JOYCE McMILLAN: How Digby Jones and Ross Finnie both got it wrong

Published on Tuesday 3 September 2002 01:00

IT’S A lamentable tale from start to finish, the story of Ross and Digby, and the row that erupted after last Friday’s Confederation of British Industry dinner in Glasgow. In the blue corner, we have Digby Jones, UK director-general of the CBI, the chap who thought Friday’s dinner a suitable occasion to repeat his allegation - apparently unsupported by any significant evidence - that anti-English attitudes in Scotland are having a serious detrimental effect on the Scottish economy.

In the tartan corner, we have Ross Finnie, environment minister in the Scottish Executive, who, in the aftermath of the speech, chose to refer to Digby Jones not just as a prat but as "an English prat", thereby implying that Jones’s prattishness is in some way related to his Englishness. And somewhere out there in the dark, as usual, we have enlightened Scottish opinion, wondering which of the two of them presents the least attractive sight.

For let’s be clear: neither of them spoils a pair. As a spokesman for British business, Digby Jones is one of those types who leaves one wondering just how the idea of privatisation ever caught on in this country; a purveyor of blustering speeches which come as a constant reminder of just how narrow, unimpressive and ill-informed British business opinion can be at its worst, and of the extent to which some members of Britain’s pampered boss-class really need to get out more, if only to remind themselves that not everyone shares their world-view.

Worse, as a representative of some of the more conservative elements of British establishment opinion, Jones shows the kind of routine fear and hostility towards the idea of post-devolution Scotland that is now quite common in some metropolitan circles, where blimpish souls find relief in the idea that a self-governing Scotland is doomed to sink into a long dark night of rabid ethnic nationalism, unreconstructed municipal socialism, and fierce Christian fundamentalism.

Of course, those of us who live and work here can see that 90 per cent of this is pure projection, with no relationship to anything that has happened on the ground. Anti-English feeling has always existed in Scotland, and has not strengthened since devolution. The legislation passing through the Parliament has generally been "politically correct" to a fault, rather than religious or reactionary. Unreconstructed socialism, municipal or otherwise, is not an option in any part of Tony Blair’s Britain. And I am at a loss, as a professional observer of Scottish cultural life, to detect any sign that devolved Scotland has become more inward-looking; rather the reverse, since many creative Scots have taken the settlement of the home-rule issue as a cue to turn their attention elsewhere.

But the rapid implementation of devolution came as a tremendous shock to those elements of British conservative opinion which had not felt the need, throughout the 18 years of Tory government, to talk to anyone who did not share their own views; and their reaction to that shock is the tide of negative and sometimes fantastical coverage of the "new Scotland" that has washed through the metropolitan media, unchecked and often uncontested.

It is, of course, extremely unfortunate for the CBI that its director-general should choose to recycle these vague prejudices as part of what could have been a serious analysis of Scotland’s economic problems. Apart from anything else, the CBI in Scotland currently has a serious case to make to the Executive about the high levels of Scottish business rates compared with those south of the Border; and Jones’s ill-advised use of Friday’s CBI Scottish dinner as an occasion to attack Scottish attitudes has not only distracted attention from that case, but helped to undermine it.

But if Digby Jones has behaved like a prat - and there seems to be little informed dissent from that view - that does not excuse the conduct of those in positions of public responsibility who choose to respond in kind.

It is clear, of course, that there was a great deal of patronising anti-Scottishness implicit in Digby Jones’s speech; and it is certainly annoying to have to put up with this sort of insult without retaliating. Nor do modern British political parties produce talent in the kind of quantity that makes it easy to discard any minister just for failing, like most career politicians, to understand the first thing about culture and changing cultural sensitivities. What Ross Finnie said is no more offensive than most of David Blunkett’s recent remarks on asylum seekers and Britishness, and at least Finnie has had the grace to apologise.

But the fact is that when it comes to anti-English attitudes, ministers in the Scottish Executive have to be above suspicion; and if Ross Finnie remains in government, Jack McConnell’s perceived willingness to condone his outburst could perhaps return to haunt him in future.

Speaking yesterday from Johannesburg, the First Minister tried to dismiss the whole Jones-Finnie row as a trivial personal incident, far less important than various new Executive initiatives on environmental sustainability; and in one sense, he is right.

At a deeper level, in post-devolution Britain, these details matter. The long-term viability of devolved Scottish government depends on the continuing peaceful consent of the people of Britain as a whole; and nothing is more likely to undermine that consent than the suspicion that what is going on in Scotland is mainly an expression of anti-English hatred. That is why the enemies of Scottish home rule lay such a heavy emphasis on anti-English feeling in Scotland, and seek to suggest that devolution has increased it; and it is why those who want devolution to succeed must be meticulous both in refusing to collude with anti-English feeling in any form, and in seeking to combat it wherever it occurs.

Which brings us, finally, to the old siren song of some nationalist thinkers on these matters, who allege that anti-English sentiment in Scotland is a natural and even healthy reaction to our position as a small nation living under the shadow of a larger one, and therefore cannot be classed as racism or as any kind of reactionary prejudice. Which would be a fine argument, if only nations were monolithic, inanimate things.

But nations are made up of individual people; and whenever we express dislike of a nation, we inevitably hurt and insult every individual member of that nation, no matter how much we may claim that we meant nothing personal. If we want to dismiss Digby Jones as a prat, then fine. But if we bring his Englishness into it, we show ourselves no more evolved, no more sensitive, no more sophisticated in our understanding of modern identity politics, than Digby Jones himself.

And worse than that, we miss the whole point of devolution in the UK, which is precisely about replacing old relationships of conflict, dominance, bullying and resentment between the nations and regions of these islands with relationships of mutual respect and affection, and a genuine appreciation of diversity.

That this is a political dream is undeniable. But under 21st century conditions, it’s one which can easily be made to come true. And it’s one that each of us can help to bring a step closer, every time we refuse to join in an outburst of cheap anti-English banter; and every time we insist on insulting fools for what they say and do, rather than for where they happen to have been born.