No, Wales, England and Scotland are seperate countries. Northern Ireland is the Province. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a political state. Just because an Act of the English parliament says they are unified does not mean it is accepted by everyone, might just explain why we have seperate flags and international teams for footie, rugby and other sports. Nothing is sweeter than when Wales or any other country beats England.

And if you ever wondered where the great in Great Britain comes from, it is a geographic term as the lesser Britain is now Brittany in France. The Bretons (Britons) Cornish and Welsh were originally one group of people sharing the same tongue, early Welsh or Brythonic. The English had a seperate germanic language. That is why apart about 20% of the population in Wales speaks Welsh, you will also find Scottish Gaelic spoken in NW Scotland although Southern Scotland also spoke Early Welsh or Brythonic.

But I agree with you that the energy producering areas in the UK are all the poorer areas.

An article on the bbc today predicts a gloomy future for Scotland.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7681963.stm

But fear not our politicians will spend like there is no tomorrow, especially since our prime minister gordon clown's seat is in Scotland:-)
Two Scottish headquartered banks have been failedout, RBS and HBOS.

"Couldn't have the stations down south where all the "wealth producers" live." Come on, you're giving the impression that all the nukes were put in Scotland to keep them away from the south. From memory there are two; Torness & Hunterston - the remainder are further south and outside Scotland. I suppose if none had been built you'd argue that Scotland had been deprived of nuclear energy:-)

Edinburgh also has (had??) a fine financial centre and until recently Royal Bank of Scotland was tenth largest in the world. Of course having gone belly-up was also the fault of the southerners:-)