Kenneth Roy
Megrahi,
anger,
and me
Gerry Hassan
The seven wonders of Scotland
Ronnie Smith
The first minister would
be well advised to
restrict his TV exposure
Life of George
I’ll leave the funeral first
Elizabeth Goodwin
Should we cut aid to
countries where gay
people are abused?
John Cameron
The bail out
Robin Downie
Harvesting our organs:
the ethical perils of
‘presumed consent’
The Cafe
Those implants
Andrew Hook
I thought I was
covered. The gas man
thought otherwise
Friends of SR
We need your help
14.02.12
No. 513
Kerry Gill
When I was a trainee reporter at the end of the 1960s, one of my tasks was to compile one of those anniversary columns – what was happening 25, 50, etc, years ago – for the now defunct Northern Despatch in Darlington. The archives were kept in an attic and I would retire there for an hour or so of local, mostly grim, history.
In the 1960s, as now, there was a widespread concern with crime, the impression being given that it was getting worse every day, largely due to the ‘permissive society’.
It was while in the Despatch attic that I came to realise that the patterns of crime had hardly changed at all in the intervening years since the second world war. Fascinated, I flicked through the pages of the old newspapers reading about the grisly events recorded at the various magistrates’ courts: Darlington, Richmond, Bishop Auckland, Stockton and so on. I was staggered by the preponderance of court stories, as Kenneth Roy was when looking at the BBC website (9 February
The crimes back in the 1960s were just as often quite unpleasant, but ever since I have realised that they are the bread and butter of local newspapers. Little has changed today, as anyone who reads through our Scottish locals will know.
The difference, as Kenneth Roy’s article shows, is that BBC Scotland’s television news has become equally obsessed. The reason? In the desperation to demonstrate that Scotland can sustain a ‘national news’, and prove that a ‘Scottish Six’ is feasible, the BBC has been reduced to trawling the courts and relying on inconsequential events that once would only make it into a local newspaper.
God knows what a ‘Scottish Broadcasting Corporation’, or a ‘Scottish Six’ would look like. We live, like it or not, in one of the many regions of the UK, so far as news is concerned.
Kerry Gill is political editor of the
Scottish Express
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
Today’s banner:
Iona wedding
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Leith: a photograph for Valentine’s Day by Islay McLeod
Soon I will be dead.
But, oh, to be alive
at this moment in Scotland
I am 86. Thus I have lived in the United Kingdom for more than a quarter of its existence. My observations on its identity and mine may be of value.
Even in the 1920s and 1930s I always knew I was a Scot. So sure was I of my identity that I never minded being called British or English. If called the latter I just thought they were wrong. During the war we were all called English. As I grew up I discovered that my petit bourgeois contemporaries thought that there was no Scotland. It had been absorbed into its greater neighbour. Looking back this is not surprising. The union gave us the chance to expand into the great free trade area that became the British empire. We seized that chance. Glasgow was the empire’s second city. We were the workshop of the world.
Seventy years ago it seemed that the price we had paid for the wealth of empire was the loss of our identity as Scots. To be ignorant of who you are is profoundly disturbing. England suffers from it badly today. The England of the shires, of Puck of Pook’s Hill, has gone. England is now London.
We have been luckier. We are still us. We blame the loss of our industries on successive English governments not on ourselves. We did nothing. We continued to vote unionist. The enterprise that built the great forges has been lacking. I can tell you where it went. It went to schools like Fettes and Loretto where the enterprise was whipped out of them and they were squeezed into the mould of English gentlemen. They live on in their great-grandfather’s country estates here in Argyll. The enterprise has gone elsewhere.
We lost our confidence when we lost our empire. Don’t worry. It’s coming back. Even Mr Fred Goodwin, is a sign. Better to gamble and topple a great bank than to live in the suburban inanity of Bearsden. The 1878 failure of the City of Glasgow Bank led to the founding of the great law firm of McGrigor Donald and to the Industrial Exhibition of 1888. McGrigors, as it was laterally called, has now joined up with a great London firm. We Scots are true internationalists and there is no border to our abilities. Failure is the manure of success. The loss of empire followed by the loss of our industries has caused us Scots to look round. Even the great landlords are affronted to think their estates end at the salt seashore. The solum of the seabed to beyond the furthest horizon is still held by England. That is where the next great development will come. We have three quarters of the tidal power of Europe. Oil is pocket money compared to the tides.
