Anger as Scotland labelled nation obsessed by failure

A LEADING broadcaster and cultural commentator drew heavy criticism last night after he accused the Scots of being an unimaginative and inward-looking race who like to celebrate failure and poverty.

Stuart Cosgrove, the director of nations and regions at Channel 4, was accused of pandering to a traditional stereotype that bears no relationship to reality.

In an interview with a Sunday newspaper just before the Scottish rugby team’s Six Nations defeat by Ireland at Murrayfield, Cosgrove said he believed the Scots "prefer failure" and enjoy obsessing over it.

Referring to films such as Trainspotting and Small Faces, he said: "There is hardly one film made in Scotland by a Scot that is not cast in some dreary, awful, urban, deprived social landscape. I think this is a failure of the imagination. This self-loathing, inward-looking obsession has damaged Scotland. It doesn't capture the joie de vivre or the celebratory attitude of the Scots. It announces to the world that we are a backwater, poor and deprived, when we are not. We are one of the richest nations in the world, yet love to represent ourselves not to be."

He said he was constantly amazed at the number of Scots he met who seemed genuinely proud of the country’s "sick man of Europe" tag. "The Scots prefer failure - whether that’s the failure of the national football team, the failure of industries, the failure of the parliament. They almost obsess over it," he said. "They also love the culture of poverty. They indulge the culture of poverty. The rise of the Scottish Socialist Party is a case in point. They don’t seem to be able to imagine themselves out of this culture."

However, leading Scots last night rejected this view and said the country was a prosperous place, full of talent, self-confidence, determination and entrepreneurialism.

The author Ian Rankin said: "Stuart has been working for Channel 4 for many years, [a channel] which airs youth programmes that celebrate Scotland as a working-class country, so he knows of what he speaks. Shameless is another Channel 4 programme, which celebrates working-class characters, that will have Stuart’s fingerprints all over it. Maybe he should put a mirror up to himself.

"I think it is good to examine yourself and look at the negatives because this is the way you can learn and gain positive ways forward. What I know is that in the street I live in there are three hugely successful world-class writers. I don’t think Scotland is always portrayed in a bad light."

The actress Una McLean thought Cosgrove was "talking a lot of rubbish". She said: "There is a hell of a lot of success in Scotland. People are better off than they were even, say, 20 years ago, and I don’t think we are depressed.

"Terrible things happen and I think they should be aired, but I don’t think we are obsessed by failure. We are a very caring nation and we want to get rid of these things, so that is why we write and talk about them."

Margo MacDonald, the independent MSP, said: "I have known and liked Stuart for years but I regret to say he is beginning to show his age. I believe young Scots are showing tremendous self-confidence, determination and entrepreneurialism. Stuart’s comments are maybe right for his age group but not the younger generations."

Professor Tom Devine, author of The Scottish Nation, said: "What Stuart and other so-called contemporary gurus don’t seem to realise is we’ve gone through a massive economic and social revolution in the past 20 years in Scotland, unparalleled over five centuries. We’ve reinvented ourselves in our own lifetime. I see no evidence of a celebration of failure in Scotland."