Thread by @Staedtler

No. The mistake the royal family is making and Gordon brown too by the sounds of it is to try and save the union by emotion.
But that only draws attention to the deficit

Y'see. The root of it is the massively unequal relation between England and Scotland. England has always been the dominant part of the union, and that means it has to conduct itself with self restraint.

What the English have abandoned is self-restraint. The Tories before Tony Blair and the Tories after Tony Blair are two different species. They share the same name, but they're not the same party.

The Tories up to and including John Major were committed to three things. The economy, the union and Britain's influence in the world.
Different ways of showing it but they all believed in those things

But the three Tory leaders we've had after Tony Blair haven't given a wet arse about those things.
Not Cameron, nor May nor Johnson could have behaved the way they did if they cared about any of those things.

Thatcher or Major, for all their disagreements, would neither of them have played silly games with the country that Cameron, May and Johnson have done.

Tony Blair marks a clear division between the serious and the infantile. Government by grown ups that came before him - Thatcher and Major. And government by spoilt children that came after - Cameron, May and Johnson

And the real difference between those two sides is that Cameron, May and Johnson have destroyed the country by doing what Thatcher and Major never would.

One after the other Cameron, May and Johnson gambled the union for their own trivial vanity.

Thatcher and Major took the country seriously. They understood Britain's relations within itself and with the outside world, and all its complexities.

You don't have to agree with the Tories. It's not about that. It's the fact that Thatcher and Major didn't play silly games.
They took the job seriously. And Cameron, May and Johnson didn't.

It's not even about whether to hold a referendum. You can have referendums.
The problem is Cameron held such an ill-considered referendum.
Then May's Article 50 notification was equally ill-considered.
And Johnson signing an equally ill-considered treaty that he can't live with.

And that's the difference between Thatcher and Major on one side, and Cameron, May and Johnson the other.

Thatcher and Major never acted without consideration. Cameron, May and Johnson never acted with it.

Cameron held a referendum without thinking through the consequences.
May gave Article 50 notice without a flicker of comprehension what she was getting into.
And Johnson signed a treaty that he now finds he can't live with

The real crisis we've got is that we keep getting prime ministers who act without thinking.
And now the country itself is breaking up because they didn't think.

We have had a series of irresponsible governments, and when I look at the Conservative Party, that is all I see. irresponsibility.

Whether it's our parliamentary system, private schools or decaying media, or a combination of everything, the English are no longer capable of responsible government.
And that's why Scotland must have independence.