We have different values, we and London. No clearer example can be found than in our belief that education is everyone’s right. ‘Til the rocks melt wi
the sun’ said our first minister on the right to a free university education.
Even in a nation’s history 86 years is a long time. I remember the salient points of the change from British to Scottish. None of them was political. We never got the jail for the Stone. The people cheered us. There was public support for our ‘no numeral’ campaign when Elizabeth the ‘Second’ came to the throne. Scotland had had no ‘First’ Elizabeth. Our coronation souvenirs without the numeral were wildly popular. The newspapers backed us in their news columns but refused to take our paid advertisements. They were feart as they still are.
Then one day I went into a pub and found a group gathered round a TV set cheering wildly. Someone had scored a goal against England. The affectionate anti-Englishness of the general public is far more proof of the independent vitality of the Scottish nation than any vote. There is more racial abuse towards us in the English papers than we would ever think of using towards England. It is a much loved foreign country but it is recognised as foreign.
And now we are to have a referendum. Mr Cameron, the near-illiterate occupier of the post of Disraeli and Gladstone and Churchill, steals a word from Quebec and refers to it as a neverendum. Is there a better definition of democracy than a neverendum? He will face a neverendum at the end of his five years if not sooner. In the long history of Scotland our referendum’s only significance is that we feel unhappy and we want change. Whatever the result that feeling will remain.
Recently I spoke on the same platform with a Tory and a Liberal. They said they would abide by the result of the referendum. I said I wouldn’t. I would always listen to any argument for the continuation of the union if one can be found. I have heard none except that change is bad. I asserted a principle. That Scotland is a nation. Nations should govern themselves. Can anything be clearer?
We have different values, we and London. No clearer example can be found than in our belief that education is everyone’s right. ‘Til the rocks melt wi the sun’ said our first minister on the right to a free university education.
I have lived through the last quarter of a union which brought great benefit to many countries including Scotland. I wish I was in my first year of university instead of being 86. Soon I will die. To die will be an awfully big adventure. But not as big an adventure as being young in our newly awakened Scotland.
Ian Hamilton QC is beyond biography
the ethical perils of
‘presumed consent’
The Cafe
Those implants
Andrew Hook
I thought I was
covered. The gas man
thought otherwise
Friends of SR
We need your help
14.02.12
No. 513
Kerry Gill
When I was a trainee reporter at the end of the 1960s, one of my tasks was to compile one of those anniversary columns – what was happening 25, 50, etc, years ago – for the now defunct Northern Despatch in Darlington. The archives were kept in an attic and I would retire there for an hour or so of local, mostly grim, history.
In the 1960s, as now, there was a widespread concern with crime, the impression being given that it was getting worse every day, largely due to the ‘permissive society’.
It was while in the Despatch attic that I came to realise that the patterns of crime had hardly changed at all in the intervening years since the second world war. Fascinated, I flicked through the pages of the old newspapers reading about the grisly events recorded at the various magistrates’ courts: Darlington, Richmond, Bishop Auckland, Stockton and so on. I was staggered by the preponderance of court stories, as Kenneth Roy was when looking at the BBC website (9 February
The crimes back in the 1960s were just as often quite unpleasant, but ever since I have realised that they are the bread and butter of local newspapers. Little has changed today, as anyone who reads through our Scottish locals will know.
The difference, as Kenneth Roy’s article shows, is that BBC Scotland’s television news has become equally obsessed. The reason? In the desperation to demonstrate that Scotland can sustain a ‘national news’, and prove that a ‘Scottish Six’ is feasible, the BBC has been reduced to trawling the courts and relying on inconsequential events that once would only make it into a local newspaper.
God knows what a ‘Scottish Broadcasting Corporation’, or a ‘Scottish Six’ would look like. We live, like it or not, in one of the many regions of the UK, so far as news is concerned.
Kerry Gill is political editor of the
Scottish Express
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
Today’s banner:
Iona wedding
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Leith: a photograph for Valentine’s Day by Islay McLeod
Soon I will be dead.
But, oh, to be alive
at this moment in Scotland
I am 86. Thus I have lived in the United Kingdom for more than a quarter of its existence. My observations on its identity and mine may be of value.
