Alistair Carmichael, born on Islay, MP for Orkney and Shetland, Secretary of State for Scotland, has told a Parliamentary Press Gallery lunch that there is “no such thing as homogeneous Scottish values or homogeneous English ones”, and that, this being so, Alex Salmond’s attempt to present the independence referendum as “some sort of contest between Scottish values and English values” is bunkum. He is, of course, quite right, and will consequently get it in the neck.
The key word in his speech was “homogeneous”. There is variety in both countries and things in common between them. Just as a working-class Geordie is unlikely to have exactly the same ideas and values as a Surrey banker, so a Glaswegian employed in a call centre won’t see things as an Edinburgh lawyer does, or indeed one of Mr Carmichael’s constituents. An Aberdeenshire farmer will have certain things in common with a farmer in Yorkshire, and an unemployed man on Merseyside with one in the same condition in Lanarkshire. The values of a Labour voter in the English Midlands are not essentially different from those of a Labour voter in the Central Belt of Scotland.
There are overlaps and distinctions throughout the United Kingdom. Half a century ago, before the days of cheap air travel, Glaswegians used to flock to Aberdeen as a seaside resort for their fortnight’s holiday. We thought them strange folk, very different from ourselves; nevertheless we recognised and accepted them as fellow Scots. For centuries in Scotland, the Highland Line was a cultural, though not political, frontier, differences north and south of it being more marked than those either side of the Anglo-Scottish border. Highlanders spoke Gaelic, Lowlanders Scots or English.
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