Shared Opinion | 17 May 2008

If Scotland is to be independent, then why not London? And good luck to what’s left

Here is a fun game for you. In only four words, try to sum up why anybody north of the border might fancy independence. Have a think. Something to rival the neat ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ quip of the American colonialists of the 18th century. Tricky, eh?

And yet, with other famous independence movements, it’s a doddle. After the Boer war, ‘We Are Basically Dutch’ could have done it in South Africa. Gandhi was a bit too loquacious to have managed four words in British India, but ‘You’re Stealing From Us’ would have worked. For the Irish, there were loads of options: ‘We Voted For It’, or maybe, ‘Ahem, There’s a Sea’.

Even now, the Basques could have ‘We Don’t Speak Spanish’, the Tibetans ‘You Killed Our Monks’ and the Chechens ‘It Makes Crime Easier’.