"If the Scottish parliament votes to have an independence referendum, that's a vote that we would have to respect and we would have to allow that and enable that to happen." —British Prime Minister David Cameron, June, 2011.

Scotland may leave the United Kingdom. This stark truth has escaped the notice not just of the international community, but of most British people too. They don’t really yet believe that our country could once again be split just north of the wonderfully named border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Life north of that border has always been different, with a separate legal system, currency, and, of course, wedding outfits, [...]

Chancellor George Osborne, once he found out that PM David Cameron left Tuscany just a few days after North London was overtaken by riots, "immediately" left California to go back and watch London and Manchester burn. (And observe its Diesel stores get their windows broken.) When will anyone ever get a long foreign holiday??? Not as long as angry jobless yobbos exist.

In other news, Angela Merkel is in the Alps, Nicolas Sarkozy is in the French Riviera, and Nick Clegg just got back from Spain and France. (This and many more photos here.)

IFC yanked it from YouTube last month, but it's back again on Vimeo: the pilot of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. (via)

UK POLICE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES IN THE AIR AGAINST BLINDING DEATH-LASERS!

"Elements of the case against his client, Mr Owen said, included her interest in Nato and a string of affairs with older men in positions of authority." —A fun-loving MP's aide may be deported from Knifecrime Island because her dalliances with older men have convinced folks she is a crafty Russian spy. (Matta Harlot?) And we think we have it bad with all those Mexicans!

One thing you don't want to do probably is go a-thieving in a total surveillance society. The Metropolitan Police have set up a Flickr account with pretty pictures of a few people who have apparently gone robbing in North London at some point before or after these images were captured. It's the modern version of the "WANTED" poster, but en masse. Of course, some people have taken to Tumblr to do this vigilante style. In less dramatic imagery of the day, people have apparently taken to the streets with brooms to tidy up. Awww! And more to be found here.

In other, totally unrelated [...]

Response and social desirability biases have actually made this BBC discussion poll interesting! It seems that if you start with the proposition that maybe homosexuals should be slaughtered, you'll get a lot of people saying, "Um, NO?" and also some people saying, "Well, not slaughtered, but…." In this way, we can find out what people actually do think of the gays.

New video footage emerges of Ian Tomlinson, a bystander who died of a heart attack shortly after being shoved to the ground by police at the G20 protests.

Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, "mindlessly," motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that's why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.

These young people have no sense of community because they haven't been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron's mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there's no such thing.

—The [...]