Proud to be Scottish . . . and English

Awhile ago, when I worked for Tony Blair, some kind and anonymous person created a Wikipedia entry for me. As is the case, if you’re in the news, people write good, bad and ugly things about you – my favourite, long deleted by another anonymous hand, said flatteringly that at times I looked like a young Mark E Smith. But the most controversial statement turned out to be my classification. I was described as a Scottish politician. Fair enough. I thought, I am Scottish and I am an activist, or the great Latin American term, an “agitante”.

A few weeks later, checking my biog, I saw that I had been rebadged as an “English politician”. I couldn’t object. I’d been living in London for nearly 25 years, had been a councillor in a London borough, and a director of the London Docklands Development Corporation. Still, I had a rant at the dinner table: who on earth would make that change on my Wikipedia entry, and why? Defiantly, my younger son said he’d done it. Why? “Because, Dad, you were born in London.”

Here’s the rub. I was born in London. Twickenham to be precise, St Margarets Hospital. But, aged four, I moved to Scotland and went to primary school, secondary school and university in Edinburgh. I didn’t choose where I was born, or where I was brought up – my parents did, or the economic forces that took my dad from Fochabers in Morayshire to west London and back to Heriot-Watt College did. But I did choose my identity. I am Scottish. It’s where my home is – that is, where my mum lives. It’s where my brothers and sisters, and nephews and nieces live. It’s the country whose literature, in Scots and Gaelic, I studied at university. It’s my default setting.

But in my ears, ever since, my son’s words have rung. He has a different view. He was born in London, as was his brother. So was I. And so was my father, his grandad. Where, he logically asks, does the Scottishness come from? Partly, as Neal Ascherson once said, from post code: EH10 in my case. I have always loved this typically generous definition. But my son’s point is real. He has an identity: he’s a Londoner. Don’t I share it too? Of course I do. Just not at the exclusion of other identities. I’m a gardener, a punk, a cyclist, a friend of Israel and of Australia too. Picking and choosing who, and why, you are is one of the great luxuries of this century.

This all leads to the great unanswered question: does the growth of national and sub-national identities in the United Kingdom over the past 30 years strengthen or weaken the underlying identities? The answer is that it has neither impact. It is the glory of London that, as it has moved from capital city to world city, it has shed any residual parochialism.

Mayor Ken Livingstone tried to get the London taxpayers annoyed that because they were good at growth and generated revenues they should resent the rest of the UK, the areas that grew fat on the appropriation of “London’s Money”. But you know what? Londoners shrugged and walked on. They had no interest in a grievance agenda. This is the taste, the smell, the reality of success. You celebrate what you have done, and don’t unpick what others have achieved.

London is at one with itself and its communities, confident and extremely successful. It is relaxed enough to welcome migrants and greet visitors, and able to co-opt people, young and old, black and white. It gives a new identity – Londoner – but does not deny the other identities you might wish to adopt, from Brit to New Zealander. For my sons there is one identity: Londoner, an honourable status. An inclusive one – black, white and Turkish kids agree on it. A consoling and regenerative one too – brilliant London writer Hanif Kureishi, when in the coastal south of England, once listened to a chant from England fans: “I’d rather be a Paki than a Turk.” Disgusting and racist? Yes. But, as Kureishi said, a reminder of why London was all that was best of England. No-one could chant that in the capital.

London fits that glorious slogan that Atlanta, Georgia, coined in the 1970s: the city too busy to hate. And, in truth, when it comes to relations with the rest of the UK, England actually fits that bill of moderation. There is no national rivalry outside sports.

Tabloid newspapers seek to generate anger about different entitlements north of the Border – free this and free that – but it never sticks. The logic of devolution shines through: it’s your power and your choice. It’s an odd yet refreshing settlement. The creation of Great Britain led to the forging of a British identity. The English embraced this eagerly. There may have been many reasons, but it eased the way for a partnership of four very unequally sized nations. There is, in fact, no other country in the world where one partner nation or state is five times bigger than all the rest put together. And it’s not self-restraint, it’s just who the English are, and have become over centuries.

This is the world I live in, gratefully, and the one that pollsters are sometimes surprised by. Should Scots have such a better deal in public spending? Probably not, but it’s not that bad. Do they have too much money? Probably. Would England be well shot of them? Never. Why not? Well, just as Scotland has core values and behaviours, so does England. And for the English, tolerance and diversity rank incredibly high. There’s a deep-seated non-conformist tradition culturally. But there’s also a pragmatic practicality.

Why do we all live together so well? Because since the civil wars of the 17th century and the Jacobite rebellions of the 18th we have known the cost of dissent. And we all know how to live together. My son insists I’m English, and I say I am Scottish. We’re both right, that’s why Britain is great.