With the British economy in tatters thanks to economic mismanagement by Britain's SCOTTISH Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) and SCOTTISH Chancellor of the Exchequer (Alistair Darling), the English have a right to be angered by the "Scottish Mafia", according to the Scotsman Alan Massie, author of "The Thistle And The Rose: Six Centuries Of Love And Hate Between The Scots And The English."
The English traditionally view the Scots as being careful with money (even being tightfisted), but the recession shows that they may have been wrong.
The Scots running Britain cannot be said to have been careful with money.
Two Scottish banks - the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland - have just had to be bailed out a couple of times in just the last few weeks.
As Alan Massie says: "Alex Salmond (the leader of the pro-indepdence Scottish National Party) will not have to urge the English to let his people go - they will be holding the door open for us to depart.
You English think we Scots are thrifty and cautious... but, as Gordon and his gang proves, you are wrong
By Allan Massie, author of The Thistle And The Rose: Six Centuries Of Love And Hate Between The Scots And The English.
25th January 2009
Daily Mail
As we lurch from recession to depression and slump, it is not a good time to be a Scot.
The public finances, mismanaged by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling (both, of course, Scotsmen), are in a horrendous state, with Government borrowing spiralling out of control and the pound in freefall.
It is years since Brown parted from Prudence and he is now committing taxpayers to at least a decade of debt.
Meanwhile, the two principal Scottish banks, once revered for their caution and sound business sense, have had to be bailed out a couple of times in the space of a few weeks.
Tartan terrors: Gordon Brown, Sir Fred Goodwin, centre, and Alistair Darling join a fellow Scot to show their wild and reckless side - with a little help from our artists
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), founded in 1727, has announced the largest corporate loss in British history - £28billion.
The Government now owns a 70 per cent stake in it and no one of sense would bet against complete nationalisation.
The alternative might be to let it go bust, taking with it the £37billion of public money already used to prop it up.
What used to be the Bank of Scotland before a disguised takeover made it Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) is not in as parlous a position, but only because, having received its Government bailout, it has been taken over by Lloyds TSB. However, Lloyds itself is now in distress.
Things are bad, and every passing day they seem to get worse. New horrors lurk in the shadows - as The Mail on Sunday reported last week, RBS was forced to write off a £2.5billion debt owed it by a Russian oligarch. Crazy lending, crazy times.
What we are seeing is the consequence of a march of folly, the culminating point of which was RBS's £50billion takeover of ABN Amro. The Dutch bank, it turns out, was stuffed to the gills with bad debt.
That deal was the biggest in British banking history. It was also the last in a series of ambitious takeovers by RBS, which included the acquisitions of NatWest, a couple of American banks and some insurance companies, plus a stake in the Bank of China.
The terrible thing is that we in Scotland applauded RBS's audacity. It was a matter of pride that a native bank should have become one of the greatest on Earth.
To my now shame, I wrote an adulatory article about the ABN Amro deal in another newspaper. RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin was hailed as a genius.
Scotland, for so long timidly defensive and socialist, had recovered the appetite for aggressive capitalism that had distinguished it in the 19th Century.
Ancient Greek philosophers warned high achievers against hubris, the overweening arrogance that displeased the gods and invited disaster. Hubris was what RBS, intoxicated by the takeover of its larger rival NatWest, displayed as it struck out on the acquisitions quest.
Perhaps the feeling of a new mood in Scotland, after the establishment of the Parliament in Edinburgh, contributed to the reckless course the bank now followed.
Certainly there was much talk of a 'new Scotland' and politicians, notably the SNP leader Alex Salmond, a former RBS economist, egged on the bankers.
Though the politicians in Edinburgh had, and still have, no responsibility for regulating banks - that role was kept by London - their ambitions soared along with RBS's march to the status of a global bank.
If Ireland and Iceland could be major financial players, why not Scotland?
Hubris took another form, too. For 200 years the headquarters of RBS had been a handsome Georgian townhouse in St Andrew's Square, Edinburgh.
But this was deemed insufficiently impressive for the bank's new status, so an RBS 'village' was built near Edinburgh Airport.
It has its own gym, swimming pool, shops and cafes.
No RBS employee need leave the place from dawn to dusk, except to catch a plane to London, Amsterdam, Beijing or New York.
One wise economics journalist used to say that building a grandiose HQ was a sure sign of impending disaster. How right he was.
Now Sir Fred has gone in disgrace - though with a pension pot of £8.4million to console him - and the house he built is in ruins. It couldn't be worse - except it may well be so next week.
Moreover, as each new blow strikes the banks, Brown's claim to have 'saved the world's banking system' looks grotesque.
The once Iron Chancellor has rusted, and even if he is not wholly responsible for the catastrophe that has engulfed us, it happened on his watch and he must take the blame.
As for his rescue plans, the commonsense view is he hasn't a clue and is making it up as he goes along.
A national reputation for financial sagacity, built up over the centuries, has been destroyed in a few months.
Scotland is dismayed and ashamed, and if Scottish politicians and bankers have not been lynched in the streets of London, this suggests that the English are still an easy-going lot, despite indications to the contrary.
