Once we Scots were welcome. Now the English are ready to man Hadrian's Wall
By Alan Cochrane
(Filed: 21/05/2006)
People like me can well understand why we are at present in the dock of, if not British, then certainly English, public opinion. That doesn't, however, mean that we don't resent the fact. A tide of Jockophobia is beginning to creep towards the high-water mark of majority public opinion in these islands and with every day that passes, almost, come new complaints about the Scottish domination of English life.
At the trivial level, I detect that it is harder now to have my Scottish £20 notes accepted in London pubs than it was 30 years ago. Further up the scale there is no doubt that the London "commentariat" is much more ready to pick a fight about the Scottish involvement in English life than it was of yore.
The relatively peaceful co-existence - except on the sports field - which has obtained for 300 years between these two former bitter enemies is in grave danger of fracturing. If it is not Jeremy Paxman complaining about what he calls "the Scottish Raj", it is David Cameron calling for Scottish MPs to be banned by law from voting on policies that affect only the English.
How have we got here? To this question I would like to immediately enter a plea of "Guilty". Or, rather: "Guilty but Insane". It was we Scots - albeit not this one - who demanded devolution. It has given us a hugely expensive parliament building and a burgeoning "devo-industry" of politicians, civil servants, academics, lobbyists and other assorted hangers-on but no tangible benefits.
However, it is the slow dawning on the English of the extent to which the Scottish Parliament is impinging on their way of life that is at the root of the increasingly serious rift between English and Scots. I am personally saddened by what's happening. It is not just that I am married to someone who was brought up in England and that I have two grown-up children living and working in England; I revelled in being a Scot in England.
Historically, being Scottish was "the" thing to be in the rest of the United Kingdom, but especially in England. It was the only "regional" accent that survived in service messes for the simple reason that it was deemed to be superior and classless.
The English have always, for historical reasons, been a wee bit scared of the Irish and have, for reasons that I never quite got to grips with during my 20 years in London, been incredibly disdainful of the Welsh. But "Scottish" meant several things - "clever, well-educated and ambitious", as well as, yes, "likes a drink". No longer - except, of course, the latter. The perception rapidly gaining ground south of the Cheviots now is that the 'S' word is synonymous with a bunch of opportunistic smash-and-grab merchants who want the best of all worlds for them and theirs and bugger the rest of you, providing the proof of LBJ's famous maxim that the Scots are a race who "keep the Sabbath… and every other damn thing they can lay their hands on". Is it any wonder that this view gains ground, given that with every political day that passes, with every Cabinet that is re-shuffled, the "Day of the Jock" looms ever closer?
The Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is already led by a Scot even if he doesn't sound like one. However, we will almost certainly soon be in a situation when we will have the real McCoy - in the shape of Gordon Brown - in charge. He actually sounds like one, even if he is not quite so obviously from the northern fastnesses as his main rival - John Reid, as deep-dyed a growly Scot as you could hope to meet.
Of the eight current Cabinet Scots, five have in common the fact that they represent Scottish constituencies, yet, backed by Scottish MPs, they instigate and force through wholly English - and often contentious - legislation.
So, while they now have precious little control over the bread-and-butter issues that are the stuff of everyday politics in their own backyards, Scots ministers and MPs increasingly tell the English how to run their lives. They cannot, for instance, influence the education of their constituents' children, nor their wait for a hip replacement, nor even the hunt for the hooligan who might vandalise their car. These issues, as well as the trunk road or railway on which they commute to work, are the responsibility of the devolved Scottish Parliament.
But stating that Scottish ministers have no control over such policies forgets the important principle of who pays. And in this direction we Scots are doing remarkably well - at least in the amount we get. The "Scottish block", the cash handed over by the Treasury, is set to almost double from £16 billion in 1999 to £30 billion by the end of next year.
It has entered into the folklore, almost, of the English that Scotland gets more out of the UK than it puts in. In a damning indictment of devolution this weekend, The Economist estimates that the English are now subsidising each Scot by about £1,000 a year. Public spending per head is much, much higher north of the border than south of it; health service spending, for instance, is a good 20 per cent higher.
