The SNP’s mountain of mendacity

The Scottish National Party’s great and continuing success has been to mobilize a large part of the Scottish population to see England and the English as a more or less malign force.

In this, the party has connected with and deepened strong currents of thought and belief in Scots culture, especially in the 20th century.

The country’s most famed and lauded poet, Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Grieve), its most influential ideologist, Tom Nairn and its most prominent literary novelist, James Kelman have all adopted long-running acidic views of the southern neighbour.

The Scottish sense of resentment against the elephantine presence of England in the UK, and the view, only partly stated, that the Scots are a ‘more moral people’, is part of a tradition that is longer than the Union itself. But it co-existed with a strong attachment to that Union, and an even stronger one to the empire, in which Scots prospered. Scottish 21^st century nationalism has weaponised these often humorous themes.