Alan Cochrane says that it’s not just Alex Salmond who is agitating for Scottish independence. There are forces on both sides of the border who hope for the break-up of the UK
If it’s August, it must be Scotland. Upwards of half a million people will descend on Edinburgh over the next month for the six festivals — International, Fringe, Book, Jazz/Blues, Television and now Politics — not to mention the ever successful Tattoo. Some will be other Scots but many will be from the rest of the United Kingdom, predominately England.
It’s amusing for anyone living north of the Cheviots to record the comments of visitors to our homeland, especially those of the English persuasion. They remark continually on the differences between the two countries as if they can’t quite get used to the fact that Scotland simply isn’t England, or to the fact that many of us talk a different language (well, almost). For a people who pride themselves on their cosmopolitan nature, it is incredible how little the English, especially in the south, know about what goes on in other parts of this archipelago.
This trait has escalated since devolution, celebrating its tenth birthday, and now there’s a seemingly inexorable drift towards separation — in both the legal and emotional sense — between Scotland and England
It is a separation that is being encouraged most obviously by Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party, whose minority administration has been in power at Holyrood since May 2007. But it is also being fostered, inadvertently perhaps, by those people — both politicians and others — who would declare that their allegiance is resolutely Unionist. Furthermore, it appears to be something for which some in England are hoping.
To start with Salmond, the most obvious sign is the name of his team.
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