Sunday 14 September 2014

The Scottish Referendum

Well here we are again - I expect that you're full of admiration for the poetic brilliance of "Tae a Curry" and have been quoting it non-stop for the past twenty four hours!

Anyway, rather than go straight to "Tae a Meerkat", I just thought I should talk about the Scottish Referendum. It has always been stated that the two greatest Scottish poets, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott would be at different ends of the spectrum when it comes to nationalism - with Burns calling for freedom and Scott defending the union. However, I'm not so sure, and I'll tell you why.

A number of years I was on a business outing to the  Middlesex Rugby Sevens  at Twickenham, and since there was quite a big number of us, we decided to have a sweepstake determined by the winning team. We drew out the names of all the teams, and based on the law of averages I drew an English team (I think there was only one Scottish team) Anyway, to cut a long story short, the final was to be determined between the Scottish team and the English team I had drawn out for the sweepstake.

What a quandary! My heart said that I should support the Scottish team, but my head said otherwise. So, I cheered on my English team - they won and I won the sweepstake. It was definitely a case of pocket over passion!

Now, if Burns were alive today, he would probably face the same quandary. He might be a passionate nationalist - but he would also, as a farmer,  be receiving large amounts of money in subsidies from the EEC. If Scotland goes independent and therefore leaves the EEC, he probably would lose these subsidies.

What a quandary - however, as a true Scot, I'm inclined to believe that the financial case would be more compelling than the excitement of breaking away from the rest of Britain. I think he would probably vote no - to stay together. But what do you think?

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