When Scotland failed to qualify for the World Cup, its political leader, First Minister Jack McConnell, said he would support any team playing against England. So, according to a poll, would two-thirds of the population of Scotland.
Following Mr. Connell's announcement, a 7-year-old boy wearing an English St. George's Cross on his T-shirt and kicking a football in a park with his father in Edinburgh was punched in the head by an adult attacker who screamed: "This is Scotland, not ****ing England!" Athough many Scots expressed shame and apologies to the "wee boy," this was only the beginning of a series of vicious incidents. In Aberdeen a disabled man was dragged from a car and attacked for showing a St. George's Cross flag. In Linwood, Renfrewshire, two England supporters aged 19 and 36 were hospitalized after being beaten up by Scots when they toasted England's victory over Trinidad and Tobago.
When these incidents were reported in the press, readers' letters revealed many similar happenings, such as: "I am a swerving soldier and I and many other English families in our area are sick of being targetted by your yobs...targetting parked cars with English flags, ripping down English flags from houses..." A former Royal Air Force man wrote: "The last time I was [in Scotland] I was openly insulted and will not return."
Leading London journalist Stephen Glover wrote: "An Englishman living in Scotland displayed the St. George's flag outside his house by way of identifying with England's World Cup team. His windows were smashed. The same man says that abuse was also hurled at him when he went to his local shop wearing an England strip....Whenever I visit Scotland, I am amazed at how self-preoccupied the country has become...I mourn for my disintegrating country. Some profound re-shaping of national identity is taking place. I grow more and more fearful."
England-Scotland football matches have been banned because of vicious fighting. English conventions at Scottish hotels have been canceled.
[Snip]
Normally, when federal states like the U.S., Australia, and Canada are engaged in international sporting contests, people put aside state rivalries and support the national team as a matter of course. That things are going so differently in Britain shows one aspect of an increasingly dysfunctional political culture.
A Scottish police spokesman said: "We will not be advising people not to wear English shirts." What is astounding is that this needed to be said at all.
What is happening between England and Scotland is really nothing to do with sporting rivalry. It is to do with a surging nationalistic and political hatred that has flourished since the Blair government granted Scotland its own National Assembly, and, perhaps co-incidentally, the adversary culture stepped up a general attack on
established British history and traditions. In a number of visits to Scotland since 1973 I had never until recently encountered anything remotely like it.
England and Scotland have Labour governments in deep trouble. In Scotland, where the Tories are comprehensively wrecked, the next government may be Scottish Nationalists, who may well encourage even more extremism.From the day it gained office in Britain New Labour, in an ambiguous alliance with orces further left, has either initiated or connived at loosening, weakening, unscrewing and generally damaging the structures of virtually every British institution and tradition. Its crowning achievement may be the actual destruction of the United Kingdom.
For all the gratitude that patriotic Americans feel toward Tony Blair for his unwavering support for the US in its global war against Islamofascism the fact is that in every other respect he is a barking moonbat.
As a left-liberal “loosening, weakening, unscrewing and generally damaging the structures of. . . institution[s] and tradition[s]” comes naturally to him.
Of course it should be noted that Scottish antipathy toward England is not new.
Look at the lyrics to Capercaillie’s song “Beautiful Wasteland”:
I embraced my father's warnings, and studied in your schools
to justify your theories and convoluted rules
Travelled to the corners, where everybody knows
My country's been wearing, the emperor's clothes
Or “Waiting For The Wheel To Turn”
Living in a place with time
Living in a place where reality is
Standing on a big broad line
Watching it all go byAh, but you're taking it all away
The music, the tongue and the old refrains
You're coming here to play
And you're pulling the roots from a dying age.
Remember the Buachaille Mor
Reaching for the skies from the barren shores
Watching over the village of burns
And counting the days since the gael kept home
But the stranger claims it now
Sitting like a king with his gold from the south
Don't you see the waves of wealth
Wasing away the soul from the land.
Here come the Clearances my friend
Silently our history is coming to life again
We feel the breeze from the storm to come
And up and down the coast
We're waiting for the wheel to turn
Free were the fields of fern
Free was the fishing in the coves of care
Empty are the homes of old
Empty for the sake of summer's cause
Yes, you're taking it all away
The music, the tongue and the old refrains
You're coming here to play
And you're pulling the roots from a dying age.
Here come the Clearances my friend
Silently our history is coming to life again
We feel the breeze from the storm to come
And up and down the coastWe're waiting for the wheel to turn
The people who are “taking it all away” are the English. The “Wheel” is the wheel of history which lifts those who are on the bottom to the top and casts those on top to the bottom as it inexorably turns, and the “Storm to Come” is full Scottish independence. This song was written before Tony Blair became Prime Minister.
If you want an inkling of the cause of the Scotsman’s resentment against England watch Braveheart. Celts have long memories.
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