Time to liquidate Scotland and sell off her assets, says expat historian

• Expat Scot historian attacks Scotland's misplaced "superiority complex"

• Brands Parliament "county council" rather than sign of independence

• Calls for Old Firm to move to the English Premiership "where they belong"

Key quote

"The idea that Scotland might one day 'be a nation again' should simply be dropped. We had our chance, when everyone else in Europe had it, in the 19th and 20th centuries. But we calculated that the Union and the Empire were a better bet than independence. Well, live with it." - PROF NIALL FERGUSON

Story in full AN EXPATRIATE Scottish historian provoked fury yesterday by calling for the land of his birth to be put into "liquidation" because it had become "the Belarus of the West".

Professor Niall Ferguson said Scotland's glory days were long over, leaving it a "small, sparsely-populated appendage of England".

The Glasgow-born academic, who is now based at Harvard University in Massachusetts, said that Scotland's assets should be broken up, with the Scottish Parliament closed and the Scottish Football Association taken over by its English counterpart.

However, a leading fellow historian condemned his views as "tripe", while the Scottish National Party said they would be "unrecognisable and unsupported by the vast majority of Scots".

Prof Ferguson said the "ridiculous" Holyrood parliament building - which he described as a "risible and over-priced folly" - should be turned into a multiplex cinema or shopping mall, while Rangers and Celtic should "go where they belong": to "pretty near the bottom of the [English] Premiership".

The Laurence A Tisch Professor of History at Harvard, who moved to the US from Oxford University in 2002, has long been an arch-critic of Scotland, but his latest tirade in a Sunday newspaper marks a new level of hostility towards the country.

Writing from South Africa - to escape his "Caledonian heritage" of Auld Lang Syne, kilts and whisky - Prof Ferguson said Scotland must "face up to some harsh realities".

He said the country's weather is "impossibly wet", most of the land north of Loch Lomond is "barren rock", and said that educational standards have mostly collapsed.

He added: "When it comes to sport - and I do not count the one decent tennis player - Scotland is the Belarus of the West. In fact, when it comes to just about everything, it is the Belarus of the West."

Prof Ferguson said Scotland had been cursed by a misplaced "superiority complex" that it did things better than south of the Border.

He said that rather than a "Scottish cringe", there was a "Scottish swagger", which he admitted he had been guilty of in the past.

However, the academic said it was time to cut Scotland down to size. He said: "Those who called it 'North Britain' in the 18th century had it right."

Prof Ferguson said the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament after 300 years had created a "glorified county council" rather than restoring the country's political independence.

He said: "The idea that Scotland might one day 'be a nation again' should simply be dropped.

"We had our chance, when everyone else in Europe had it, in the 19th and 20th centuries. But we calculated that the Union and the Empire were a better bet than independence. Well, live with it."

Professor Tom Devine, who has just become the Sir William Fraser Professor of Scottish History at Edinburgh University, dismissed the diatribe as "ludicrous". He said: "I can only assume he over-celebrated - although obviously not on whisky - when he penned this tripe.

"His ignorance of modern Scotland is so vast as to be hilarious. Is this really the standard of academic analysis at Harvard?"

The SNP, which last week launched a campaign to attract expatriates home to help boost Scotland's economy, described Prof Ferguson's views as "sweeping and hyperbolic".

A party spokesman said: "His comments will be unrecognisable and unsupported by the vast majority of Scots, particularly those of the diaspora he claims to speak for.

"If he is genuinely frustrated by the relative decline of Scotland, why does he ignore the obvious fact that many of the powers to address those issues are held in London? A position which he and the failing Labour-Liberal Democrat Executive in Edinburgh supports."