Scotland as Beggar Nation
As we publish responses to the Scottish Government’s Programme of Government this from Alex Massie’s column in today’s Times Scotland needs decoding:
Alongside the trademark oozing condescension, it’s worth noticing the recurring framing. First, the derision that there is anything unique or different about Scotland, Massie refers to the “unique social contract” in inverted commas because any such contract is to be ridiculed. Second, Scotland is portrayed as a poverty-stricken backwater which raises no taxes itself. Third, Scotland is simply a recipient of “largesse” from the Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
This is the long-standing vision of the Unionist commentariat, Scotland as a poor mendicant province propped-up by its generous southern neighbour.
Of course this isn’t true, but if it were, the question remains, how did we become so impoverished while members of the Family of Equals and in such an unprecedented Union? Massie is floundering of course because his political party is in a death-spiral and the goal which he has longed for, a Tory Scotland, will never exist. This constant framing is insidious and constant, and its intent is to make you understand that you live in a country that couldn’t possibly stand on its own two feet.
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The Scottish cringe is alive and well! In Massaland!
Thanks for decoding what will be obvious to some. If Massey was writing fiction this would be called subtext. But it’s presented as journalism so my question is; can he really be so ignorant about how the “Family of Equals” and “unprecedented Union” really work? As for the “generous funding settlement” give Scotland back our (lollipop) sticks and we’ll give back yours.
Mr Massie is very ignorant as to the way economics work within the Union. He needs to look at source of wealth and the it’s distribution.
This column is correct in pointing out the obvious question to those opponents of independence who say Scotland is too poor and financially dependent on Westminster largesse.
1)How can this happen when Scotland has 1/3rd of UK’s natural resources?
2)What does this say about how beneficial being a part of UK has been for Scotland?
3)How can Scotland ever improve financially and socially within current Union?
It should be an ultimately self defeating argument for benefits of union to Scotland in an attempt to frighten Scots of change.
The other question that needs to be addressed is why if Scotland is such a financial millstone around the UK’s neck, as we are always being told, is Westminster so keen to keep Scotland in Union?
“The unique social contract” so unique to Scotland such public provision is to be found all over Western Europe (at least)…
And what govt largesse? We pay more for almost everything than our near neighbours in Europe..
An Edinburgh one month bus pass costs 73 quid. That’s about 85 euros.
A one month public transport pass in Madrid costs 55 euros…
It’s that kind of price difference right across the board. Ok salaries here are higher here, but not 30% higher..
As for Swinney, well it’s a pathetic programme of govt frankly. What, cap train fairs and more doctors appointment? Hud me back!
It’s like Trumpton or something like that (for those who can remember Trumpton)…
As for calling a meeting to face down the far right, he should call an independence convention urgently to get us out this rip-off lunatic asylum union before they start bombing some poor country again or outright invade…
Why don’t the SNP try and do just ONE big thing?
For example, Amstedram was a city totally dominated by cars until the 1970s. So many kids were knocked down that a huge civic campaign kicked off to make it into the city of bicycles it is famous for today. Paris has transformed itself in the last 10 years in a smiliar way.
Why don’t they actually do something bold and radical, even something like limiting cars? It’s just so unimaginative…
And don’t even get me started on the price of fish…
“Where there is no vision, the people perish” as MacDiarmid was fond of quoting (from somewhere in the Bible)…
Where is the vision of Scotland in this programme for government? Because the people are perishing (mental health figures, drug and alcohol deaths, absenteeism at school)…
The SNP either cannot or will not take the steps along the road to a new country, even a tantalising glimpse of which would probably be enough to consoldiate support for independence into a solid majority over the term of one parliament…
They simple refuse point blank to engage with the question: what kind of country do you want to live in? And take steps, concrete steps, to creating it…
They just keep coming our with this tepid, managerial, bull without anything dynamic, anything modern, anything exciting or new or even worth a headline…
And their control freakery – ousting Tony Giugliano for pointing out that treading water can’t be counted as progress of any real sort – makes them as bad as Starmer who, let’s not forget it, ideologically purged the Labour Party of anyone and anything remotely left of centre on the spurious grounds they were anti-semitic, paving the way for Farage in Nº10 quite possibly…
@Douglas, on the urban (and party) politics of car-free zones:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/06/debate-pedestrianising-oxford-street-banning-cars-sadiq-khan
Ford Prefect’s employers assumed that cars were the dominant form of life on Planet Earth for a reason.