However, from my Edinburgh eyrie I detect that it is not the money that annoys; it is the patent unfairness of it all that grates most. In fact I would go further and say that the English would probably put up with the largesse - they always used to, after all - were it not for Scots Labour politicians rubbing their noses in it. It is an injustice with which the majority of Scots sympathise; opinion polls have shown that most Scots believe that their MPs should not vote on wholly English issues.
The six Scottish nationalists and sole Scottish Tory at Westminster already abide by this principle. The resentment is entirely a Labour problem, as someone closely associated with the devolution project confessed to me the other day. "It's entirely our fault. We didn't really know what we were doing," he said, conceding that Labour's determination to grant Scottish devolution ignored the English dimension. A policy designed to head off the challenge of the SNP ignored the problems it created with our long-time neighbours and partners.
It is easy for us Scots to be glib about such matters and suggest that at least the Reids, Darlings, Browns and Alexanders of the world have proved themselves a good deal better ministers than the disaster-prone Mandelsons, Prescotts, Milburns and Clarkes. But when the likes of John Reid can introduce changes in English policing, while having no influence over similar moves in Scotland, and Douglas Alexander can impose road tolls in Peterborough but not in his native Paisley, why can't Labour's leaders recognise the inequity of it all?
In his last-but-one post as health secretary, Mr Reid reformed England's health boards, a move that has since led to English hospitals closing. In his own Lanarkshire backyard, however, he is powerless to influence the decision over his own local hospital and is reduced to standing on a picket line, denouncing the actions of a Labour-led Scottish government that plans to close it.
Leaving that anomaly aside, is there really a higher motive behind Labour's blindness on this issue? Are they right to insist that there cannot be two different classes of MP or minister in the Commons and that to change our current system weakens the Union? Or is their attitude merely cynical self-preservation and an acceptance that Labour's best chance of survival in government, after the next election, is in a hung-parliament coalition with the Liberal Democrats where all those north-of-the-border seats would be vital? You choose.
But the way things are going, Unionists like me have more to fear from an English backlash ending the United Kingdom than from the Scottish nationalists ever winning the day up here.
•Alan Cochrane is Scottish Editor of The Daily Telegraph
telegraph.co.uk
By Alan Cochrane
(Filed: 21/05/2006)
People like me can well understand why we are at present in the dock of, if not British, then certainly English, public opinion. That doesn't, however, mean that we don't resent the fact. A tide of Jockophobia is beginning to creep towards the high-water mark of majority public opinion in these islands and with every day that passes, almost, come new complaints about the Scottish domination of English life.
At the trivial level, I detect that it is harder now to have my Scottish £20 notes accepted in London pubs than it was 30 years ago. Further up the scale there is no doubt that the London "commentariat" is much more ready to pick a fight about the Scottish involvement in English life than it was of yore.
The relatively peaceful co-existence - except on the sports field - which has obtained for 300 years between these two former bitter enemies is in grave danger of fracturing. If it is not Jeremy Paxman complaining about what he calls "the Scottish Raj", it is David Cameron calling for Scottish MPs to be banned by law from voting on policies that affect only the English.
How have we got here? To this question I would like to immediately enter a plea of "Guilty". Or, rather: "Guilty but Insane". It was we Scots - albeit not this one - who demanded devolution. It has given us a hugely expensive parliament building and a burgeoning "devo-industry" of politicians, civil servants, academics, lobbyists and other assorted hangers-on but no tangible benefits.
However, it is the slow dawning on the English of the extent to which the Scottish Parliament is impinging on their way of life that is at the root of the increasingly serious rift between English and Scots. I am personally saddened by what's happening. It is not just that I am married to someone who was brought up in England and that I have two grown-up children living and working in England; I revelled in being a Scot in England.
Historically, being Scottish was "the" thing to be in the rest of the United Kingdom, but especially in England. It was the only "regional" accent that survived in service messes for the simple reason that it was deemed to be superior and classless.
