Nicola Sturgeon's resignation has revealed a yawning chasm of ignorance about Scotland
Jings - this has been some week for politicians and journalists who don’t know as much as they think they do about Scotland to spout off about Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised - on a trip down south last weekend I stood for some time in a large and well-appointed bookstore, staring at a wall of books marked “Modern Britain”. There was just one book about Scotland (“The break-up - how Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon went to war”), and nothing about Northern Ireland or Wales. This resounding lack of interest has been writ large this week.
How about this from the FT’s Camilla Cavendish - someone I normally admire - who covered half a page in the FT with “analysis” like this:
“I don’t regard anyone with a Scots, Irish or Welsh accent as an enemy. But Sturgeon and the SNP regard me as an English marauder for having an English accent and living in London.”
To set the record straight, Nicola Sturgeon saw Britain post-Scottish independence as a close “family of nations” - albeit one where Scotland can take its own decisions. There is no enmity or hostility to the English in that. In fact, many new Scots have English accents - including some featured on SNP party political broadcasts.
Independence supporters believe that Scotland is a country rich in resources with a diverse and highly-educated people, that it can govern itself successfully - and that that will be the best future for Scotland.
Brexit confirmed for many that Scotland is not treated as an equal partner within the UK - after Scotland voted decisively to remain in the EU, the UK government refused to negotiate with Scotland’s elected representatives, who proposed a compromise similar to the NI protocol.
The struggle for independence isn’t caused by devolution as Camilla and others seem to believe. Home Rule started being promised to Scotland by Gladstone. All parties including the Conservatives signed up to it - although they later reneged. The long Thatcher years when Scotland was ruled by a Grand Committee packed with Tories from the Shires saw increasingly vociferous demands for a Parliament.
Scotland has often voted for UK governments it didn’t get. The Scottish Labour Party’s decline is largely because its assurance that long periods of Conservative rule are a price worth paying to remain in the UK started to wear thin.
Many commentators and politicians also seem to regard it as a truism that Scotland has been left by Sturgeon in a parlous state and that the FM didn’t concentrate “on the day job”. Even the Guardian isn’t much interested in any progress Scotland is making towards a fairer society. Scots however seem aware of the positives - a poll showed 59% Scots think Nicola Sturgeon the left the country in a better state than she found it.
Sturgeon didn’t close “the attainment gap” between rich and poor children but her administration has taken steps that may in time narrow it. The recent Joseph Rowntree annual poverty report said that child poverty in Scotland is now comparable with that in the south of England. In contrast, progress made in the north of England is “unraveling”.
The IFS recently reported that Scotland’s tax system is more progressive than anywhere else in the UK - top rates of tax are higher but the poorest families get a payment of £100 per child per month.
Scots children are also more likely to get free school meals - provision is now universal up to age 10. 51% of the school roll in Scotland get free meals - compared to 22% in England. The Scottish government has also doubled entitlement to free early years education.
Scots pupils from a deprived background are 50% more likely to go to University than down south. Scotland’s modernised curriculum had some trouble bedding in but it was praised by the OECD last year. The exam diet is now under review and the aim is that it will offer pupils a more flexible route to acquiring qualifications, with courses that allow for more self-direction and project work. Scotland’s Astronomer Royal Catherine Heymans last week said on Radio Scotland that a bigger percentage of girls take Physics post-16 in Scotland - “so we must be doing something right”.
There are other areas in which Scotland is doing better than the UK. It seems to have averted a health strike. Because prescriptions are free here, chronic health conditions are better controlled than in England.
Water rates are going up by 7.5% in England this year but only 5% in Scotland - Scottish water remains a publicly-owned company, accountable to the Scottish government.
Transport is much cheaper. Scotrail is now a nationalised company. It too has averted a strike (although strikes on the UK rail network affect it). Peak fares are being abolished for a six-month trial - Edinburgh to Glasgow day return will cost a quarter the price of a similar journey in England. Ferries are much cheaper than down south. Bus travel is free for under-22s. That is infrastructure that helps people to live and work across the country, while reducing climate impact.
Many commentators seem to believe that Scotland is poorer than the rest of the UK - it isn’t. Scotland’s GDP is one of the highest in the UK, it exports double per head of population what the UK does. (It is disproportionately affected by Brexit as a result).
Scotland sends large amounts of renewable energy to England. Most of the UK’s oil and gas are produced from Scottish waters (though the UK chooses to take most tax at the pump rather than at source in a unique regime that means for example, Shell takes 120,000 barrels of oil a day from Scottish waters but has made no taxable profit on that since 2017.)
Ipsos Mori started measuring support for independence in 1979 when it was 14%. Now it is consistently around 50%. The trend suggests that Scotland is on a path towards independence - however long that may take.
Ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky famously said “I skate to where the puck is going not to where it has been.” Maybe, instead of long periods of indifference punctuated by dismissal, politicians and commentators should start to think more positively about Scottish independence and consider how that future family of independent British nations can work together.
"Independence supporters believe that Scotland is a country rich in resources with a diverse and highly-educated people,"That belief is based on Tertiary Education,i.e Post secondary education.Scotland is way down the league for secondary education,that is why the SNP Government shelved the OECD report in the 2021 Scottish election.1.69 of the electorate in Scotland did not vote in the Brexit referendum , however,the SNP did fight tooth and nail to remove Scotland from the EU in the 2014 Independence referendum, a gold standard democratic vote which the SNP have never accepted.Poverty has increased in Scotland .2021, 1 million people in Scotland in poverty,including 250,000 Children, and will miss it's target in 2024.Scottish renewable s are a United Kingdom success story,out side of the U.K Scotland would not have achieved renewable s to that extent.Scotland produces 56% of energy from renewable s not 100% as the SNP would have you believe.64% of Scotlands exports go to the rest of the U.K , less than 18%to the EU..Last nights STV debate with three candidates, how many times was Education mentioned,how many times Drug deaths,how many times welfare?
"Independence supporters believe that Scotland is a country rich in resources with a diverse and highly-educated people,"That belief is based on Tertiary Education,i.e Post secondary education.Scotland is way down the league for secondary education,that is why the SNP Government shelved the OECD report in the 2021 Scottish election.1.69 of the electorate in Scotland did not vote in the Brexit referendum , however,the SNP did fight tooth and nail to remove Scotland from the EU in the 2014 Independence referendum, a gold standard democratic vote which the SNP have never accepted.Poverty has increased in Scotland .2021, 1 million people in Scotland in poverty,including 250,000 Children, and will miss it's target in 2024.Scottish renewable s are a United Kingdom success story,out side of the U.K Scotland would not have achieved renewable s to that extent.Scotland produces 56% of energy from renewable s not 100% as the SNP would have you believe.64% of Scotlands exports go to the rest of the U.K , less than 18%to the EU..Last nights STV debate with three candidates, how many times was Education mentioned,how many times Drug deaths,how many times welfare?