It’s time that Scotland’s timid posh folk spoke out

I took part in a documentary about Scottishness a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t bad at all. I mused, mainly, on my own border-hopping, fretful-about-independence Scottish-Britishness, and a decent number of people got in touch afterwards to say I’d been speaking for them, too. Others were more cross, but interestingly so. One thing about the whole experience bugs me, though. That was the way they had me sit in a swanky Scottish restaurant in Belgravia and made out like I belonged there.

It’s not that you don’t get Scots in Belgravia. Most will probably own castles back in Scotland, too, though. When they move to Belgravia, they do so in a manner similar to the way that orthodox Jews move to Israel; to finally be among their own. This is not my world. I live opposite a mosque in Haringey and moved to London for the opposite reason — not to join my people, but to leave them.