Quote of the day 17th September 2014
"In business, in media, in government service, and in the Army, Scots still prosper as part of a United Kingdom, with opportunities and skies far wider than those that will come from a fragmented patchwork of cold, damp and powerless nation-statelets.
"Where Brown, Blair and Cameron all have Scots blood and Scots names, another generation of Scots waits to take over the reins of power. While even the distant prospect of, say, Michael Gove as prime minister may not fill many Scots (myself among them) with delight, his career to date from an adopted working-class child from Aberdeen through Oxford to the top of the Cabinet is evidence of the sort of opportunities the Union affords ambitious Scots.
"The sound of Scottish accents on every other BBC broadcast – whether as presenters of Today, comics and actors – as well as editors of newspapers and chairmen of banks, is another token of how far we have boarded and taken over the vessel to which we attached ourselves in 1707.
"Less visible, but no less powerful, are those Scots who fill places as ambassadors to the UN, Washington and Paris, and who run the Foreign Office, Civil Service and the British Army. Leave Britain and our Army and Diplomatic Service will be level pegging with that of Luxembourg and Ireland for influence abroad. Even if we do make it into Europe – and that is not certain, given the sensitivities of the Spanish and Italians to national fragmentation – we can forget having any sort of special relationship with the White House or a place on the Security Council.
"And this seems to be the crux. We Scots are far from an oppressed minority. In domestic matters we already run ourselves, and since devolution has given us control on almost all domestic issues, it is only on our place in the world that this vote will have any tangible effect.
"While I am proud of some of the moral stands made by the Scottish Parliament – such as giving asylum to Palestinians from Gaza, and the opposition the Scots Nationalists made to Tony Blair’s wrongheaded invasion of Iraq – we can continue to make those important moral stands in the Scottish Parliament while also influencing the real world from No 10 Downing Street.
"Independence probably won’t be a catastrophe. We are a talented nation. Scots remain as ambitious and highly educated as ever. Emotionally I fully understand the excitement that the prospect of independence brings, and if it does come I will proudly apply for my Scottish passport.
"Nevertheless, if the drumbeat of freedom excites my heart, my head remains extremely wary. Pragmatism has always been an excellent Scottish quality and it seems to me that independence will be both a massive and unnecessary gamble, socially and politically divisive, and something that will limit rather than enhance the opportunities open to my children and grandchildren.
"After centuries of Anglo-Scottish warfare, which led to many more Floddens than Bannockburns, the success of a united Great Britain was no small achievement for the Scots. It made us richer, and it made us bigger. For the first time in our history we played a major role in the world.
"I strongly fear that the siren song of independence, attractive and alluring as it is, will lead less to any new and tangible freedoms and instead will turn us inward, indulging in narcissistic nationalism – for such is the pride of small nations everywhere: a Small Scotland attached physically, but no longer politically, to a diminished Little Britain. That would be a great and wholly unnecessary tragedy. After all, we’ve run the English very efficiently for 300 years. I see no good reason to stop now."
(William Dalryumple, whose nine-greats grandfather Sir Hew Dalrymple was one of the Commissioners who negotiated and signed the original Act of Union three hundred years ago, writing in the Telegraph on why he believes it is still in Scotland's interests today.)
You can read the whole article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11092392/Do-the-Scots-really-want-to-stop-running-Britain.html.
I quote this in the full knowledge that the jokes Dalrymple makes about Scots running England contain enough truth that they will infuriate some English nationalists. As someone who by ancestry is part English and part Scot, proud of both, regularly visits many parts of the British isles including Scotland and thinks of myself as British, I think we need to get back to the situation where we can joke and talk honestly about the contributions all parts of the UK have made to the union and work to give all four countries more autonomy - preferably in ways which do not involve more layers of politicians.
"Where Brown, Blair and Cameron all have Scots blood and Scots names, another generation of Scots waits to take over the reins of power. While even the distant prospect of, say, Michael Gove as prime minister may not fill many Scots (myself among them) with delight, his career to date from an adopted working-class child from Aberdeen through Oxford to the top of the Cabinet is evidence of the sort of opportunities the Union affords ambitious Scots.
"The sound of Scottish accents on every other BBC broadcast – whether as presenters of Today, comics and actors – as well as editors of newspapers and chairmen of banks, is another token of how far we have boarded and taken over the vessel to which we attached ourselves in 1707.
"Less visible, but no less powerful, are those Scots who fill places as ambassadors to the UN, Washington and Paris, and who run the Foreign Office, Civil Service and the British Army. Leave Britain and our Army and Diplomatic Service will be level pegging with that of Luxembourg and Ireland for influence abroad. Even if we do make it into Europe – and that is not certain, given the sensitivities of the Spanish and Italians to national fragmentation – we can forget having any sort of special relationship with the White House or a place on the Security Council.
"And this seems to be the crux. We Scots are far from an oppressed minority. In domestic matters we already run ourselves, and since devolution has given us control on almost all domestic issues, it is only on our place in the world that this vote will have any tangible effect.
"While I am proud of some of the moral stands made by the Scottish Parliament – such as giving asylum to Palestinians from Gaza, and the opposition the Scots Nationalists made to Tony Blair’s wrongheaded invasion of Iraq – we can continue to make those important moral stands in the Scottish Parliament while also influencing the real world from No 10 Downing Street.
"Independence probably won’t be a catastrophe. We are a talented nation. Scots remain as ambitious and highly educated as ever. Emotionally I fully understand the excitement that the prospect of independence brings, and if it does come I will proudly apply for my Scottish passport.
"Nevertheless, if the drumbeat of freedom excites my heart, my head remains extremely wary. Pragmatism has always been an excellent Scottish quality and it seems to me that independence will be both a massive and unnecessary gamble, socially and politically divisive, and something that will limit rather than enhance the opportunities open to my children and grandchildren.
"After centuries of Anglo-Scottish warfare, which led to many more Floddens than Bannockburns, the success of a united Great Britain was no small achievement for the Scots. It made us richer, and it made us bigger. For the first time in our history we played a major role in the world.
"I strongly fear that the siren song of independence, attractive and alluring as it is, will lead less to any new and tangible freedoms and instead will turn us inward, indulging in narcissistic nationalism – for such is the pride of small nations everywhere: a Small Scotland attached physically, but no longer politically, to a diminished Little Britain. That would be a great and wholly unnecessary tragedy. After all, we’ve run the English very efficiently for 300 years. I see no good reason to stop now."
(William Dalryumple, whose nine-greats grandfather Sir Hew Dalrymple was one of the Commissioners who negotiated and signed the original Act of Union three hundred years ago, writing in the Telegraph on why he believes it is still in Scotland's interests today.)
You can read the whole article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11092392/Do-the-Scots-really-want-to-stop-running-Britain.html.
I quote this in the full knowledge that the jokes Dalrymple makes about Scots running England contain enough truth that they will infuriate some English nationalists. As someone who by ancestry is part English and part Scot, proud of both, regularly visits many parts of the British isles including Scotland and thinks of myself as British, I think we need to get back to the situation where we can joke and talk honestly about the contributions all parts of the UK have made to the union and work to give all four countries more autonomy - preferably in ways which do not involve more layers of politicians.
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