Scotland not that different from England

Published on 04/07/2012 00:00

I read Lesley Riddoch’s article on “Scotland’s new deal” (Perspective, 2 July) with increasing annoyance. She seems to believe that we are already some divorced part of the UK, with totally different standards and culture to England. What are her grounds for this?

For starters, I am very willing to bet that there are just as many people here as in England who would like to be less ruled by the European Union, if not out of it altogether.

Then there is her ridiculous and totally unsubstantiated premise that US-style personal and corporate values and greed stop as you cross the Border. How absurd.

She then lambasts England (meaning the City) and says that “the banking crisis could only happen in a country where cheating and deception have become institutionalised and could only be tolerated by voters because they… harbour hopes of rising to the same rule-breaking heights”.

Well, maybe she is not aware that two of the biggest contributors to the banking crisis were banks based right here in Edinburgh, both with heavyweight Scottish managements. She asks if we want to get individually rich or set aside personal greed to create a more equal society.

This is like asking a man when he stopped beating his wife: of course, we want a fairer society. However, she is light on how this can be achieved.

Well, let me tell Ms Riddoch that it cannot be achieved unless individuals retain the desire to achieve and become rich – or does she envisage a North Korean-style socialist state?

David K Allan

Mainshill

Haddington, East Lothian

Lesley Riddoch’s piece is one of these world-shaping articles that come from outstanding journalists in times of change.

She identifies the aspirational gap that is growing between the cautious SNP and the enormous potential of an independent Scotland for beneficial change.

Scotland is like an early hominid wandering out onto the savannah, looking back into the bush where his fellows are still sheltering and hearing deep in the jungle behind the sounds of the Unionist primates crashing about in the trees, then, realising that the future lies in the more austere but promising grassland, turning to go forward.

Iain WD Forde

Main Street

Scotlandwell, Kinross-shire

I’M SURE Lesley Riddoch tries to pander to her Scottish/North British readership on the question of the UK and Scotland’s continued membership of the EU.

But I’m not certain the average Northern English person wants to be lumped in with their “little Englander” cousins in the south.

My late Geordie wife often got steamed up à la Stephenson’s Rocket when bunged in the same coal tender, either in Scotland or mainland Europe.

Recent conversations with her sisters on Wearside and in Berkshire suggest that “nowt’s changed with them damned Tories still rulin’ the roost”.

DOUGLAS BAIN

Oxgangs Road

Edinburgh