Pooling and Sharing Scottish Inventions

'Tis that time of year again, St Andrew's Day - time for British PM's to apologetically tell us how great Scotland is - but only within the UK - because otherwise it would be crap. Unfortunately this year's speech was much worse being as it was made by Arch-Tory David Cameron. You can read it here - although be aware, you'll need a hardy disposition because its a no-holds-barred boak-fest.

Before you consider looking at the clip below, you should know that it will trigger a natural reaction. Normally buried, the fight or flight instinct, pops up at times of extreme stress. Otherwise known as 'gut-instinct', one second you'll be sitting with an intact computer monitor or tablet - the next second it'll be on the floor in pieces. With knuckles bloodied and expensive tablets half-buried in walls, all because your hypothalamus liaised with your pituitary gland and adrenal medulla and decided to ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK.*

All of it will be because you watched this, isn't biology wonderful?

Firstly, I'd like to clear up an issue of nomenclature - which is a fantastic word that makes me sound a lot brighter than I actually am. In the same way a Labour voter differs from a Labour activist - a No voter also differs from a unionists. A unionist is to the UK constitution what a Labour activist is to Labour policy - even in the face of demonstrable fact, logic and common sense; their support is unconditional. On the other hand, a Labour voter might only do so because its what they've always done and a No voter might have done so because of duress deployed during the campaign.

Either way, its important because you'll never change (or understand) the mind of a Labour activist and rarely the mind of a unionist. I don't want to put people who may have done something grudgingly and with gritted teeth into the same category as those who did so with heedless abandon born of a mixture of willful ignorance and cockeyed logic.

A Scottish Labour activist works through some policy decisions.

Going back to Cameron's bilious speech. Its a good example of why the independence referendum was lost. Scottish cultural waypoints as outlined by Dishface really are how we're perceived within the Union, for years Scottish culture has been made cartoonish and sidelined for the beautific grace of British culture. During the referendum campaign, it went into overdrive. Take the Braveheart meme as an example, only unionists ever mentioned the film in serious debate. It was they who linked Mel Gibson's daft Brigadoonery to the Yes campaign, not nationalists. 

Meanwhile, British culture is about matters of great historical gravitas. It is a noble thing, scrubbed clean by nostalgia - all the thorns are removed and the results dressed up in robes of parliamentary pomp and royal heraldry. Cameron mentions Scottish discoveries in science and art but would never portray those achievements outside the confines (and they are confines) of the United Kingdom.

In the referendum campaign, the hopes and aspirations of the Yes campaign and those who may have become Yes voters but didn't, was usurped by a unionist interpretation of Scottish history - it was made small & doltish, fallacious & anachronous. To paraphrase a Pink Floyd song; we traded our heroes for ghosts, hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze and cold comfort for change.

When it came to social change, the Better Together campaign had very little to say beyond vacuous slogans about pooling & sharing resources and doing things they could have done years ago but didn't. Instead, they shouted down aspirations of social democracy and fairness with thinly veiled slurs about how incapable we would have be outside the protective embrace of the union - Cameron's speech is just an extension of that message.

Of course it goes without saying, if we ever talk about it, we're told its the chip on our shoulder speaking...

* Or if you're a No voter, to run away. (I'm joking of course.)