Isn't another issue that a lot of the nice things the Scots have are funded by the English taxpayer, and the public sector is the biggest employer?
No. That's part of what is known as Forsyth's Faulty Figures, named after former Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth who claimed (falsely) that that majority of money that pays for Scotland comes from England. What he failed to point out that this was money raised by UK wide tax (including Scotland) and how that was being spent in Scotland, without raising the issue that the same is done for the rest of the UK. It's now just a myth believed by Kelvin Mackenzie and Daily Mail readers.
And the public sector is far from the biggest employer - I'd dearly love to know where you get that idea, The Daily Fail perhaps? The biggest in Scotland is the private sector, as it is in the rest of the UK.
Is it not the case that the average Scot receives more in government services than they pay in taxes, as do (say) the conservative areas of the United States? My understanding is that Scotland has a significantly higher poverty rate, unemployment rate and a much larger rural or remote population than England, all of which cost money.
I can't speculate on the poverty rate as that varies in accordance with need in different regions: There is a poverty in Scotland on a scale that would make Charles Dickens weep, but that can be seen in various areas of the UK as a whole. What it might be in Scotland is that there is a smaller population so it's more noticeable. The unemployment rate is higher in Scotland and the North of England than the rest of the UK, largely because these were the great industrial centres of the Empire and remained so in post-Imperial Britain. However, Thatcher had a deep loathing of these areas as she saw them as breeding grounds for socialism (without wondering why) and was determined to destroy them.
But, and this has to be said, there's a lot at fault within the Union. Britain's state of the Union is woeful and all too often (especially under the Conservatives) Scotland suffered badly. For example: When the Options for Change document to cut back the armed forces was brought in in the early '90s, many of the Scottish regiments were cut drastically or merged with other regiments. That may sound par for the course, but consider this: These regiments were so over-recruited at the time, they had to lend out whole companies to English regiments to make up the numbers. In other words, units that could turn recruits away were disbanded or merged, even though they had recruits to spare. Contrast this with the fact that there were English regiments who were left alone. Why? Because the places where the English regiments had recruited had returned Conservative MP's to Westminster, whereas the areas where the Scottish regiments had recruited had returned Labour, Lib-Dem and Nationalist MP's. Consider also the fate of Rosyth Dockyard: It was outfitted to service Nuclear submarines and was the largest employer in the Fife area. But the contract to refit Nuclear submarines went to a Navy yard in England instead, simply because that area had returned a Conservative MP and Rosyth a Labour one.
That is disgusting. It ought to be illegal.
It should be: In the case of the Scottish regiments, it used to be that each regiment would only have a 3 month recruiting window each year. Some regiments like the Argyll and Sutherland, the Black Watch (42nd Royal Highland Regiment), the Royal Scots (oldest regiment of the British Army) and the Gordons would only recruit if you had a family member who had served or was serving with them. They were in the enviable position to be able to turn away perfectly good recruits - these days, they're crying out for them. And they were merged or disbanded due to little else than pettiness. Is it any surprise I don't trust David Cameron?