Random Poll of the Day! (694)

[mangaluva]

it's certainly true as a matter de jure status that they are literally described as "countries", it's just that that aren't really what people think of as countries in any meaningful sense. as callid noted, you can technically referring to germany as being made up of constituent countries, even though that certainly isn't the case in practice. with the uk, it's a similar situation you have "countries" by name, but not bodies that can actually exercise power over their territory- indeed, until recently, the UK was much less devolved than germany, though that has changed recently in some ways.

Actually, Scotland has a largely devolved parliament that is currently pushing for independence. About the only reason that England is fighting so hard against it is the North Sea Oil. Wales and Nor'n Ireland also both have parliaments in varying degrees of devolution. Scotland also has an entirely separate legal system, a separate NHS and separate education system.

Some things still have to go up to Westminster, but less and less so as time goes on.

[Stopwatch]

^What Manga said.
N.Ireland is prob'ly the most independent (for obvious reasons :x), followed by Scotland with Wales lagging a bit behind.
(The Scottish education system sometimes confuses me with the names for the years though :x)
One thing all the Brits have in common though is that we tend to have generally awesome accents, though the variation in them is massive *hides*

[mangaluva]

Well, Nor'n Ireland and RoIreland are separate countries from each other. Nor'n Ireland is in the United Kingdom, RoIreland isn't.

[Stopwatch]

[me=Stopwatch]headdesks[/me]
I thought I'd put the 'N.' in D: *edits*

[mangaluva]

The Scottish education system's simple. Seven years of primary school, six years of high school, free college and/or Uni. P1-P7, S1-S6, college/Uni. Simples!

[Stopwatch]

Exactly! That's why it's so confusing . Too used to complicatedness of Reception, Year 1 through to Year 11 with possible Year 12, 13 if you take Sixth Form and so on :x

[mangaluva]

...See, all of that sounds confusing and overcomplicated.

[Stopwatch]

It kinda is :x

[dilbertschalter]

it's certainly true as a matter de jure status that they are literally described as "countries", it's just that that aren't really what people think of as countries in any meaningful sense. as callid noted, you can technically referring to germany as being made up of constituent countries, even though that certainly isn't the case in practice. with the uk, it's a similar situation you have "countries" by name, but not bodies that can actually exercise power over their territory- indeed, until recently, the UK was much less devolved than germany, though that has changed recently in some ways.

Actually, Scotland has a largely devolved parliament that is currently pushing for independence. About the only reason that England is fighting so hard against it is the North Sea Oil. Wales and Nor'n Ireland also both have parliaments in varying degrees of devolution. Scotland also has an entirely separate legal system, a separate NHS and separate education system.

Some things still have to go up to Westminster, but less and less so as time goes on.

as i said, "until recently". regardless, being devolved is still worlds away from sovereignty, though the current state of affairs may well not be very lasting. and the north sea oil is of much greater significance to scotland than it is to the UK as a whole, as there's not much left and the economic impact on 5 million of it is quite a bit greater than on 60+ million.

[mangaluva]

I did point out that being a sovereign state is a different thing from being a country. Scotland, England, Wales, Nor'n Ireland and RoIreland are countries. The United Kingdom and RoIreland are sovereign states.

[Callid]

it's certainly true as a matter de jure status that they are literally described as "countries", it's just that that aren't really what people think of as countries in any meaningful sense. as callid noted, you can technically referring to germany as being made up of constituent countries, even though that certainly isn't the case in practice. with the uk, it's a similar situation you have "countries" by name, but not bodies that can actually exercise power over their territory- indeed, until recently, the UK was much less devolved than germany, though that has changed recently in some ways.

Actually, Scotland has a largely devolved parliament that is currently pushing for independence. About the only reason that England is fighting so hard against it is the North Sea Oil. Wales and Nor'n Ireland also both have parliaments in varying degrees of devolution. Scotland also has an entirely separate legal system, a separate NHS and separate education system.

Some things still have to go up to Westminster, but less and less so as time goes on.

Every German state has its own parliament (the Landtag), the school system is different between the states as well (quite a lot, in fact), and every single state also has its own constitution. Also, TV and radio are entirely up to the states, too.
Furthermore, there is a long, long list of issues the states can decide on independently as long as the federal government doesn't issue contradicting rulings (which, in some cases, it may do only if there's need for a standard).
Oh, and in Bavaria, we have the Bavaria party which is advocating the independence of Bavaria from Germany XD