Mr Jones – Are we not all agreed that if one’s partner accuses one of domineering habits, criticises one’s decisions, but still happily takes one’s money, and even threatens to leave, only to elicit more and more cash, then one should be quite happy, and not at all reluctant, to see the back of them?

Mrs Jones – Yes… yes my dear, the Westlothian question is a terribly taxing one indeed; perhaps we should discuss it at greater length later, maybe once our guests have left?

Are you perplexed by potical postulation? Desperate to keep up with the Joneses, but at a loss for what to say at the dinner table? Cherwell is here to help you perfect your chit-chat.

What:

After years of patriotic bravado, devolutionary teasing, and occasional weird allusions to that battle Braveheart fought in, the Scots may actually have to decide whether to stay in the UK. Motives for leaving include: oil wealth, hatred for Thatcherite English politics, opposition to English spending cuts, and general contempt for the English themselves. A vote would basically hinge on how many barrels of oil the North Sea has left.

Who:

Alex Salmond is still trumpeting independence while delaying an actual referendum, because independence would leave him unable to blame the English for, well, everything, and because a no vote would leave his entire political career looking rather silly. David Cameron cannot ignore Scotland’s voters, but equally does not want to be the guy, who, when asked if Scotland could put an end to five hundred years of political and economic unity, said ‘umm, yeah, I guess so’.

Soundbites to wow with:

‘Scotland has at best a decade before the oil dries up, and then what? The SNP’s post-independence plans amount to taxing and spending their way to a national revival that has apparently been just around the corner for about a century.’

‘Salmond’s weak point may be his commitment to taking Scotland into the EU, which, if Sarkozy and Merkel have their way, may prove to be a far more intrusive master than England ever was.’

Don’t say:

‘Did you know that Scots make up 10% of the UK’s population by number, but 15% by weight?’

The sustained and brutal repression of civil unrest in Syria has led to over 5,000 deaths in nine months, according to a recent UN report. Less than a year ago, similar scenes in Libya triggered the International Community’s decision to launch military operations in order to fulfil its “responsibility to protect” (R2P), a norm adopted by the UN in 2005 to prevent mass atrocities. Many are now calling for the same Western-backed military response to the Syrian crisis, but this article will argue that these calls must be resisted.

The socio-geographic conditions in Syria make an intervention extremely complex and a swift victory unlikely. The Libyan population was largely concentrated along a single highway linking Benghazi and Tripoli, making it possible to conduct a successful intervention using only air strikes.

The Syrian population, however, is spread more evenly across its landmass and a land invasion would be necessary to seize control of the country. Furthermore, unlike Egypt and Tunisia, the Syrian military is inextricably linked with the ruling Assad regime and will fight hard for its survival. An intervention would involve considerable loss of life and a commitment more similar to that involved in the Iraq war than the NATO operation in Libya. An invading alliance would be burdened not only with toppling a strong regime, but with nation-building too in one of the Arab world’s most socially complex states. History warns us that our results in such engagements have been mixed.

History also warns us of the importance of local support for intervention which, in the case of Syria, is questionable. Syrians have been angered by recent Western wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as American support for the Israeli persecution of their Palestinian neighbours. A Western led operation could galvanize large swathes of the population to support the existing regime and feed into the government rhetoric of a foreign-led insurgency.

Moreover, the destabilizing effects of an invasion in the short term could well be severe, with possible attacks on Israeli and Western interests through terrorist proxies as well as threats from an ever more muscular Iranian government. Invading a nation as geopolitically important as Syria involves great risks and too many unknowns.

Though the costs of non-intervention remain painfully high, it is important the West avoid sending in troops, lest they prolong the crisis and jeopardize attempts to secure real, long lasting democratic government in the future. The West is better off being accused of inconsistency than fighting a war that can’t be won.

How does China view its increasing power in the world?

There are, of course, different perspectives on this in China. Chinese material power has been growing steadily over the last thirty years with particular advances after 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization, and again after 2008 and the global financial crisis, which damaged China far less than most other countries. Thus, its relative power has grown quite significantly. For some Chinese, this suggests that the country deserves a larger voice in world affairs, and that its economic model has much to teach other countries. Other Chinese, however, realise that the country’s domestic development challenges remain huge and this makes them reluctant to consider taking on greater global responsibilities commensurate with its status as the second largest economy in the world.

