Scots don't get the feel good factor after the Olympics

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

Independent Scotland | Politics | News | STV

 

[User removed 4]

I'm not sure that the people who choose to (and are selected to) appear on phone-ins are all that representative of the country as a whole.

My own impression, in Edinburgh at least, is that responses have been similar to those in England, i.e. a mixture of excitement and scepticism beforehand, which was overtaken by genuine excitement from the opening ceremony onwards. I was in a pub in Musselburgh when Ennis won her gold and the place went noisily mental.

It's inevitable that the relevance of the Olympics decreases to some degree with distance - it's bound to make a bigger difference to people in Stratford than in Dundee (or in Wigan or Sunderland, for that matter). And some people will continue to feel that their taxes have basically paid for new facilities a big party in London, with minimal knock-on benefit for them. I don't entirely buy that argument, given the importance of London to the wider UK economy, but I can understand why some people feel that way.

Of course, those who are pushing the case for independence will look for opportunities to advance that case, and the Olympics was always going to be one such opportunity. Fair enough. But on the whole, Scotland has been caught up in Olympic fever along with everywhere else.

All that said, I can vouch for the fact that very few Scots seem to be interested in who Brighton's new striker is going to be. I've raised the subject enthusiastically with loads of people, but they just yawn and change the subject. Strange.

Londoners paid an extra council tax tariff for the games , they contributed £ 1 BILLION towards the cost that the rest of the country didnt pay.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

Well yes, it was the British team. English and Welsh (and Yorkshire!) success was celebrated in the same manner.

However I take your point. I don't support the EU and I would hate it if our success was seen as 'European' success. Fortunately no one has done that yet!

Great analogy - I wish I had come up with that. Although personally I'd love it, and we'd have won the medal table by a long way!

But yeah, it's all about perceptions. The main interpretation on here seems to be that Team GB and the Union flag stand for a joint effort between England, Scotland and Wales that everyone should buy into. But the issue is that for some nationalists it just doesn't - it represents the suppression of their own national identity. This isn't an argument about which of those sides is right or wrong, but you'd have to be very narrow minded to not understand/appreciate why some Scots will not see the Team GB/Olympic success as theirs.

 

[User removed 4]

Well yes, it was the British team. English and Welsh (and Yorkshire!) success was celebrated in the same manner.

However I take your point. I don't support the EU and I would hate it if our success was seen as 'European' success. Fortunately no one has done that yet!

eddie izzard did !!


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[hans kraay fan club]

but you'd have to be very narrow minded to not understand/appreciate why some Scots will not see the Team GB/Olympic success as theirs.

I accept that. The part I'm struggling with, is why they'd be watching at all? Just so they get a chance to be outraged?

The Scots competing (Hoy, Murray, Kenny, Grainger, etc, etc) obviously all buy into the Team GB concept, or they wouldn't be there. The nationalists should be vilifying these people, rether than celebrating their 'Scottish success', surely?

 

[jameswestport]

i think its disgusting that they are not aloud enter their national team

 

[Titanic]

I accept that. The part I'm struggling with, is why they'd be watching at all? Just so they get a chance to be outraged?

The Scots competing (Hoy, Murray, Kenny, Grainger, etc, etc) obviously all buy into the Team GB concept, or they wouldn't be there. The nationalists should be vilifying these people, rether than celebrating their 'Scottish success', surely?

Double standards in politics. No, surely not?

 

[itszamora]

All that said, I can vouch for the fact that very few Scots seem to be interested in who Brighton's new striker is going to be. I've raised the subject enthusiastically with loads of people, but they just yawn and change the subject. Strange.

I work for a company that has departmental offices in London, where I am, and in Glasgow. A few weeks ago a guy from the Glasgow office was down here for some reason or another. When he found out I was a Brighton fan (in fairness, it doesn't take long) the first thing he wanted to ask me about was CMS.

 

[Brovion]

But yeah, it's all about perceptions. The main interpretation on here seems to be that Team GB and the Union flag stand for a joint effort between England, Scotland and Wales that everyone should buy into. But the issue is that for some nationalists it just doesn't - it represents the suppression of their own national identity. This isn't an argument about which of those sides is right or wrong, but you'd have to be very narrow minded to not understand/appreciate why some Scots will not see the Team GB/Olympic success as theirs.

