for international relations.

It's OK - generally what happens is Scotland gets free every once in a while, gets into debt, signs up with France for a war on England/other Scottish people, gets its ass handed to it, then becomes part of England again all the while slagging off England and the English.

Not much point in changing the flag in that case

Stick with what we've got, it's simple and it works.

 commisar rhodes wrote:

We can't let the welsh have that...
One day we give them a spot on the flag and the next thing you know they'll be able to vote!

Haha well said.

To be fair there a very low chance of Scotland actually leaving, and if they do I hope they get someone better than Alex Salmond to lead the country.

The Yes vote has been steady in all the polling for nearly a year, in spite of a constant barrage of negativity and fearmongering from Better Together(We'll annex Faslane! We'll bomb Edinburgh Airport! You won't get Doctor Who or Eastenders! If you follow exactly the same policies as the current Westminster government, our crystal ball says you'll have a funding gap of 4 billion in 50 years time! There's a massive boom in North Sea investment and exploration, but really the oil's running out and it's not worth much anyway! The price of beans will go up in an independent Scotland! - sadly, none of those are jokes), while at the same time the No vote has been steadily bleeding away support into Don't Knows - the latest set of TNS-BMRB polls has the No vote dropping by ten points in the last three months. Don't Knows swing disproportionately to a Yes vote when presented with an honest debate, as the BBC found out in the hilarious Newsnight special on the subject a couple of months back. Tory strategists are now privately warning the PM that a Yes vote isn't just possible, but probable. The Tories are also putting the boot in to Darling, leader of the No campaign(who they refer to as "comatose", but many Scots would call "indignantly constipated" based on his facial expression and constant faux-angry tuts and sighs whenever he appears on the TV), and the Deputy First Minister recently tore Alastair "the Bruiser" Carmichael to bits during a TV debate; the second Lib Dem Secretary of State for Scotland patsy to enjoy that experience.

It's by no means a done deal, but I think quite a few people down south are going to get a bit of a shock next year, because they've been presented with a narrative by the unashamedly pro-Union media which paints Scottish self-determination as some parochial obsession held only by a few weirdos based entirely on their whisky-fueled repeat viewings of Braveheart. The reality is the independence debate is providing space for political and economic models which are purposefully drowned at birth by the Westminster neo-liberal consensus to be proposed and debated; politics up here hasn't been this engaging and widely discussed since the Thatcher era. A good example is the Common Weal project - that is what the independence debate is about, the economic and social future of our country, not twee shortbread-tin ethnic nationalism.

As for Alex Salmond, I find the constant attacks on him perplexing. He's a politician with firmly held convictions, who's never "sold out" to advance his own status or to have a shot at an ermine-clad retirement, and who's been advocating his position since his time at university. His government has delivered almost everything they promised in their manifestos at the last two elections and, among other things, has taken the NHS fully back into public ownership, protected free personal care and free bus travel for the elderly, and will have more than doubled childcare provision for nursery age children by the end of this parliamentary term. He's one of only a handful of politicians in this country to have a positive approval rating(and among the few others his Deputy ranks just after him), and the current Scottish Government administration hasn't seen much, if any, drop in support despite having been in power since 2007.

I've not actually voted for the man, but I've enormous respect for him, and frankly if the choice is between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon on the one hand, and whichever set of Interchangable Oxbridge Neoliberal Pseudopeople the Tories and the Red Tories are offering at the next elections, well that's no choice at all really is it - the man isn't perfect, he's no messiah, but in the context of British politics he's a bloody titan by comparison to the identikit numpties and UKIP crazies that rule the roost at Westminster.

Besides which, the constant conflation of the independence movement with the SNP is irritating beyond belief. Certainly they were the catalyst, and they have provided the legislative mandate to actually hold the referendum, but it seems to constantly escape the notice of the media and the Unionist politicos that Yes Scotland is an all-party-and-none group involving not just the SNP but the Scottish Greens, the Scottish Socialist Party, Labour for Independence, National Collective, the Radical Independence Campaign, the Jimmy Reid Foundation, and hundreds of grassroots volunteer groups around the country. Its chairman is Dennis Canavan the former Labour MP and MSP.


As for the comments here about "pulling out all the stops", how about we talk about the sudden appearance of a giant chauvinistic WW1 "celebration" event in Glasgow right around the time of the Commonwealth Games? Or the Labour-Tory coalition Stirling Council using every dirty trick in the book to screw over the Clan Gathering event, only to turn around and suddenly find all the cash and space they didn't have for that to host a massive UK "Armed Forces Day" event? The fact that vast swathes of the Westminster civil service have been draughted by Iain Davidson's laughable committee to produce endless unashamedly negative and biased(by their own admission, before anyone thinks I'm going all "lizard people rule the world!" on you) "reports" which selectively report the findings of the committee to suit the narrative? As for the voting age, it's been under discussion for some time now in relation to normal elections, and extending the franchise prior to the referendum had broad support in the parliament because of the importance of the vote, this idea that the SNP were draughting in legions of wee bairns to swing the referendum is a concoction of the UK press; the reality is in terms of raw numbers, these newly-enfranchised young people would only be a factor in deciding the result if we're talking about a 49.5/50.5 percentage split.

Besides which, that poll has been paraded about so long there's a faint whiff of decomposition about it; more recent debates at Abertay, Edinburgh, and Napier universities have all seen huge swings from No and Undecided to Yes, in two out of the three resulting in a clear Yes majority. Again, people's perceptions are being shaped by selective reporting.


All that said, regarding the flag "issue"; as I understand it, the old Butcher's Apron there is the flag of the United Kingdom, ie it represents the Union of the Crowns rather than the Union of Parliaments, so whether or not you would even need to think about changing it would depend on whether Scotland were to elect a Monarchist or Republican party at the first independent general election(or at any point thereafter). My personal hope is for the latter, but a lot of people still have an inexplicable fondness for that bunch of inbred racist old parasites even up here in Jockland.