Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 6:31 pm
Posts: 12045
Location: Aberdeen
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Wings Over Scotland
A common enemy
Posted on September 19, 2013 by Mark Frankland
[Over the coming months we aim to bring you the breadth and depth of the Yes vote under our "Perspectives" tag, because there's no such thing as a "typical" Yes supporter. Yesterday we heard from 15-year-old Saffron Dickson. Today it's the turn of one of the many English people living in Scotland who want out of the UK too.]
I saw a poll last week that gave the Yes campaign for an independent Scotland a 1% lead. The last time I looked, the No camp had had it by a country mile. Is this phenomenal turnaround any kind of surprise? Not in the slightest.
In an era of such abject political mediocrity, Alex Salmond stands out like a giant redwood among a field of saplings. It’s hard to imagine how far behind he would have to be for the No campaign to feel truly confident of success. A few weeks before the last Scottish Elections he was 20 points adrift, but when the ballots were counted he won by a country mile.
I’m no kind of betting man, but if I was, it would be a no-brainer as to where punt my cash. Not only is Salmond the standout politician of his generation in terms of getting ballots into boxes, the lineup who are going try to take him down aren’t even close to being in the same league. All of which makes it seem more than likely that Scotland will be its own nation in a year’s time.
It occurred to me the other day that I’ve now spent a third of my life up here as a “white settler”. I’m now a well and truly established immigrant. My English roots, though, don’t deny me the chance to have a vote on Scotland’s future and, unless something changes in a big way, that vote is almost certainly going to be Yes.
Why? I guess when you’ve lived most of your life down in England it makes it easy to appreciate all the stuff that’s so much better up here. A few years ago my dad wound up in a Wigan hospital, having had a stroke. I couldn’t believe the state of the place when I went to see him. When compared to hospitals up here, it was sub-third-world.
Whenever I give presentations in English schools they seem like peeling, dismal places when compared to schools up here. There’s less traffic, you can see the stars in the sky, you can park your car without worrying about it getting nicked or set on fire.
It seems like more and more people down south are starting to notice all this stuff. They’re picking up on the fact that whenever the news carries a story about yet another NHS crisis or some horrendous abuse in a private-equity-owned chain of children’s homes, it’s always suffixed by the statement “… in England and Wales”.
Whenever we travel south, we get asked questions like “How come you lot get free prescriptions and free university tuition and free care for the elderly?” Why indeed? I can’t pretend to have many of the answers, but it’s pretty damn crystal clear that the railroad is much better run once you find yourself north of Gretna Green.
As a born and bred Lancastrian, I have an instinctive loathing of the South East of England and all who sail in her. My formative years in the 70s and 80s saw the North was sent to hell in a handcart, and no-one in London seemed to give a damn.
In fact, they seemed to find the whole thing amusing. I spent many an afternoon penned into the away sections of Stamford Bridge or White Hart Lane or Upton Park being spat on by hordes of leering Cockneys, every one of whom had made a point of bringing a £20 note to the game to wave in our faces.
“… Hey rock’n'roll… Scousers on the dole…”
How hilarious. But for me this is the biggest difference. In many ways, Dumfries & Galloway is every much of a backwater up here as Lancashire is down there. The difference is that the government in Edinburgh can’t afford to ignore us the way that Northerners are ignored by Westminster.
We’re a tiny independent charity based in a small, sleepy town and yet it’s always been possible to reach those in power. Over the years we’ve been invited to give the view from the frontline to Parliamentary Committees four times. Many politicians have also come down to see us to get a pavement level view of what’s going down.
In our time we’ve played host to the First Minister, two party leaders, the Education Minister and the Parliament’s Presiding Officer. This would never happen in a million years in England. It’s the beauty of living in a country of five million. Things are more connected, easier to run properly, and it’s more possible to make your voice heard.
So a life-long contempt for the leafy suburbs of Surrey and all those insufferable Etonians in the shining towers of the City and the bloated billionaires of Belgravia is one big reason for sticking up two fingers in a southerly direction and putting my cross in the Yes box.
But there’s no point in pretending that there won’t be a healthy amount of self-interest in my Yes vote. Salmond is smart enough and streetwise enough to make this place rock over the coming years. Even before I came up here to live, I’d always say I was from Scotland when travelling around the world. Say ‘England’ and most people think ‘London’ and hate your guts. Say ‘Scotland’ and a big grin appears on their faces.
