Just a small correction, the word is spelt [is(a)ltire[/i and the Scottish one is the oldest continuously used sovereign flag in the world (I'm sure you knew that anyway).

As far as I'm concerned it's the Union Flag, but becomes a Union Jack when flown on a ship.

There is actually no reason why the Union Flag should be changed as the Queen will remain Queen of England, Wales, N.I. and Scotland. The original flag was originally designed at the Union of the Crowns, and had nothing to do with political union, which didn't happen until at least a century later. The flag wasn't changed when Scotland came in, so logically it needn't be changed if they go back out.

To add to the complications, there has never been an official flag of Northern Ireland,and the saltire of St Patrick (the diagonal red cross) - was introduced into the design in 1801 to represent the whole of Ireland. The difficulty is that it was not altered on the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. You could say as the Republic has never asked for it to be removed or changed, there's a precedent for the Scottish bit staying put.

If at some future point the Scots also opted out of the monarchy is the only time the issue would arise but they have no intention of doing that whoever wins so that's academic.

And there has never been a Flag Act so in fact the flag is as near as makes no difference unofficial. Nobody really has a clue who, if anyone, has any legal rights to it or to changing it. Although I would side with the College of Arms, which knows a bit about these things, and says that the flag is determined by the Crown, and was confirmed by an order of the Privy Council in 1800.

So it would again be basically up to Brenda. She's the closest thing there is to anyone having a formal say. And I can't imagine her wanting it changed.

Then you have the miniature Union Flag which forms part of the flags of several other countries - what would happen to those?

One final oddity - if they vote Yes but the Scottish saltire stays in, then the only union country whose flag would be truly included is England since
a) Scotland would be included but would have left the UK
b) NI doesn't have a flag, and the all-Ireland saltire isn't therefore them; and
c) there is no Welsh flag element at all in the design.

Whilst we are getting slightly trivial, here's a couple of sporting questions brought up by this independence vote...

...1. Will there be no more Golfing British Open's at St Andrew's and the other Scottish courses??..... Would seem a bit odd not playing at the home of Golf any more, but surely you couldn't have a 'British' Open in a foreign country?

2. Scottish sportsmen would not be able to compete at the 2016 Olympics. New countries have to apply for membership of the Olympic movement and most applications take upto 4 years.... Andy Murray would be grumpier than normal if he isn't allowed to defend his title?....

I think others have answered your points rather well. I hope you now get it.

Krugman has made it very clear the huge risks that Scotland will face if it becomes independent he says that either they will have combination of political independence with a shared currency which is a recipe for disaster - the recent history for countries like Spain in the Euro have proven that.

Or they will do a 'banana republic' and use the pound but without the backing of the BOE. This has the very real dangers that they will simply run out of money and require a bail out ....but as I said from whom? As Krugman said " Be afraid, be very afraid"

The argument that the 800,000 Scots living outside Scotland should allowed to vote was opposed by the Salmond led Scottish Government.

So it would appear that not only have you not listened to Salmond but you have not listened to Cameron either! No wonder you are confused.

Of the many items to be negotiated if Scotland votes for independence there will be the what happens to the Scottish assets of the Crown Estate (technically the UK government) which owns huge estates and half the coastline and seabed in Scotland. Another issue would be what the UK would charge to allow the use of the intellectual rights and software for all the government departments, NHS, tax, pensions etc

So Cameron is so useless he couldn't even win that debate with Salmond? And yet Scotland are supposed to be better off as a junior party in a union led by Cameron?

I've made it completely clear that my interest in politics is close to zero. This is virtually the first vote that I've even mustered any interest in whatsoever. My view is very simplistic - I would hope that an independent Scotland could govern itself better as a far more socialist country than England and show that a fairer country could work fundamentally better than the way the UK is run now.

IMO rather than operate a post-union UK by doing what is best for the UK and best for our newly independent neighbours, we will instead act all butthurt because the Scots have had the temerity of going it alone.

I still think that Scots born residents of England will still be accepted as UK citizens. It is not their fault if Scotland choose independence, it is mainly the fault of Cameron that he couldn't win them their right to vote. His failure should mean that he holds up his hands and accepts Scots born people as being part of the UK. As I said, the notion that these people will be stripped of the right to live and work in England if Scotland splits is just English based scare-mongering. It's not going to happen but it's just one of the very male arguments to try and get the Scots to vote no.

The gold reserves are assets and there probably is some spare cash held by the government. But the currency is really only an intangible asset rather like a brand. Sterling itself doesn't have any intrinsic value just sterling denominated assets. The real value is in the guarantees put up by the government and the B of E.

The national debt is about £1.3 trillion. The value of all of the financial assets wouldn't remotely approach that value. The gold reserves are valued at about £11b.

When Salmond says that he wont accept a share of the national debt its akin to Joe Public defaulting on his £150,000 mortgage and offering up the contents of his current account in exchange.

IMO it's more like Scotland living in a home but not being named on the mortgage. They assumed part of repaying the mortgage because they were living there. But now that a divorce is taking place the person named on the mortgage is being a penis over other issues so Scotland is saying that if they're acting like a penis over issues that they will be a penis over the mortage too.

I don't believe it is in the UKs interest for Scotland to have to go their own way with a new currency if they split. I think that is a way of trying to force the Scots to stay in the union.

Why should we do anything to aid Scotland if they vote to go it alone??..... They will be no more worthy of any help than any other foreign country.

We should actually do what is best for what is left of the Union, and if that involves leaving Scotland in the mire, then that's how it should be - Let's face it, they've had plenty of help over the last few years, with free prescriptions and free university education (You can't tell me they have achieved that by Salmond's wonderful abilities to run a budget). It will be interesting to see how Scotland maintain those sorts of policies without first increasing the tax burden on ordinary working Scots.

Thinking about it I can fully understand why an awful lot of Scottish folk want out of the U.K. We are a nation being shat upon from a great height by the politicians, banksters and spivs who run our country. The City of London is a cesspit of global financial fraud and a casino where these financial warlords gamble other people’s pensions and savings, awarding themselves huge bonuses when they win but when they lose passing on the losses to the taxpayer. Then their political cronies use these bailouts as an excuse to force austerity upon the masses and slash the Government spending on the poor and needy. The press as defenders of their corporate masters are always there to defend this bull***, finding convenient scapegoats for us to vent our anger upon. The financial complexities of a flawed, utterly corrupt and fraudulent global financial system are hard to understand but we can see its consequences all around, pay freezes, job insecurity, inflation (or ‘stealth-flation’ where the price doesn’t increase but the product is stealthily reduced in size and weight). Then as icing on the cake we find out that The Establishment are not only greedy self serving barstewards but also include many paedophiles whose crimes have been covered up to protect the status quo. If you were actually given an opportunity to break away from this kind of bull**** and the chance to try and build something better wouldn't you jump at the chance?