Is Scotland a Nordic Country?

This is a question that meets the classic definition of John Rentoul’s famous-to-them-that-ken series of Questions To Which The Answer Is No. That is, the people asking the question think the answer is Yes when in fact it is No. This question, like many of the SNP’s other witticisms, is the brainchild of Angus Robertson, the MP for Moray who might be thought Alex Salmond’s answer to Karl Rove. Like Rove, Angus sometimes gets carried away and this suggestion that Scotland is some long-lost Nordic appendage is one of those occasions.

Not that he’s alone in wishing Scotland could be redefined in this fashion. Lesley Riddoch had a piece in the Guardian recently making just this argument. Plainly, there are sensible reasons for thinking there could be useful benefits for Scotland in co-operating closely with the likes of Norway and, equally evidently, there are areas of Nordic or Scandinavian policy from which Scotland, whether independent or not, could learn.