How important is the economic relationship between China and the United States?

These two countries are economically very interdependent and the global economic crisis has brought this home to both countries. As of June 2011, China held nearly $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, largely in US denominated assets. It certainly does not want those assets to decline in value. The US remains a major market for Chinese goods and Chinese leaders worry about the capacity of America to continue as the second major recipient (after the EU) of its exports. For America’s part, China has been the fastest growing major export market over the past 15 years or so. The economic crisis has had less of an impact on the Chinese economy; thus the value of that market to US firms is even more significant. One other pertinent point is the sense that some US officials have of a shift in the global power hierarchy in China’s favour. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reported to have remarked to the Australian Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, in December 2010, “How do you deal toughly with your banker?”

What was China’s reaction to Obama’s announcement that the US defence strategy will now focus on the Pacific region?

Although the US government has tried to reassure the Chinese leadership they are interested in cooperation and engagement with Beijing, this defence move has been viewed negatively in China and is seen mainly as directed at it. Strategic mutual distrust is high in this relationship and this is unlikely to diminish as a result of changes in the US defence strategy. At a minimum the two countries need to think of ways of increasing levels of trust and diminishing the sense of rivalry, for example by strengthening their military-to-military ties.

What is the future of US-China relations?

Factors which help to stabilise this important relationship are the economic factors discussed earlier, the fact that the costs of military conflict between them would be extremely high (both are nuclear-armed states,) and that they do hold interests in common (e.g. stability on the Korean peninsula and in China-Taiwan relations). The relationship has also been institutionalised; there are now about 65 bilateral dialogue mechanisms between them and these are helping to build personal relationships and maybe even to manage tensions. Nevertheless, this relationship is going to be difficult and competitive in the years ahead. The US seems reluctant to accommodate itself entirely to a stronger and more prosperous China. China has a hard task before it in reassuring its neighbours that its rise will remain peaceful and in the absence of that reassurance China’s neighbours will want to see the US stay a major player in the Asia-Pacific region.

Before the United Kingdom is split up into a series of tribal regions based on Somalia’s highly successful socio-political model, I think it first necessary to say that I for one quite like being British. I therefore feel insulted by Alex Salmond’s recent outbursts undermining centuries of peaceful union.

Salmond’s comments in the late 1990’s, describing Westminster as bloated and outdated (he was thinner then) and the British Parliament in terms more befitting of the Kremlin than an institution that has guaranteed her subjects democratic rule for more than three hundred years, are also incredibly hypocritical. The Scottish National Party, a party so ready to embrace the EU and the adoption of the single currency, is quite happy to undermine its own socialist principles in the name of an essentially tribalistic instinct to divide and conquer with its own countrymen a few hundred miles south on the very same island.

In the most recent calls for Scottish Devolution, the debate has been underpinned by dreary economic facts and petty accusations of racism. Like a fallen aristocratic family arguing over daddy’s will, Edinburgh portrays cousin Westminster as the evil stepsister denying the Scottish their right to a share of the inheritance, or conversely England paints Edinburgh as the illegitimate offspring of a sordid affair pillaging the family treasure. All too often the values of unity, equality and pacifism that the Union imbues are overlooked.

Travelling on the Edinburgh Metro recently, I bore witness to just such an example of those values, when I espied an Edwardian sign announcing that Edinburgh was in “North Britain”. Amongst the modern day street junk, the elegant porcelain sign was like a relic from a fallen civilisation. I felt embarrassed, that an empire – irrespective of people’s opinions on British colonialism – could unite such a varied people, to the point where they would forgo their own traditional names in order to embrace a common sense of identity.

Perhaps, like many a great civilisation, we are a victim of our own success. A loss of interest in the Union is symptomatic of modern society. A common sense of purpose and worth appears oppressive and anachronistic in an age where the individualistic drive to express oneself is seen as paramount within our shared system of values and ideals.

