A recent increase in Scotland's population is a blip rather than a long-term trend
BBC News:
The Scottish Item Club research group said for the first time in generations more people were coming to Scotland.
However, Dougie Adams, economic adviser to the group, said the forces driving migration to Scotland were temporary.
He also warned that Scotland's economy was predicted to lag behind the UK, and Scots could face a relative decline in living standards.
Mr Adams said migration had been driven by the tightness of the Scottish labour market, the relative affordability of housing in Scotland and a well-publicised one-off boost for migration of young workers from new EU members.
The unexpected upturn in the population resulted in a rise of about 41,000 (0.8%) in the two years to mid 2005.
A number of Scottish sectors had benefited including agriculture, food processing and hospitality, he said.
He added: "However, it is only in the last two to three years that Scotland has gained population from overseas, the UK has been reaping the benefits since the mid 1990s.
"We expect the inflow to peter out over the next few years - with a gain of only another 5,000 over the next three years, reflecting Scotland's relatively slow economic growth compared with southern England."
The report predicted that the Scottish economy was on track to achieve modest growth of 1.9% GDP in 2006.
However, it said Scotland's growth would lag behind the rest of the UK, which is expected to grow by 2.3%.
Furthermore, the gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK, in terms of GDP growth, would widen even further in 2007 with predicted rises of 2% and 2.7% respectively.
Mr Adam said: "The growth challenge facing Scotland is clearly demonstrated by the economy's inability to benefit from recent strong world conditions.
"With so little benefit flowing through from the best spell of world growth in a generation, there has been an over-reliance on buoyant public spending for growth.
"As a result when public spending hits the buffers from 2008, it will be difficult for the Scots to avoid a relative decline in their living standards compared with the most prosperous parts of the UK."
Of course, the Scottish demographic situation could be improved if the British would just relocate their colonists in the north of Ireland to Scotland.
ITEM Club sees Scottish growth lagging UK
posted by Diarmid @ 10:15 AM
16 comments
16 Comments:
Of course, the Scottish demographic situation could be improved if the British would just relocate their colonists in the north of Ireland to Scotland.
Tut, tut.
Much better if we could chase the Germans and Danes away. Then we could have these islands to ourselves again;¬)
Much better if we could chase the Germans and Danes away
I don't think Germany or Denmark want them back! ;-)
Aren't most of the squatters of lowland anglo descent anyway (despite their myriad of invented indigenous idenities).
I believe that most of the Unionists trace their ancestry to the lowlands of Scotland which means that they aren't even native to Scotland since the lowlanders are mostly made up of Angles, Danes, Normans and other Germanic groups.
Yes, and even presuming they were descended from the Picts their indigenous fantasies would be bizarre as the Picts were not indigenous to Western Scotland.
Boys, boys.
I'm afraid that you have it all wrong. Due to the ongoing migrations b/w the west of Scotland(Galloway upto Islay etc...) and the north of Ireland for millenias. Our ancient British bloodlines are very inter-mixed. Who would forget the multitudes of Gallowglasses, Scottish highland warriors, mercenaries who came to Ireland to fight for Irish kings. Often they fought against the English, over the centuries many settled and began dynasties of their own.
Scotland is also named after an Irish tribe who moved from the north of Ireland en-masse in the 5/6 Century AD. The Scoti settled the west of Scotland, before they finally united with the Picts through inter-marriage. The name of the country suggests who were in the driving seat.
Anyway boys. Galloway was gaelic speaking, Ayrshire British(Welsh) speaking(until the spread of Scots took over), and the isles were gaelic speaking. This was the population base that supplied the planter population in the North of Ireland, and ultimately went onto settle the new world. We know that the island population had a smallish mixing of viking blood, but then again so did areas of Ireland. The Angle settlement of south-east Scotland mixed in with the local ancient British(Celtic) population and never spread over to the west.
I guess what I am trying to say boys is that these Orange eejits are upholding the saxon standard against their own people. I am a product of this mixing and more. An Ulster-Scot g. grannie and g. granda a Donegal bogman. As well as other Scots and Irish bloodlines. This is a very interesting link, there are others available;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_01.shtml
BTW. the reason that the pop. of Scotland may have risen is the influx of many good Polish people. They will add a bit of flavour to Jock Tampson's bairns.
Interesting points, Tony. I remember reading studies by a Professor Oppenheimer and a Professor Jones indicating that the Welsh, Scots Gaelic, and Irish were closely genetically linked. The research of Professor Jones supported that the Welsh were the original Britons who suffered a holocaust at the hands of the Angles/Saxons/Jutes etc.
mh.
