Drowning the sorrows of Scotland’s virulent nationalism

There is a more depressing subject than the lockdown. The evening began with a bottle of 18-year-old Glenmorangie. It was subtle and relatively gentle, but also powerful. Alas, this true flower of Scotland lured our talk towards disaster. We started discussing contemporary Scottish politics. Instantly, we were transported to Macbeth: ‘Alas, poor country, almost afraid to know itself.’ My friend said that this was unfair. Nicola Sturgeon was not as bad as Macbeth (though she would make a good Lady Macbeth). I disagreed. She is worse. It was relatively easy for Scotland to recover from Macbeth. He just needed to be slain. There is no such simple cure for the curse of the SNP. Although la Sturgeon may not have killed anyone, planning to kill a nation’s future is a far greater crime.

Why has Scottish nationalism become so virulent? There is no rational explanation. In the 1690s, Scotland was a poor, backward and divided country. Geographically, culturally and economically, we Scots were on the fringes of Europe. Within two generations, Scotland had moved to the forefront of European intellectual life. Edinburgh’s New Town would ratify that in stone: the Enlightenment as architecture. Glasgow played a crucial part in the industrial revolution. The British Empire became a job-creation scheme for Scotsmen. The widespread availability of good education equipped young Scots to meet the challenges of the colonies. With the possible exception of the USA — and its development did require a Civil War — the Union of 1707 was the most successful constitutional innovation in the whole of history. Yet it is now in jeopardy.

One factor is anti-English sentiment fuelled by bad history. At least half the Scottish population seem to believe that William Wallace was a poll-tax protestor cruelly put to death by Margaret Thatcher. A lot of Scots assume that they would have been Covenanters in the 1680s and Jacobites in the 1740s.