On reflection, it may be that we have fooled the English - and ourselves, too - for years. This isn't the first time that Scots have displayed 'the vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other' - words Shakespeare put into the mouth of the Scottish king Macbeth.
Certainly there are cautious Scots, men distrustful of grand schemes and innovation. As a president of the Scottish Rugby Union once said: 'When presented with a new idea, we say no, and then think about it.'
But there's another side of the Scottish character that is wild and reckless.
Nothing illustrates this better than the Darien scheme. This was devised by William Paterson, a remarkable man who helped found the Bank of England and who was the inventor of the national debt, which Gordon Brown is so vigorously stoking.
The idea was to establish a Scottish colony on the isthmus of Darien in Panama, which could serve as an entrepot for East-West trade, avoiding the long route around Africa.
Scots went wild for the idea. Investment fever ran high - some £220,000 was subscribed. This was reckoned to be about a third of the liquid capital of the country.
The scheme was a flop, the colony a disaster. Bankruptcies followed.
The English government and the City of London were blamed, not entirely without reason. Nevertheless the project was misconceived from the start: Darien belonged to the Spanish empire and Spain retained the monopoly on trade there.
In short, common sense had gone out of the window, fantasy ruled, and then the cold wind of reality blew. The project collapsed like a house of cards. Darien and the takeover by RBS of ABN Amro are two of a kind.
An indirect consequence of the Darien disaster was that it turned Scots' minds to the idea of a union with England, on the grounds that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Many Scots have regretted the 1707 Treaty of Union ever since. As they contemplate Gordon Brown, I dare say the English regret it more, and might be happy to be shot of us.
That said, it was the development of banks in Scotland that enabled the country to escape from poverty and become a leader of the Industrial Revolution and one of the powerhouses of the first age of globalism.
This was because Scottish banks understood the need to provide credit and devised instruments such as the overdraft and the investment trust.
But Scottish financiers have not always been as cautious as the reputation they acquired suggests.
Bank failures were frequent in 18th Century Scotland, where a vibrant free market lurched between boom and bust, that natural condition that Brown, with astonishing and foolish complacency, said he had abolished.
Instead we are on the way to being well and truly bust. Financial meltdown threatens. The day may not be far off when foreigners will be about as likely to entrust their savings and lend their money to Brown's Britain as they are to Castro's Cuba.
If that day comes, then Brown and Darling, RBS and HBOS will be at the top of the list of Guilty Men (a bit rough in Darling's case, perhaps, since he is merely Gordon's gofer).
And Alex Salmond will not have to urge the English to let his people go - they will be holding the door open for us to depart.
• Alan Massie is author of The Thistle And The Rose: Six Centuries Of Love And Hate Between The Scots And The English.
dailymail.co.uk
The English traditionally view the Scots as being careful with money (even being tightfisted), but the recession shows that they may have been wrong.
The Scots running Britain cannot be said to have been careful with money.
Two Scottish banks - the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland - have just had to be bailed out a couple of times in just the last few weeks.
As Alan Massie says: "Alex Salmond (the leader of the pro-indepdence Scottish National Party) will not have to urge the English to let his people go - they will be holding the door open for us to depart.
You English think we Scots are thrifty and cautious... but, as Gordon and his gang proves, you are wrong
By Allan Massie, author of The Thistle And The Rose: Six Centuries Of Love And Hate Between The Scots And The English.
25th January 2009
Daily Mail
As we lurch from recession to depression and slump, it is not a good time to be a Scot.
The public finances, mismanaged by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling (both, of course, Scotsmen), are in a horrendous state, with Government borrowing spiralling out of control and the pound in freefall.
It is years since Brown parted from Prudence and he is now committing taxpayers to at least a decade of debt.
Meanwhile, the two principal Scottish banks, once revered for their caution and sound business sense, have had to be bailed out a couple of times in the space of a few weeks.
Tartan terrors: Gordon Brown, Sir Fred Goodwin, centre, and Alistair Darling join a fellow Scot to show their wild and reckless side - with a little help from our artists
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), founded in 1727, has announced the largest corporate loss in British history - £28billion.
The Government now owns a 70 per cent stake in it and no one of sense would bet against complete nationalisation.
The alternative might be to let it go bust, taking with it the £37billion of public money already used to prop it up.
What used to be the Bank of Scotland before a disguised takeover made it Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) is not in as parlous a position, but only because, having received its Government bailout, it has been taken over by Lloyds TSB. However, Lloyds itself is now in distress.
Things are bad, and every passing day they seem to get worse. New horrors lurk in the shadows - as The Mail on Sunday reported last week, RBS was forced to write off a £2.5billion debt owed it by a Russian oligarch. Crazy lending, crazy times.
What we are seeing is the consequence of a march of folly, the culminating point of which was RBS's £50billion takeover of ABN Amro. The Dutch bank, it turns out, was stuffed to the gills with bad debt.
That deal was the biggest in British banking history. It was also the last in a series of ambitious takeovers by RBS, which included the acquisitions of NatWest, a couple of American banks and some insurance companies, plus a stake in the Bank of China.