(You only need to look at the different experiences that English and Scottish fans have when they travel abroad. When the English come to town, every door is locked, every bar is closed and lines of riot police complete with snarling dogs represent the nearest thing there is to a welcoming committee. When the Scots hit town everyone takes to the streets for party time.)
Just imagine how the French will be. They’ll be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of an independent Scotland. Imagine how much pleasure it’ll give to those in the corridors of power in Paris to help make Scotland boom at the expense of London.
And the French won’t be alone. Ever since Maggie rubbed our European neighbours up the wrong way back in the day, there are many in Europe who will relish the chance at getting some revenge served cold on the arrogant public school boys of Whitehall.
Ever noticed what they play when there’s a huge police funeral in Philadelphia or Baltimore? Bagpipes. All over the world there’s a fondness for Scotland. Sometimes it’s down to watching ‘Braveheart’ or ‘Whisky Galore’ or ‘Rob Roy’. Sometimes it’s down to having a surname beginning with Mac. There are a tonne of reasons and you can bet your bottom dollar that Alex Salmond will exploit every single last one of them.
I gather that he has all kinds of cunning tax plans up his sleeve ready and waiting for the day when the cord is cut. Scotland will have Corporation Tax as low if not lower than any in Europe. And here’s where he’ll surely hit the ball out of the park: Over the next fifty years, most of the money in the world will continue to flow out East. Let’s imagine a Chinese mogul taking a look around Europe to find the best place to site his new assembly plant complete with hundreds of jobs.
First up, he’ll compile a list of the places with the lowest tax regimes and Scotland will be up there at the top. And then he’ll have a little smile to himself. The odds are that like most East Asians, two of his most favourite things in life will be whisky and golf. So he’ll create a mental picture of his regular visits to his new assembly plant:
A flight into Edinburgh. An easy ride out to a big pile of a house in the hills where the air is a trillion times less polluted that his home air in Shanghai. He’ll picture sipping an old malt in front of a stacked up log fire. He’ll picture himself striding down the 17th at St Andrews like Tiger Woods. He’ll picture taking photos of his son graduating from Edinburgh University. And all the other names will soon be crossed off the list.
It’s ironic. When it came to doing the very dirtiest of the Empire’s work, the Scots were always front and centre. A majority of estate managers in the slave plantations of the West Indies spoke with a Scottish twang. History’s two greatest ever drug dealers who managed to get the nation of China hopelessly hooked on opium were Jardine and Mathieson, fine Scotsmen both.
But for one reason or another, this somewhat uncomfortable fact seems to have been quietly airbrushed from history. The blame for all the bad stuff we Brits have done over the years now lies squarely in London whilst the Scots are seen as all nice and cuddly and blameless. Well, no-one is complaining up here.
So in my very humble opinion, a Scotland with Alex Salmond at the helm will be a place that’ll boom and keep on booming. Quiet roads, well-educated people, low crime, clean air, whisky and golf courses and all the sweeteners in the world for any business wanting to locate here. London will hate it and no doubt there’ll be those who will dream of going back to the good old days and sending the army up to Carlisle.
But will London suffer? Not really. The City of London will still launder cash for any crook with a suitcase full of it. Tourists will still flock in to buy replica models of Big Ben made in China. Russian billionaires will still pay tens of millions for their mansions in Hampstead complete with razor wire and underground cinemas and pools. And this is the point at which my emotions become mixed.
London and the South East will not pay the price for a booming Scotland. London and the South east will become a permanent gated community where the immigrants work for buttons and the poor are despised and the super-rich are fawned over and pampered. The Express and the Daily Mail will have the same front page every other day where they report yet anther 10% increase in London property prices with breathless excitement.
(The headlines on the in-between days will be cancer and Diana, of course.)
Sadly the price will be paid yet again by the North of England with its worthless minority of Labour MPs who will become yesterday’s men once an independent Scotland deprives them of the votes they need to stand a chance of ever holding power again. What chance will Lancashire, Yorkshire, Humberside or Tyneside have of attracting that new Chinese assembly plant and all the jobs that go with it? None.
Competing with a booming, low tax Scotland will be completely impossible. And all the kids of the north who do well in school and university will start to get on the bus and head north instead of south to seek their futures in the new Caledonia.
For all of us who live up here, the future looks pretty damn good. I only hope that the price won’t have to be paid by the North of England. When can we move the border?http://wingsoverscotland.com/a-common-enemy/
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