10 things London can shove up its a%se

A good humoured response to the UK gov.'s press release on the 12 things Scots could buy with their £1400 UK Dividend.

It's hard being a Londoner. You pay £2000 more in tax than you get back in public services and the rest of us live it up on your money! Even worse, us lazy backwards Brits aren't even grateful! You look after us and how do we repay you? We ask for devolution and independence, and we don't even come to London to do it! I'm not surprised that you're OUTRAGED!

Well here's a suggestion for you. F$%k off! We don't appreciate you, so teach us a lesson by leaving. To help you along I've made a list of ten things you can afford to buy lots of once you leave the UK.

1. 91 Big Ben lego sets.

What better way to remember the time when London was a capital city than by spending your winnings on a lego version of Big Ben! Meccano might be more intellectual but that was invented in Liverpool — a reasonable bet for the location of the UK's new Parliament — so lego will have to do. On the plus side, at just £23.99 you could buy two a week with your (leaving the) #UKdividend. An extra advantage is that with its streamlined shape you should be able to get it a fair distance up your own a%se.

2. 205 bottles of Lindisfarne mead.

Drink away your sorrows at losing the British library with a bottle of Lindisfarne Mead. We've wanted the Lindisfarne gospels back for centuries so we'll do a swap. At just £9.75 per streamlined bottle you could have a great party every weekend!

3. 222 Olympic Mascot toys.

With a London olympic mascot you can reminisce on the days when you held huge events in your city, gave the bill to the whole country, and then said we should be grateful because it was a "national event". Available at a heavy discount of £8.99 a piece, you could get one for all your friends!

4. 334 Routemaster bus Salt & Pepper sets.

Celebrate your heavily-subsidised, state-regulated public transport that you've banned from the rest of the UK with this delightful set. At just £5.99 you could nearly afford to buy one every day!

5. 18 Wembley Stadium construction sets.

Your football team will be awful — like they've always been — but at least you'll get to keep the nice stadium we all paid for. It was weird how we put that national stadium 180 miles South of Manchester and Liverpool where we actually win stuff, but I suppose it's too late to change our minds. At £111.99 it's a bit expensive for rip-off lego but that's life. Enjoy!

6. 40 England Rugby Union shirts.

Now that you've accepted that the North of England was right about professionalism, video referees, and international governance of the game, you look pretty silly for kicking us out of your Rugby Union. But we forgive you, and as a gesture of goodwill you can keep your Rugby Union side, we don't want it. So buy yourself an England top, a bargain at just £49.99, and cheer on the boys at twickers! I'll be supporting Wales at kick and clap.

7. 238 Royal Family Mask sets.

At just £8.39 for the set you could re-enact a pathetic version of V for Vendetta. As the scousers say, "you can stick your Royal Family up your ar%e".

8. 2 Arsenal season tickets.

At just £985 a piece for the cheapest season ticket, you'll have the chance to watch a team that's never won the Champions League. Since the Premier League would presumably move back to its natural home in Manchester — the city that's won the most of them — it might be a good reminder of a sport you've never realised that you're not very good at. Calling Highbury "The home of football" was always an obnoxious, arrogant, and self-deluded move.

9. 111 Rosetta Stone Jigsaws.

We'll take the British Museum thank you very much, but don't worry! With your (leaving the) #UKdividend you can buy a lovely jigsaw puzzle of the Rosetta Stone for just £18.00.

10. 54 London underground tube-train tents.

Honestly, who wouldn't want one of these? Most of the rest of the UK's cities don't have underground systems thanks to your selfishness so why not continue being selfish by buying up the full lot of these tents at just £37.20 each?

But seriously.

Obviously I'm joking. I don't want London to leave the UK, and I don't really want Scotland to leave either. But if I lived in Scotland I'd be voting Yes! because the United Kingdom as it is just isn't working. Too many of our national institutions think London is the only place that matters and that anyone who chooses to live anywhere else is uncultured and intolerant. Our governments seem to take that view too.

London is an amazing city, I liked living there, but in their own way so are Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and the rest. If the United Kingdom continues as a country where anyone outside of a single city competes for second place then I want no part of it. And anyway, Dublin's done fine away from London, Helsinki's done fine away from Stockholm, and Talinn's doing fine away from Moscow. If London won't change it relation with the UK, then parts of the UK will continue to try and change their relationship with London's Union.

Lastly, I'm sorry if you think is crude, poorly researched, or ruined by the ads. At least I have the excuse that I fight for a more equal Union in my spare time. The UK government in London pays civil servants in London handsomely to make infrographics patronising us — if they want to pay me to balance things out, they're welcome to send their cash up to Leeds.