Even in the 1920s and 1930s I always knew I was a Scot. So sure was I of my identity that I never minded being called British or English. If called the latter I just thought they were wrong. During the war we were all called English. As I grew up I discovered that my petit bourgeois contemporaries thought that there was no Scotland. It had been absorbed into its greater neighbour. Looking back this is not surprising. The union gave us the chance to expand into the great free trade area that became the British empire. We seized that chance. Glasgow was the empire’s second city. We were the workshop of the world.
Seventy years ago it seemed that the price we had paid for the wealth of empire was the loss of our identity as Scots. To be ignorant of who you are is profoundly disturbing. England suffers from it badly today. The England of the shires, of Puck of Pook’s Hill, has gone. England is now London.
We have been luckier. We are still us. We blame the loss of our industries on successive English governments not on ourselves. We did nothing. We continued to vote unionist. The enterprise that built the great forges has been lacking. I can tell you where it went. It went to schools like Fettes and Loretto where the enterprise was whipped out of them and they were squeezed into the mould of English gentlemen. They live on in their great-grandfather’s country estates here in Argyll. The enterprise has gone elsewhere.
We lost our confidence when we lost our empire. Don’t worry. It’s coming back. Even Mr Fred Goodwin, is a sign. Better to gamble and topple a great bank than to live in the suburban inanity of Bearsden. The 1878 failure of the City of Glasgow Bank led to the founding of the great law firm of McGrigor Donald and to the Industrial Exhibition of 1888. McGrigors, as it was laterally called, has now joined up with a great London firm. We Scots are true internationalists and there is no border to our abilities. Failure is the manure of success. The loss of empire followed by the loss of our industries has caused us Scots to look round. Even the great landlords are affronted to think their estates end at the salt seashore. The solum of the seabed to beyond the furthest horizon is still held by England. That is where the next great development will come. We have three quarters of the tidal power of Europe. Oil is pocket money compared to the tides.
We have different values, we and London. No clearer example can be found than in our belief that education is everyone’s right. ‘Til the rocks melt wi
the sun’ said our first minister on the right to a free university education.
Even in a nation’s history 86 years is a long time. I remember the salient points of the change from British to Scottish. None of them was political. We never got the jail for the Stone. The people cheered us. There was public support for our ‘no numeral’ campaign when Elizabeth the ‘Second’ came to the throne. Scotland had had no ‘First’ Elizabeth. Our coronation souvenirs without the numeral were wildly popular. The newspapers backed us in their news columns but refused to take our paid advertisements. They were feart as they still are.
Then one day I went into a pub and found a group gathered round a TV set cheering wildly. Someone had scored a goal against England. The affectionate anti-Englishness of the general public is far more proof of the independent vitality of the Scottish nation than any vote. There is more racial abuse towards us in the English papers than we would ever think of using towards England. It is a much loved foreign country but it is recognised as foreign.
And now we are to have a referendum. Mr Cameron, the near-illiterate occupier of the post of Disraeli and Gladstone and Churchill, steals a word from Quebec and refers to it as a neverendum. Is there a better definition of democracy than a neverendum? He will face a neverendum at the end of his five years if not sooner. In the long history of Scotland our referendum’s only significance is that we feel unhappy and we want change. Whatever the result that feeling will remain.
Recently I spoke on the same platform with a Tory and a Liberal. They said they would abide by the result of the referendum. I said I wouldn’t. I would always listen to any argument for the continuation of the union if one can be found. I have heard none except that change is bad. I asserted a principle. That Scotland is a nation. Nations should govern themselves. Can anything be clearer?
We have different values, we and London. No clearer example can be found than in our belief that education is everyone’s right. ‘Til the rocks melt wi the sun’ said our first minister on the right to a free university education.
I have lived through the last quarter of a union which brought great benefit to many countries including Scotland. I wish I was in my first year of university instead of being 86. Soon I will die. To die will be an awfully big adventure. But not as big an adventure as being young in our newly awakened Scotland.
Ian Hamilton QC is beyond biography
14.02.12
No. 513
Kerry GillIn the 1960s, as now, there was a widespread concern with crime, the impression being given that it was getting worse every day, largely due to the ‘permissive society’.
