The Scots had it coming to them

It always amuses me when people write about "the Scots" as if we were all the same, particularly when it is in negative terms like this.

Well Johnny Boy you know where you can stick your 'pearl' of Britishness.

If you're from Fife, you're a Scot yersel! So your self loathing which has obviously made you prefer to identify your interests with England is a psychological problem which no doubt might improve with treatment.

JOE

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5cfc8922-0de3-11db-a385-0000779e2340.html

The Scots had it coming to them
By John Lloyd

The Scots have put a large mark on the world - a judgment made readily bythemselves, but also by others. It is evident, in part, by its absence: Scots Diaspora in the Anglosphere do not normally identify themselves with ahyphen, as Scots-Americans.

The inference is that they were there from thebeginning, creating cultures, polities and institutions. Abroad and in the past, a glory. At home and at present, less glorious.

Malaise has been the common trope through which Scotland is today understood- even after, in the late 1990s, sustained pressure had produced a devolved parliament. That establishment, the continuing favouring of Scotland in UK public spending per head, [yawn! The lessons of Goebbels again, keep lying until they believe it - JOE], the ability of Scots MPs to vote on English matters but not the reverse ['The English' have never worried about this before, no doubt that's because they've got 90% of the population of the UK - JOE]and a gradual realisation south of the borderthat the Scots could still be aggressively Anglophobic [aw diddums we wouldn't supinely support your fitba team, NEWSFLASH! no other countries like it either! JOE] have given a newly perky opposition Conservative party something to exploit.

[In other words the Brits have decided that Cameron is next up after the fake socialist Tony Blair to continue to promote Toryism in the UK - JOE]

It proposes to bar Scots MPs from voting on English issues, a line that points up the inequity of the relationship, for the English. [Unfortunately many English bills do affect Scotland].

That line has much to do with the presumed next prime minister - Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, son of a Scots Presbyterian minister. If the Conservatives can succeed in depriving him of part of his British mandate, they will have struck a blow before he takes office. He has sought to protect himself with a battery of speeches on the greatness and goodness of the Union: his problem is that Scots politics has been, for atleast two decades, dominated by an ideology which sees in England/Britishness a source of Scotland's miseries.

[with good reason - JOE]

Where he sought to reinvent Britishness, the most ardent spirits among his countrymen seek to ensure there is no such reinvention. Few prominent Scots are prepared to stand up for the Union and forBritishness - leaving Mr Brown so isolated on the issue as to be easily made a figure of opportunism or ridicule.

[Which is all he deserves, he's a traitor! In footballing terms at least - JOE]

Few prominent Scots now see in theUnion, or in Britishness, a suitable cause for renovation: the nationalism-lite argument is now received, and largely unexamined, wisdom.

Thus when the English react with irritation, or when the Conservatives seek to capitalise on that, it is not (as it is often portrayed) mere St George'scross flag-waving. Britishness had, in the past, been formed around Protestantism, [it still institutionally discriminates against Catholics- JOE] common threats and empire: but what remained, as these loyalties receded, was a structure that had to cope with national diversityin one state - a good preparation for a world in which such national and ethnic diversity proliferates.

Britishness, it turned out, was a precious discovery both for defusing old hatreds (except the Irish hatred) and forgiving new arrivals the possibility of a loyalty that was non-ethnic.

[What utter trash - Britishness equals an imperial nationalism which is dependent on superiority to other nations and cultures. Civic led Scottish nationalism is far superior both intellectually and emotionaly for our post imperial role. All we want in Scotland is normal powers, England/Britain still thinks it's a 'world power' and acts accordingly JOE]

The Scots, in short, have something in themselves to blame. That is, that they too easily undervalued, or even threw away, a pearl - Britishness -worth more than tribal bonding.

[We won't miss it. Or the imperial attitudes from certain papers over recent weeks. Keep yer beads and baubles, the only King I respect is Elvis! JOE ]

The writer comes from Fife [but rarely thinks about it, no doubt- JOE]