The Welsh national anthem cries out for their lost country(present day England) and this is a great historical reminder to a people, who are very pro-British. A sad indictment of many, who are so culturally English that the only link with Wales is the accent.
The blood of the Vikings programme, conducted genetic surveys to find just how much of an influence scandinavian DNA has in modern Britain and Ireland. I watched the show on TV and was fascinated. The results had the south coast of England as Celtic(ancient British) as Scotland, ie a mainly Celtic bloodline interspersed with Germanic and Scandinavian. They used base samples from Norway and Roscommon(I think)
It showed a roughly 50/50 viking/Celtic pop in the Shetlands and Orkney's upto 25% Viking in the western isles, but Wales and Ireland was very Celtic. I use Celtic for ancient British as an umbrella for the culture, as I am sure when Celtic peoples were moving over thousands of years there was inter-breeding with conquered tribes.
The surprising discoveries were(apart from south and S.W. England) that Iceland has an approx 40% Celtic bloodline, Cumbria is overwhelmingly Celtic with a Norwegian DNA(as opposed to the rest of England with Danish) and the north of Italy, Galicia and the Basque region in Spain share the ancient Celtic bloodlines.
As far as the invading Germanic tribes, it is now believed that they did less outright massacring of the pop the further west into present day England they went.
Tony, I believe you are referring to the shared R1b haplotype. It does seem that R1b is the indigenous haplotype for Western Europe.
Regarding the massacre by the invading Germanics, evidence is mixed as Professors Jones and Oppenheimer had different conclusions than the Professor whose research blood of the vikings was based upon (I think Goldstein). Judging by the presence of the R1b haplotype in Frisia and North Germany, it is likely that many of the invaders had it.
They could not differentiate b/w the Danish and Germanic(angles, jutes,saxons) groups from memory. So they lumped them all in together. Makes me wonder if the English will be tempted to re-brand themselves Anglo-Celtic?
I find the whole subject fascinating and would welcome any links.
Some interesting links I've come across:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3618613.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/1256894.stm
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=51752005
http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/regionalnews/content_objectid=13499034_method=full_siteid=50142_headline=-Are-we-the-progeny-of-stone-age-Siberians--name_page.html
Thanks for the links!
Thanks for the links mh.
I don't know about the Scotsman's story as that seems to contradict the more probable theories. That as groups sharing the same genes, they went in differing directions eg Siberia(east) us(west). As the seaways were the highways of yesteryear it would not surprise me if those from s.w. Euro coastal area had closer genetic links than those in the often inpenatrable inland forested regions.
I reckoned on groups carrying their culture with them and those around adopting this culture over time, just never thought that this was the occassion with the ancient British in adopting Celtic culture. Makes sense that the female line has differing gene links, they took their chances when they could or else bought wives/slaves. Iceland is the perfect example, the blood of the Vikings programme estimated an 80% male Scandinavian line 20% ancient British. The females are however 60% ancient Brit and only 40% Scandinavian. I guess they must have allowed their slaves to breed or possibly adopted warriors from young Celts?The Vikings ran vast slave markets in Ireland, using mainly Celts as currency.
The stories on Scotland being less Celtic, I can only wonder if they are using the Isles statistics disproportionally. The only evidence (unless the early picts were indeed from northern Europe, is that Germanic Angles settled in s.e. Scotland and mixed in without the massacres the saxons were carrying out further south.
Seems to me that there is ample work still to be done in this field, any volunteers?
No problem. Good points - the area is very unsettled.
Another interesting angle is that the Irish carry a significant amount of Nordic matrilinear dna (mtdna) and most indigenous western europeans also have some mediteranean mtdna. Could this suggest some type of empire coinciding with the advanced megalithic culture (which appears to correspond to areas of heavy R1b concentration). Highly speculative but interesting.
mh.
"Another interesting angle is that the Irish carry a significant amount of Nordic matrilinear dna (mtdna)"
The plot thickens. A possibility is that an indiginous(one of how many) people in Ireland pre-ancient British was nordic. War=women as prizes *shrugs* who knows?
I will certainly keep my eyes open for anything of interest.
BTW.
Didn't realise that Diarmid had a genetic link. Seems that I have been parroting some of this from memory, when he has lots of good stuff there. I'm just going through some of it.
Post a Comment
<< Home