I’d like to wish a Happy St Andrews Day to all my Scottish readers, friends and enemies.

To mark our neighbour’s special day, I will refrain from taking the piss out of Scotland or Scottish people for the duration.

Technorati Tags: Scotland, St Andrews Day

Our celtic friends have long memories.  Half of them couldn’t tell you what caused either of the world wars or who took part in the Boer or Crimean wars but they can give you a magnificent account of the Battle of Banockburn or the Battle of Culloden.  They’ll reel off a long list of everything that the English have done to Scotland in the past 800 years and vice versa.  They’ll give you a tearful rendition of Mel Gibson William Wallace’s “You’ll never take our freedooooooom” given half a chance.

It’s a dangerous position to be in – there is so much racial hatred ingrained in the Scottish psyche that some of them feel moved, by a work of fiction such as Braveheart, to carry out racist attacks.  Innocent English people who are attacked in the street for the hideous crime of wearing and England football shirt had it coming to them for rubbing salt into 500 year old wounds.

Of course, most Scottish people don’t feel the urge to beat up people or vandalise their houses for being English but there is a vocal minority that really do hate the English with a passion simply because of things that happened hundreds of years ago.

Don’t worry, there is a point to – stay with me.

The anti-English feeling north of the border has been passed down from generation to generation and the emphasis placed on Scottish history (the only history Scotland really has is of fighting with England) has helped to reinforce that anti-English sentiments that are almost part-and-parcel of everyday Scottish life.

I’m getting to the point now.  A Scottish-born millionaire who, like so many other Scottish “patriots”, loves Scotland so much he lives in Canada has paid for a “Clearances Centre” and a statue near the Strath of Kildonan.  The statue is to remember the Scots that suffered from the Highland Clearances when Lord Sutherland had families evicted from his estate.  The commonly accepted version of events holds that the Highlanders were treated appalingly – the full works, rape, pillaging, etc.  There is an alternative version of events that says that they weren’t as bad as all that but that it was used as a propaganda tool.  We’ll never know which version of events is true because it’s in the distant past but how often will this be mentioned in Scottish history lessons?

Even after hundreds of years the wounds are still raw north of the border and this statue – as with the statue of Mel Gibson pretending to be William Wallace – will only serve as a permanent reminder and a focal point for agression.  The Scottish/Canadian patriot wants 5 or 6 of these statues in places where Scots have settled in places like the US and Australia.  I’m half expecting a public apology from the Scottish Prime Minister on behalf of his English subjects for the treatment of Scotland.

No matter what your background is or your personal feelings, you have to ask what kind of a message this conveys.  It’s time to stop looking to the past and letting events of 300 or more years ago define your existence.  The statues are a bad idea, they’re negative and to be quite frank, they’re irrelevant.  It’s time Scotland put the past behind them and started looking to the future.

I tend not to post comments on Scottish nationalist blogs because they’re generally greeted by a torrent of racist abuse or wildly inaccurate paraphrased quotes from SNP propaganda.  However, I made an exception for Richard Thomson’s blog – Scots and Independent – because he seems to be fairly well adjusted for one of our celtic neighbours.  I don’t usally re-post my comments on my own blog but I thought this one was worth reproducing in reply to a claim that Scotland’s GDP is £111bn because of “oor oil”:

You’re making the mistake of assuming that when the division of wealth, resources and liabilities takes place prior to independence, Scotland keeps what has been so generously donated to it.

The maritime border between England and Scotland used to follow international convention which dictates that a maritime boundary is an extension of the land boundary. In the case of the Anglo-Scottish border, this meant that England’s territorial waters extended north east and north west. I believe it was in the 60s when the boundary was moved with the Continental Shelf Act (I could be mistaken on the name) to extend at a parallel conveniently placing most north sea oil and gas in Scottish waters. The English weren’t consulted on this mass transfer of resources.

Then there is the national debt. Pretty large and Scotland has had more out of the coffers than it’s put in for a long time.

You’re also assuming that as a terminally socialist country, Scotland doesn’t turn into an overburdened, border-line communist state and end up vying for bottom place with Albania.

The gravy train for Scotland started 300 years ago with the money England gave to make Scotland somewhere near solvent again after bankrupting itself trying to colonise Panama. Scotland has benefitted hugely from the English empire which was later expanded as a British empire. For the last few decades Scotland has been receiving subsidies worth billions thanks to the Barnett Formula. Until Scottish Labour took over, Scotland was in the periphery – over-represented at Westminster but always in the shadow of England.

Can Scotland suddenly go from being the proverbial kept woman to a working woman without actually becoming the other type of the proverbial “working woman” selling herself to the EU?

The SNP have pledged to abolish the council tax in Scotland in two years.

The plan is to freeze council tax next year and replace it in 2010 with a local income tax.  The SNP is working with the Illiberal Democrats who have had local income tax as one of their policies for a long time.

According to the SNP, Scots with low and middle incomes will be about £300 per year better off.  Those with higher incomes will pay much more than they currently do to pay for the redistribution of wealth.

Alex Salmond has come to an agreement with the Greens in Scotland to become the first Scottish nationalist First Minister.

This is good news for those who would gladly see tha back of Scotland but don’t get too enthusiastic – the SNP will be forming a minority administration and any attempt to hold an independence referendum is likely to be defeated by the eurofederalist Lib Dums and the Liebour facists.

There is a convention in the British parliament that manifesto pledges will travel through parliament unopposed.  Lets hope that “No Mandate” Brown’s leadership manifesto pledges (which only apply to England anyway) are given the same rough ride that the SNP will be getting on their manifesto pledges.  What’s good for the goos and all that.