True, for some it does, undeniably. But for the less-committed I wonder if the success of 'Team GB' has changed their view? To be honest it's changed mine a bit, I always had at best ambivalent feelings towards the union flag before the Olympics, but now I feel to an extent that it's been 'ripped from the hands of the far right' (to quote the Guardian). Probably a subject for another thread as that's going away a bit from the original point.

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Given that a big chunk of funding towards sport, coaching programmes and sporting facilities across the UK comes from the National Lottery, if Scotland votes for independence I presume they will lose their share of this funding? Would they then receive the same level of funding from a 'Scottish Lottery'? I suspect they would not.

There are already loads of questions around how Scotland would fund itself without the current level of support from Westminster. I wonder just how seriously the nationalists have thought about this.

 

[Sussex on Leith]

I work for a company that has departmental offices in London, where I am, and in Glasgow. A few weeks ago a guy from the Glasgow office was down here for some reason or another. When he found out I was a Brighton fan (in fairness, it doesn't take long) the first thing he wanted to ask me about was CMS.

Fair point! I get asked about CMS all the time as well - and if our new striker did turn out to be Rhodes (I realise it won't), and/or if GG and Bridcutt got their overdue international call-ups, we'd have a lot of Scots following the Albion's fortunes all of a sudden.

 

[somerset]

Interesting to hear the phone in on 5Live this morning. Several Scots talking down the feel good factor, claiming it was an 'English' Olympics..

Well it was the London Olympics, he obviously missed the point that the bids are per city, not country.

 

[00snook]

Let them piss off with their moaning attitude.

I have worked in Scotland and the majority have nothing against the English, but as usual the minority shout louder.

Quite frankly they would be fooked on their own and the sensible ones know it.

Also if Scotland devolve and can't vote in general elections then Labour would never get into power again.

It's the Scottish vote that keeps them in with a shout nationally, so fairly sure every Labour politician would hope that they stay part of the union

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Well it was the London Olympics, he obviously missed the point that the bids are per city, not country.

Quite. There were one or two English dissenters on the phone in too, including the guy pointing out that the national rowing centre was based in Nottingham for years but their funding was slashed to help pay for new facilities at Eton Dorney. I can understand his point of view but ultimately the bid was from London so would inevitably be a London-centric games. The footie matches in Cardiff, Glasgow, Newcastle etc were token gestures to share events around and partly answer such claims.

It was interesting to hear that the IOC wanted venues to be much closer to the host city following experiences in Beijing, so our bid may not have been succesful if we had attempted to spread the venues across GB. Seeing images of some of the venues for Rio 2016 under construction suggest they are not holding back but some are being shared with the World Cup too, which seems sensible.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Quite. There were one or two English dissenters on the phone in too, including the guy pointing out that the national rowing centre was based in Nottingham for years but their funding was slashed to help pay for new facilities at Eton Dorney. .

Well he was pretty much wrong anyway. Eton Dorney was built by (and is completey owned by) Eton College, at a cost of £17million.

The Olympic bodies put something like £500k into building the control tower.

 

[severnside gull]

Miserable and Bitter....

that is no way to describe our friends north of the border....................

Whisky and Sour would be nearer the mark

 

[Curious Orange]

All that said, I can vouch for the fact that very few Scots seem to be interested in who Brighton's new striker is going to be. I've raised the subject enthusiastically with loads of people, but they just yawn and change the subject. Strange.

You clearly haven't bumped into my cousin then

 

[Triggaaar]

However I take your point. I don't support the EU and I would hate it if our success was seen as 'European' success. Fortunately no one has done that yet!

Ryder cup

 

[Sussex on Leith]

Also if Scotland devolve and can't vote in general elections then Labour would never get into power again.

It's the Scottish vote that keeps them in with a shout nationally, so fairly sure every Labour politician would hope that they stay part of the union

Not sure this quite holds true - Scotland only has 59 constituencies out of 650, of which Labour holds 41. From memory, I think it's only one or two post-war elections that would have had different overall results if the Scottish constituencies were removed.

But it's true that it suits Labour electorally for Scotland to remain in the Union. More interesting to me is where the Tories really stand on the matter - in principle, the Union is a fundamental part of what they stand for, but electorally they'd be better suited by separation.

Sorry, that's more than enough politics geekery from me. When's the new striker signing?

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

whilst Scottish success is celebrated primarily as British success.

and English success is celebrated primarily as British success.

What's the problem?