The Bearable Lightness of Being A British Scottish Nationalist

Backstory: I wrote a post suggesting that Scottish Nationalists’ rhetoric might these days usefully be compared to Doublethink. I suppose there were many who could have been chosen to serve as examples but I decided to pick on Pete Wishart, MP for Perth and North Perthshire. Unfairly I quoted him extensively, something I now concede was “point scoring” (though not, I protest, of the “pointless” kind). Anyway, Mr Wishart has now responded but not, I am afraid, with anything terribly persuasive. Let me, then, in a spirit of ecumenical pity, offer the response one of the many Pete Wisharts could have written…

Patriot. Nationalist. Socialist. Whateverist. Multitudes lie within each of us. Or so the poets tell us. As Christopher Hitchens once observed, by definition quotations are taken out of context so I shall not complain at having my words thrown against me.

It is true, Mr Massie, that my views on Britain and Britishness have changed in recent years.