Britain's splitting headache

NINE days ago, Scottish drawing rooms echoed with the glorious, phlegm-sodden sounds of Robert Burns poems, recited loudly and at length. Burns Night takes place every year on January 25, the presumed birthday of the adored Scottish poet. A haggis supper is optional, but recitation of Burns' most famous poem, the feisty Address to a Haggis, is not.

In it, he hails the "great chieftain of the pudding race", which is sneered at by the anglicised upper class but keeps the Scot strong: "The trembling earth resounds his tread."
Burns died in 1796, but his patriotic poem has more resonance than ever. Despite last year celebrating 300 years of its union with England, Scotland, along with parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, is restless.

The Scottish National Party, whose goal is Scottish independence, has won government for the first time ever, and there is talk of a referendum on the subject. Wales, which occupies a place in the English heart similar to that of Tasmania in Australia, also has its own independence movement. And despite a recent power-sharing agreement, the voices of nationalism in Northern Ireland are stronger than ever. Which leaves a very lonely England looking vulnerable as the last vestiges of its old empire are threatened.

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http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/britains-splitting-headache/2008/02/02/1201801099008.html