The English have always, for historical reasons, been a wee bit scared of the Irish and have, for reasons that I never quite got to grips with during my 20 years in London, been incredibly disdainful of the Welsh. But "Scottish" meant several things - "clever, well-educated and ambitious", as well as, yes, "likes a drink". No longer - except, of course, the latter. The perception rapidly gaining ground south of the Cheviots now is that the 'S' word is synonymous with a bunch of opportunistic smash-and-grab merchants who want the best of all worlds for them and theirs and bugger the rest of you, providing the proof of LBJ's famous maxim that the Scots are a race who "keep the Sabbath… and every other damn thing they can lay their hands on". Is it any wonder that this view gains ground, given that with every political day that passes, with every Cabinet that is re-shuffled, the "Day of the Jock" looms ever closer?
The Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is already led by a Scot even if he doesn't sound like one. However, we will almost certainly soon be in a situation when we will have the real McCoy - in the shape of Gordon Brown - in charge. He actually sounds like one, even if he is not quite so obviously from the northern fastnesses as his main rival - John Reid, as deep-dyed a growly Scot as you could hope to meet.
Of the eight current Cabinet Scots, five have in common the fact that they represent Scottish constituencies, yet, backed by Scottish MPs, they instigate and force through wholly English - and often contentious - legislation.
So, while they now have precious little control over the bread-and-butter issues that are the stuff of everyday politics in their own backyards, Scots ministers and MPs increasingly tell the English how to run their lives. They cannot, for instance, influence the education of their constituents' children, nor their wait for a hip replacement, nor even the hunt for the hooligan who might vandalise their car. These issues, as well as the trunk road or railway on which they commute to work, are the responsibility of the devolved Scottish Parliament.
But stating that Scottish ministers have no control over such policies forgets the important principle of who pays. And in this direction we Scots are doing remarkably well - at least in the amount we get. The "Scottish block", the cash handed over by the Treasury, is set to almost double from £16 billion in 1999 to £30 billion by the end of next year.
It has entered into the folklore, almost, of the English that Scotland gets more out of the UK than it puts in. In a damning indictment of devolution this weekend, The Economist estimates that the English are now subsidising each Scot by about £1,000 a year. Public spending per head is much, much higher north of the border than south of it; health service spending, for instance, is a good 20 per cent higher.
However, from my Edinburgh eyrie I detect that it is not the money that annoys; it is the patent unfairness of it all that grates most. In fact I would go further and say that the English would probably put up with the largesse - they always used to, after all - were it not for Scots Labour politicians rubbing their noses in it. It is an injustice with which the majority of Scots sympathise; opinion polls have shown that most Scots believe that their MPs should not vote on wholly English issues.
The six Scottish nationalists and sole Scottish Tory at Westminster already abide by this principle. The resentment is entirely a Labour problem, as someone closely associated with the devolution project confessed to me the other day. "It's entirely our fault. We didn't really know what we were doing," he said, conceding that Labour's determination to grant Scottish devolution ignored the English dimension. A policy designed to head off the challenge of the SNP ignored the problems it created with our long-time neighbours and partners.
It is easy for us Scots to be glib about such matters and suggest that at least the Reids, Darlings, Browns and Alexanders of the world have proved themselves a good deal better ministers than the disaster-prone Mandelsons, Prescotts, Milburns and Clarkes. But when the likes of John Reid can introduce changes in English policing, while having no influence over similar moves in Scotland, and Douglas Alexander can impose road tolls in Peterborough but not in his native Paisley, why can't Labour's leaders recognise the inequity of it all?
In his last-but-one post as health secretary, Mr Reid reformed England's health boards, a move that has since led to English hospitals closing. In his own Lanarkshire backyard, however, he is powerless to influence the decision over his own local hospital and is reduced to standing on a picket line, denouncing the actions of a Labour-led Scottish government that plans to close it.
Leaving that anomaly aside, is there really a higher motive behind Labour's blindness on this issue? Are they right to insist that there cannot be two different classes of MP or minister in the Commons and that to change our current system weakens the Union? Or is their attitude merely cynical self-preservation and an acceptance that Labour's best chance of survival in government, after the next election, is in a hung-parliament coalition with the Liberal Democrats where all those north-of-the-border seats would be vital? You choose.
But the way things are going, Unionists like me have more to fear from an English backlash ending the United Kingdom than from the Scottish nationalists ever winning the day up here.
•Alan Cochrane is Scottish Editor of The Daily Telegraph
telegraph.co.uk