The terrible thing is that we in Scotland applauded RBS's audacity. It was a matter of pride that a native bank should have become one of the greatest on Earth.
To my now shame, I wrote an adulatory article about the ABN Amro deal in another newspaper. RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin was hailed as a genius.
Scotland, for so long timidly defensive and socialist, had recovered the appetite for aggressive capitalism that had distinguished it in the 19th Century.
Ancient Greek philosophers warned high achievers against hubris, the overweening arrogance that displeased the gods and invited disaster. Hubris was what RBS, intoxicated by the takeover of its larger rival NatWest, displayed as it struck out on the acquisitions quest.
Perhaps the feeling of a new mood in Scotland, after the establishment of the Parliament in Edinburgh, contributed to the reckless course the bank now followed.
Certainly there was much talk of a 'new Scotland' and politicians, notably the SNP leader Alex Salmond, a former RBS economist, egged on the bankers.
Though the politicians in Edinburgh had, and still have, no responsibility for regulating banks - that role was kept by London - their ambitions soared along with RBS's march to the status of a global bank.
If Ireland and Iceland could be major financial players, why not Scotland?
Hubris took another form, too. For 200 years the headquarters of RBS had been a handsome Georgian townhouse in St Andrew's Square, Edinburgh.
But this was deemed insufficiently impressive for the bank's new status, so an RBS 'village' was built near Edinburgh Airport.
It has its own gym, swimming pool, shops and cafes.
No RBS employee need leave the place from dawn to dusk, except to catch a plane to London, Amsterdam, Beijing or New York.
One wise economics journalist used to say that building a grandiose HQ was a sure sign of impending disaster. How right he was.
Now Sir Fred has gone in disgrace - though with a pension pot of £8.4million to console him - and the house he built is in ruins. It couldn't be worse - except it may well be so next week.
Moreover, as each new blow strikes the banks, Brown's claim to have 'saved the world's banking system' looks grotesque.
The once Iron Chancellor has rusted, and even if he is not wholly responsible for the catastrophe that has engulfed us, it happened on his watch and he must take the blame.
As for his rescue plans, the commonsense view is he hasn't a clue and is making it up as he goes along.
A national reputation for financial sagacity, built up over the centuries, has been destroyed in a few months.
Scotland is dismayed and ashamed, and if Scottish politicians and bankers have not been lynched in the streets of London, this suggests that the English are still an easy-going lot, despite indications to the contrary.
On reflection, it may be that we have fooled the English - and ourselves, too - for years. This isn't the first time that Scots have displayed 'the vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other' - words Shakespeare put into the mouth of the Scottish king Macbeth.
Certainly there are cautious Scots, men distrustful of grand schemes and innovation. As a president of the Scottish Rugby Union once said: 'When presented with a new idea, we say no, and then think about it.'
But there's another side of the Scottish character that is wild and reckless.
Nothing illustrates this better than the Darien scheme. This was devised by William Paterson, a remarkable man who helped found the Bank of England and who was the inventor of the national debt, which Gordon Brown is so vigorously stoking.
The idea was to establish a Scottish colony on the isthmus of Darien in Panama, which could serve as an entrepot for East-West trade, avoiding the long route around Africa.
Scots went wild for the idea. Investment fever ran high - some £220,000 was subscribed. This was reckoned to be about a third of the liquid capital of the country.
The scheme was a flop, the colony a disaster. Bankruptcies followed.
The English government and the City of London were blamed, not entirely without reason. Nevertheless the project was misconceived from the start: Darien belonged to the Spanish empire and Spain retained the monopoly on trade there.
In short, common sense had gone out of the window, fantasy ruled, and then the cold wind of reality blew. The project collapsed like a house of cards. Darien and the takeover by RBS of ABN Amro are two of a kind.
An indirect consequence of the Darien disaster was that it turned Scots' minds to the idea of a union with England, on the grounds that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Many Scots have regretted the 1707 Treaty of Union ever since. As they contemplate Gordon Brown, I dare say the English regret it more, and might be happy to be shot of us.
That said, it was the development of banks in Scotland that enabled the country to escape from poverty and become a leader of the Industrial Revolution and one of the powerhouses of the first age of globalism.
This was because Scottish banks understood the need to provide credit and devised instruments such as the overdraft and the investment trust.
But Scottish financiers have not always been as cautious as the reputation they acquired suggests.
Bank failures were frequent in 18th Century Scotland, where a vibrant free market lurched between boom and bust, that natural condition that Brown, with astonishing and foolish complacency, said he had abolished.
Instead we are on the way to being well and truly bust. Financial meltdown threatens. The day may not be far off when foreigners will be about as likely to entrust their savings and lend their money to Brown's Britain as they are to Castro's Cuba.
If that day comes, then Brown and Darling, RBS and HBOS will be at the top of the list of Guilty Men (a bit rough in Darling's case, perhaps, since he is merely Gordon's gofer).
And Alex Salmond will not have to urge the English to let his people go - they will be holding the door open for us to depart.
• Alan Massie is author of The Thistle And The Rose: Six Centuries Of Love And Hate Between The Scots And The English.
dailymail.co.uk
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