And so before the SNP announces a “Cultural Revolution”, when the venom of English literature will be thrown into communal burning pits from Dumfries to the Shetlands, supporters of Scottish independence would do well to remember Macbeth. Driven by paranoia and popularity at the polls, Mr Salmond ignores the economic stagnation and high unemployment Scotland faces and instead wraps himself in a tartan veil of nationalism. If Mr Cameron were to do the same (with a tweed veil, not tartan), it would have many Scottish nationalists marching to Hadrian’s Wall with bows and arrows.

Which brings us to the great enigma: the United States of America. How can a country, infinitely more varied both geographically and socially than Britain, unite itself under a common libertarian ideology almost identical to Britain’s with barely the slightest hint of dissent from its provinces? America, being the birthplace of consumerism, dispels the idea that rugged individualism is the root of resurgent Scottish nationalism. The issue is a particularly British one, and one with which the oh-so-crass Americans have no problem: over-politeness. Traditionally cautious, and ever wary of causing offence, British politics would rather sidestep an issue as volatile as Scotland ceding from the Union, than engage in a debate with ugly words like “racism” and “colonialism”.

Perhaps, as many will argue, we should celebrate a people’s right to succession, as is the case in Sudan or Egypt. But to compare Britain with wartorn countries divided by irreparable ethnic or religious tensions is frankly ridiculous. The three hundred year Union has enjoyed both economic and social success on an island whose people are inextricably linked culturally and genetically. Scientifically, the native populations of the British Isles are almost genetically identical, with mixed ancestries from the Viking, Celtic, Norman and Roman gene pools prevalent throughout the Kingdom.

To plead victimhood at the hands of a particular faction, as parties often do, is therefore unjustified. The very principles of the British parliament, as well as the fact the British peoples are so culturally intertwined, have ensured that the persecution of the Welsh, Scottish or Irish minority has never taken place. It is this unique celebration of our differences, married to a recognition of our common ground, that has galvanised the Kingdom for three centuries.

In a technological age where one can feel so socially isolated, we should celebrate being Scottish or English or Cornish, but at the same time acknowledge our shared Britishness. As Cecil Rhodes’s famous simile declares, being born English is like “winning first prize in the lottery of life”. Had he said British, he would have been just as right.

A smarmy 19 year old, the darling of the nation, taking the press and the internet by storm? Whatever next! Now yours truly loves sticking two fingers up to the establishment as much as the next misanthropic penpusher, but when that criticism is both silly and self-important it really takes the biscuit.

Little Elly Nowell has those Oxbridge-bashers at the right-wing press rubbing their hands with glee (who, according to Nowell, never ridicule the rahs). Yes, the letter she sent to Magdalen “rejecting” them was mildly amusing for the blink of an eyelid, but the oh-look-how-clever-I-am attitude was not.

Criticising the “grand, formal settings” of her interview? I personally love creaming over Oxford’s architectural awesomeness, but if spires aren’t your thing there is plenty of concrete over at Catz. And it isn’t a huge stretch to picture medics and the like on their way to interviews at UCL, the lucky university that ticks Nowell’s boxes, quaking in their boots when faced with the neoclassical pile.

Nowell told the BBC, “I spent my entire time there laughing at how seriously everything was being taken.’ Well yes, some people care about their future, and it isn’t so surprising that the academics are serious about wanting to teach people who actually care as well.

I’m normally all for poking fun at ourselves, but Nowell has unfortunately hit us right where it hurts – the (not unwarranted) stereotype of exclusivity and elitism that Oxbridge just can’t seem to shake. The access team have enough of a mountain to climb without constantly having to fend off an army of popular opinion. It’s a shame that the tirade of hurrahs from those who agree with Nowell is pretty much drowning out the hard fact that six out of seven students that Magdalen accepted for law, the course Nowell applied for, are actually from state schools.

For once, I admit, the cynical side of me is overwhelmed by a touch of self-righteous pride. Nowell doesn’t deserve our dreaming spires. And there are plenty of state school students out there being put off by her parroted Oxbridge stereotypes that do.