It was while in the Despatch attic that I came to realise that the patterns of crime had hardly changed at all in the intervening years since the second world war. Fascinated, I flicked through the pages of the old newspapers reading about the grisly events recorded at the various magistrates’ courts: Darlington, Richmond, Bishop Auckland, Stockton and so on. I was staggered by the preponderance of court stories, as Kenneth Roy was when looking at the BBC website (9 February
The crimes back in the 1960s were just as often quite unpleasant, but ever since I have realised that they are the bread and butter of local newspapers. Little has changed today, as anyone who reads through our Scottish locals will know.
The difference, as Kenneth Roy’s article shows, is that BBC Scotland’s television news has become equally obsessed. The reason? In the desperation to demonstrate that Scotland can sustain a ‘national news’, and prove that a ‘Scottish Six’ is feasible, the BBC has been reduced to trawling the courts and relying on inconsequential events that once would only make it into a local newspaper.
God knows what a ‘Scottish Broadcasting Corporation’, or a ‘Scottish Six’ would look like. We live, like it or not, in one of the many regions of the UK, so far as news is concerned.
Scottish Express
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Leith: a photograph for Valentine’s Day by Islay McLeodSoon I will be dead.
Even in the 1920s and 1930s I always knew I was a Scot. So sure was I of my identity that I never minded being called British or English. If called the latter I just thought they were wrong. During the war we were all called English. As I grew up I discovered that my petit bourgeois contemporaries thought that there was no Scotland. It had been absorbed into its greater neighbour. Looking back this is not surprising. The union gave us the chance to expand into the great free trade area that became the British empire. We seized that chance. Glasgow was the empire’s second city. We were the workshop of the world.
Seventy years ago it seemed that the price we had paid for the wealth of empire was the loss of our identity as Scots. To be ignorant of who you are is profoundly disturbing. England suffers from it badly today. The England of the shires, of Puck of Pook’s Hill, has gone. England is now London.
We have been luckier. We are still us. We blame the loss of our industries on successive English governments not on ourselves. We did nothing. We continued to vote unionist. The enterprise that built the great forges has been lacking. I can tell you where it went. It went to schools like Fettes and Loretto where the enterprise was whipped out of them and they were squeezed into the mould of English gentlemen. They live on in their great-grandfather’s country estates here in Argyll. The enterprise has gone elsewhere.
We lost our confidence when we lost our empire. Don’t worry. It’s coming back. Even Mr Fred Goodwin, is a sign. Better to gamble and topple a great bank than to live in the suburban inanity of Bearsden. The 1878 failure of the City of Glasgow Bank led to the founding of the great law firm of McGrigor Donald and to the Industrial Exhibition of 1888. McGrigors, as it was laterally called, has now joined up with a great London firm. We Scots are true internationalists and there is no border to our abilities. Failure is the manure of success. The loss of empire followed by the loss of our industries has caused us Scots to look round. Even the great landlords are affronted to think their estates end at the salt seashore. The solum of the seabed to beyond the furthest horizon is still held by England. That is where the next great development will come. We have three quarters of the tidal power of Europe. Oil is pocket money compared to the tides.
the sun’ said our first minister on the right to a free university education.
Then one day I went into a pub and found a group gathered round a TV set cheering wildly. Someone had scored a goal against England. The affectionate anti-Englishness of the general public is far more proof of the independent vitality of the Scottish nation than any vote. There is more racial abuse towards us in the English papers than we would ever think of using towards England. It is a much loved foreign country but it is recognised as foreign.
And now we are to have a referendum. Mr Cameron, the near-illiterate occupier of the post of Disraeli and Gladstone and Churchill, steals a word from Quebec and refers to it as a neverendum. Is there a better definition of democracy than a neverendum? He will face a neverendum at the end of his five years if not sooner. In the long history of Scotland our referendum’s only significance is that we feel unhappy and we want change. Whatever the result that feeling will remain.
Recently I spoke on the same platform with a Tory and a Liberal. They said they would abide by the result of the referendum. I said I wouldn’t. I would always listen to any argument for the continuation of the union if one can be found. I have heard none except that change is bad. I asserted a principle. That Scotland is a nation. Nations should govern themselves. Can anything be clearer?
We have different values, we and London. No clearer example can be found than in our belief that education is everyone’s right. ‘Til the rocks melt wi the sun’ said our first minister on the right to a free university education.
I have lived through the last quarter of a union which brought great benefit to many countries including Scotland. I wish I was in my first year of university instead of being 86. Soon I will die. To die will be an awfully big adventure. But not as big an adventure as being young in our newly awakened Scotland.
