Monday 11 May 2015

Why has England suddenly developed an irrational fear of Scotland?


I try to understand the views of people south of the Union Bridge who are ranting about Scotland, I really do, but I can't get my head that far up my arsehole to make sense of any of them. I mean, I'm not only English myself, but I only moved to Edinburgh two years ago, so understanding England should be second nature to me, but I am completely lost.

The day before the election I was chatting on the 'phone to a very old friend in Manchester who wishes Scotland well and envies us our goodies. She reported that the lecturer at her Italian night school class was fearful about Labour having to rely on SNP votes in the event of a hung parliament. I laughed about that, thinking that she had the local nutter teaching her Italian, but she said very quietly that the view was not uncommon in Manchester.

Speaking to another old pal in London I heard similar stories about an irrational fear of Scottish hordes descending on London to give the city a taste of what the Soviet army had given to Berlin in 1945. He thought all this was as funny as me, and I put it all down to the fact that my mates had obviously bumped into some weird people.

The feeling that it was just a few unrepresentative tosspots giving it one with the wrist was confirmed when I called up some other old Mancunian cronies to jolly them along into voting Labour and found that they had no interest in Scotland. Fear of the Tories and further benefit cuts was all they cared about and quite rightly so.

The election results taught me which group of friends were correct in all this, and now the Herald has sent a reporter to England to write a story about the utter wankery that seems to be infecting people down there.

Some of it is good fun. Take Paul Taylor who complains: "I hate the way she (Nicola Sturgeon) says the word 'Tories'; I know she can't help the way she speaks any more than I can but I don't like her accent and I don't like the way she and her party see English people."


This is ultra bollocks, of course, because hating Tories and the class who vote Tory is as common on council estates in England as it is in Scotland. You also have to love the way he conflates "Tory" with "English people" as well.

No, it is not some Tory that I worry about, rather it's the so-called left down south. The attitude there seems to be that we have been "cynically manipulated" into making a "protest vote" that has let the Tories in. You just have to shake your head at that level of innumerate stupidity, don't you? The simple truth is that if you put together the SNP and Labour in the Commons they still cannot muster enough votes to defeat the scum sucking Tories. The fault for that lies in England, not Scotland.

As an Englishman in the constituency of Edinburgh North and Leith I voted for Deirdre Brock, the Australian born SNP candidate who has lived in the UK for less than twenty years as my next Member of Parliament. I did that because I did not trust the Labour Party to stand up for the working class and I wanted to give Ed Miliband a bit of the political Viagra that he would need with the Tories in front of him and his real enemies, the Blairites, behind.

It is not my fault that other English people bought into the Tory narrative. Neither is it my fault that metropolitan leftists seem to think that only they can set the terms of political debate and that the rest of us have to dance to their tune. Sorry, but those days are over.

Far too many people south of the River Tweed do not seem to have woken up to the new politics, and are reduced to making fatuous statements about the tartan menace instead. 

8 comments:

  1. Good article, the education of our English cousins should be taken seriously, they have been deliberately misinformed by a right wing press,who told them that the Scots have an inbred hatred for the English. I dont know anyone who feels that way, but I know many who despise the Tories and everything they stand for

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    1. Yeah, that's the point. Nobody has any ill will towards the English as a nation, they just hate the Tories. And New Labour, let's not forget that fact. People wanted revenge in 1997 and look what they got. Northern England where I am from had no choice but to vote Labour last week, but we did.

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  2. Excellent article Ken, I'm a scottish Bell living in the deep south completely surrounded by tory voters and the lies and misconceptions about how the Scots hate the English etc relly bewilders me.The scots have ,without doubt become far more politically engaged than the average person in England with the exception of the hard line tory/labour diehards. The scaremongering tactics used by the right wing media works very well on them but the lack of understanding amongst the general man in the street baffles me. Are they all frightened of a change to more caring altruistic politics because they don't really understand how they are being shafted every which way be the establishment lackies???

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    1. The people that I know back home who are on benefits don't even think about Scotland, still less resent the place. The resentment seems to be from those who are sort of doing OK, but are just on the margin of not doing OK. The folk who juggle their credit cards to get by and who fear that if they lose their jobs they will be on Queer Street along with the scroungers.

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  3. "Neither is it my fault that metropolitan leftists seem to think that only they can set the terms of political debate and that the rest of us have to dance to their tune. Sorry, but those days are over."

    I feel exactly the same about the SNP.
    I am part of the 50% who did not vote SNP and please remember that the SNP is not Scotland.

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    1. SNP largest party in Scotland officially 3rd largest party in Westminster, 56 MPs massive representation so yes they represent Scotland

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    2. I am one of the 45% who did not vote for the union. Remember the unionist are not Scotland they are just disgruntled Englishmen with a Scottish accent who can't hack things changing. You may stick to your view of not voting for a better Scotland and please do continue being humped by the english but don't be surprised when one day you wake up in an independent Scotland, scratch your head and wonder how on earth that happened! ( 56 of your unionist pals are already wondering that at this point in time)

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  4. Nobody pretends that it is, well at least I don't. I'm not a member of the outfit, but I did vote SNP last week.

    That said, in a multi-party democracy in a civilised country getting fifty percent of the vote is pretty much unheard of. Parties could do it under the old duopoly, but that died a long time ago. The SNP took part in a contest against Conservative, Labour, Liberal-Democrat and UKIP and wiped the floor with all of them.

    That gives the SNP a very powerful mandate to speak for Scotland; a mandate far more powerful that the one that Cameron holds for the UK.

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