Tuesday
Subjugation of a cultural minority by a much bigger population is politically pretty stable. It can last hundreds of years. Subjugation and exploitation of the many by the few for any length of time needs structural legitimation or overwhelming power.
FW de Klerk inherited the Afrikaner hegemony but he recognised it had run out of road. Will Gordon Brown think again when Scotch Tony hands over the mob? Or is he another Botha?
I like Scotland and many Scottish things. One of the highlights of January is that it is easier to get haggis in London shops. I would shed a tear waving off that good liberal Sir Malcolm Rifkind at King's Cross, if we had to exile all Scottish politicians for English national security. The Scots Nationalists are an ornament of the UK parliament: they have distinctive views clearly and openly expressed, rather than mouthing mush for the benefit of focus groups. But I am damned if the bullying puritan clique in Downing Street shall continue to buy votes north of the border with money plundered from the English.
An additional English Parliament (the BBC to the contrary) is not what we need. Overweening government is not ameliorated by more government. There is already too much government - both in Scotland and in England.
I have my principles, but I am a pragmatic voter. Never mind UKIP, if Alex Salmond wants to stand a candidate in Holborn & St Pancras, this libertarian Tory would be sore tempted. I do not know her politics, but I am sure our local Glaswegian Sharlene Spiteri would romp home on an SNP ticket.
You see Mr Brown, we English actually love Scots. Some of them we worship. It is you we do not like.
I strongly suspect that Sharlene would score far more votes in Holborn St. Pancras than she would in Hillhead or Shettleston.
Posted by lupin at January 16, 2007 10:30 AM
Indeed, which is perhaps why Regent's Park was not troubled by gorgeous George at the last election.
However, that theory of is a little undermined by Roy Jenkins, who I'm fairly sure did not swap claret for malt liquor in 1982.
Posted by guy herbert at January 16, 2007 01:14 PM
My comment was merely concerning my perception of Ms Spiteri's unpopularity in Glasgow, for being in a shit pop band and 'developing' a much deeper Glasgow accent in London than she had before she left.
Whether or not people wanted to vote for Slimebag George or Roy Jenkins has little bearing on that.
Posted by lupin at January 16, 2007 01:34 PM
The SNP did stand a candidate in London , once upon a time.
Posted by Anseis at January 16, 2007 01:36 PM
From somewhere about 1800 to, say, about the end of WWI, Scotland was more thoroughly industrialised than England and therefore was probably subsidising England. It probably did so again when North Sea oil and gas were generating huge taxes. Swings and roundabouts, economically: what's utterly objectionable is the "democratic deficit" whereby MPs for Scots seats pass English Laws. Only Blair...
Posted by dearieme at January 16, 2007 04:16 PM
Well, according to SNP figures, Scotland passes a significant surplus now to the rest of the UK - excluding London.
But per capita public expenditure is higher there, and public employment massively so. Individuals are more taxed here, and more susidised there. The difference is oil.
I don't envy an independent Scotland being an oil economy, what with the rent-seeking poisoning of the body politic that brings. But the English who do want independence for their own good, not out of altruistic concern for the Scots.
Posted by guy herbert at January 16, 2007 05:27 PM
Poor Gordon Brown.
He inherits a Tory England (Tory, admittedly, by the skin of its teeth) and will acquire, quite probably, an SNP-led Scotland.
I wonder what odds the bookies will offer on the man come general election time...?
Posted by Julius Seizer at January 16, 2007 05:27 PM
Not so much poor Gordon Brown but rather poor bl**dy Scotland. Just as the North Sea reserves are hurriedly being recalculated for the slow downward spiral in oil and gas production levels, the nationalists are demanding full independence thinking they still have ownership of a major unlimited natural resource ...
Posted by Julian Taylor at January 16, 2007 06:22 PM
There's still plenty of Oil and Gas in the North Sea.
Unfortunately it's all in the Norwegian sector...
Posted by The Dude at January 16, 2007 11:23 PM
Simon Heffer argues in today's "Daily Telegrah" that is is time for an independent Scotland - which would, of course, mean that England and Wales were also independent of Scotland. Peace and free trade yes - but no poltical union (although the Queen might be Head of State of the new independent Scotland - after all the lady is Queen of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other nations not ruled by Westminster).
Perhaps Mr Heffer is correct - although it would be sad to bid farewell to three hundred years of Union. Certainly if the Scots wish to be independent we should wish them well.
However, I am puzzled by the Scottish Nationalist Party policy of "independence in Europe" by which they mean rule by the European Union.
The German government recently admitted that about 80% of their new regulations were inspired by efforts to comply with Euro directivies - so clearly membership of the E.U. means rule by it (there can be no "in the E.U. but not run by it")
Brussels is not a Scottish city (and the Scottish population makes far up FAR less of a proportion of the population of the E.U. than it does of the population of the United Kingdom) so rule from Brussels can not be "Scottish independence".
Posted by Paul Marks at January 17, 2007 08:37 PM
There was no question of "Scotland subsidizing England" before the First World War - as massive income distribution (to "depressed regions" and so on) did not exist back then.
In any case (before the First World War) industry in England and Wales was doing O.K. and even farming was much better off than it had been back in the 1870's, 1880's and 1890's (nor was farming subsidized before the First World War).
As for "Scotland's oil" the oil belongs to the oil companies who found it (there being, sadly, no private owners of the sea floor). If one must say that the oil belongs to a geographical area I am sure that the Shetland islands would soon declare independence from Scotland - after all, what has the oil got to do with Glasgow?
Posted by Paul Marks at January 18, 2007 02:31 PM
