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George Robertson, the best Secretary of State Scotland never had, is fully justified to complain about the tone and indeed the length of debate around independence or separation. Would that folk of his calibre were leading the debate on the ground.
Johann Lamont, like the admirable Iain Gray, will be underestimated, and in time the fight will be won. But the fact is that we have got ourselves in this sorry mess mainly because our best politicians – of every party, even Salmond – have served elsewhere. Now the prime minister calls them in aid of the fight for the life of the UK. And like Lord Robertson they should step up to the mark clearly, swiftly and proactively – it’s the least they owe their constituents for their flourishing UK and international careers. Some – notably Forsyth, Campbell and Robertson (an unlikely coalition) – already have.
We have perhaps over 1,000 days of this debate to go – assuming the SNP can drag it on till just before St Andrew’s Day 2014 – Lord help us.
Angus Skinner
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Today’s banner
Glasgow by night
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
If we want to be a
great nation again, anti-
Englishness has to go
Responses to Ian Hamilton
‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,’ wrote Wordsworth, ‘but to be young was very heaven…’ Wordsworth was writing about the French Revolution, but perhaps today’s expectations are not dissimilar.
Ian Hamilton’s article (14 February), like everything else about the man, was thoughtful and well-reasoned; a breath of ozone in what is often turgid air. Except for one little bit, that is. I’m not sure about the ‘affectionate anti-Englishness of the general public…’ Nor am I sure about the statement that there is ‘more racial abuse towards us in the English papers than we would ever think of using towards England’.
‘…than we would ever think of using towards England’. Maybe I read the wrong papers, or perhaps Ian Hamilton is thinking of an earlier age. In the dark days of the second world war my English grandparents travelled up from London to Edinburgh so they could meet their newborn grandson. They journeyed from ‘Doodlebug Alley’ in the southern approaches to London, all the way to my Edinburgh grandparents’ house. It was the first time either of them had been to Scotland. My wonderful English grandparents told me – many, many times – that the generosity and the hospitality they experienced in Scotland then transcended anything else they encountered in their long lives.
Maybe it is still that way on a personal level. Generally it probably is. But often, in the pages of the Scottish newspapers I read, it’s not – and particularly not in the readers’ comments at the ends of a lot of articles. Those comments are the streets talking, and the streets are especially derogatory when there is an international football or rugby match between Scotland and England. Not when the French, the Irish and the Welsh travel north, but certainly with the English. In my experience anyway.
There is anti-Englishness in Scotland, and too often it is just a cheap chauvinism – a kind of mindlessness that does the country no credit at all. If Scotland is to become a great nation again – standing on its own five-and-a-quarter-million pairs of feet – then that has to change. If it doesn’t, then Scotland won’t be taken seriously outside its borders. After all, the high road always offers a better perspective.
Michael Elcock
Wonderful, wonderful article by Ian Hamilton.
James Sorbie
Why oh why does every radical commentator, leftish intellectual, or member of the cultural elite, feel it necessary to throw in the term ‘suburban’. Ian Hamilton remarks on ‘the suburban inanity of Bearsden’ as an obligatory term of abuse. The snobbery of the Soi Disant left is bad enough here in England but in Scotland it is unforgiveable.
Or am I naive in my belief that providing Jock Tamson’s bairns with a route map for the journey from Barmulloch or Bargeddie to Bearsden
was what the great Scottish commitment to a social democratic future was meant to be about?
Willie Coupar
I was much moved by reading the article by Ian Hamilton QC about Scottish independence. Here is the man who was involved in one of the greatest heists in history, the removal of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey and its miraculous journey to Arbroath Abbey. Do Scots realise the significance of this Stone, captured by Edward I’s armies and carried off to England in the 12C? This was the stone upon which kings and queens of Scotland had been crowned since the 9C and it was a devastating blow to the Scots to lose it so long ago. Here is the man who still, at 86 years old, holds fiercely to his belief in Scotland.
But more than that, he somehow in his article tore away all the rhetoric and emotion about the issue and explained very simply why Scotland should be independent.
‘We feel unhappy and we want change.’
‘Scotland is a nation. Nations should govern themselves.’
‘We have different values, we and London.’
These three statements say it all. I think David Cameron should read them to obtain a glimmer of understanding about why we want this change, for better or for worse.
He finishes by saying: ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure. But not as big an adventure as being young in our newly awakened Scotland’. Wow! Reading this should be a source of inspiration for the youth of Scotland, the words of a wise old man of education and understanding of the Scottish dilemma.
Norma Allan
