Chris

To be fair, it is not always obvious to people in England when a UK Gov service is only actually available in England. The UK is a unitary state, not a federation, and sovereignty is devolved from the centre by HMG, not pooled to the centre by otherwise autonomous states. The UK government governs for England, it doesn't adopt a separate identity or branding in order to do so. The web page itself does say towards the bottom that it is an England-only service. In this case it's because it is being managed by the NHS, which is devolved in Wales, Scotland and NI.

I have to be honest I think there's a big political upside to the current crisis, in Scotland at least - it has forced the SNP to actually govern rather than using state resources to carry on a perpetual referendum campaign, it has forced Nicola Sturgeon to actually agree with a Tory when the Tory says something right, rather than looking for points of differentiation and grievance, and more's the point it has forced a lot of people to confront the hard truth that an independent Scottish state would simply not have the firepower to deal with this on its own in so comprehensive a way as the UK is doing. And that right about now there's a real risk the border might be getting shut at Gretna and Berwick, with all the horrible symbolism that would entail.

And, when the dust settles, the UK national debt is going to be so astronomically high, and north sea oil revenue so pitifully low, that the economic case for independence (which was always a bit shaky) will be seen for the smoke and mirrors that it is. Scotland could simply never shoulder its fair share of the national debt, and only the most swivel-eyed nationalist loons could ever claim that debt was run up on projects Scotland never 'consented' to.