As anybody knows who visits Europe frequently, we are way behind our neighbours, and I mean Scotland, SNP run Scotland.
Madrid has basically been run by the right for decades now, but there was one term of a left wing government running the town council with Manuela Carmena at the helm and she introduced free bikes in the city, which the right haven’t undone surprisingly because what they did do is close down so many of the cycling lanes which had been built under the same initiative..
Still, almost anywhere you go in Madrid these days there is a bike stand with a bike you can use, and then leave at another depot in the city when you’re finished.
I don’t understand why we don’t have these things. Edinburgh is snarled up with traffic every day of the week… Glasgow probably the same…
There are solutions out there, but the people in charge here are parochial, provincial and conservative… that’s my explanation…
Hey Douglas, you’re quite right we need that here. I covered some of it here:
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2023/05/02/bikes-trains-and-clean-water/
The model in Scotland has been to get a private operator, we had it in Edinburgh for a while – sponsored by Just Eat (!). Then it collapsed. The actual original model is of course the Dutch anarchist White Bikes scheme where all of this stems from. Its the best model still. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provo_(movement)
Cheers Bella, and of course they are so ideologically brainwashed, the entire UK ruling class, including some of the leading lights of the SNP, that they can barely conceive of the common good, the public realm, any longer, everything is about the not at all free market, everything is about money and class and social status, everything is about GDP and making a buck… so they would get somebody to sponser free bikes of course…
A country driven mad by neoliberalism, to the point of destroying the local food economy – all the wee shops of my childhood in Edinburgh are gone and supermarkets have taken over – and poisoning their own water supply in England…way, way, way to the right of the European right by and large, even if more liberal in terms of personal choices…
Municipal green socialism could transform Scotland, if the SNP would take the lead…
In Toulouse right now and yes, the centre is largely free of cars and free bikes everywhere. Public transport relatively cheap (except the airport shuttle, typically). Hardly any litter either. It creates a lovely relaxed atmosphere but vibrant too as people are out enjoying *their* spaces, cafes and bars. The weather helps too of course. As you say, it just takes the will of government. But I would also add, it takes will and co-operation of the people and I am not convinced that is there in the same way it is in other parts of Europe.
I think free bicycles and cheap public transport is the norm over most of western Europe by now…
As I say, the right in Madrid hate the free bicycle – it’s part of the culture wars by now almost – but not even they could turn back the clock and remove them.
But there must be green voting Bella readers who know much more about the transformation of Europe’s cities – the circular economy, the 15 minute city, all that – than I do who could give us some more information on these changes in the quality of people’s lives..
From what I understand, Paris mayor Anna Hidalgo has totally transformed that city… I haven’t been for 20 years!!!
Here, there’s not even a debate… ‘hold the fort’ John keeps everybody’s expectations low…
Alex Massie and the lunatic neoliberal press would no doubt have kittens at the idea of not being able to hogg the road in their fatcat cars of course…
I think it is in smaller places that things can get more complicated and by that I mean even decent sized towns. Cities have the weight of numbers of people already there but in places where people may be travelling in from more rural locations the issue of public transport (less sustainable) and the vibrancy of a place can be more difficult when centres are pedestrianised – a certain hollowing out can occur.
One thing I have noticed about Toulouse is that you do not have to step far from the centre to be confronted by big roads full of cars that rule the roost, so there is a trade-off. You also have to have your wits about you with bikes on pavements (despite the cycle lanes).
The trouble with the UK is, as you suggest, this ridiculous knee-jerk reaction to *any* change and especially any that might have even a tiny effect on people’s lifestyle to that point. People seem incapable of seeing even medium-term benefits. This is not helped by a kind of hectoring on all sides.
Pontevedra in Galicia, Spain, has pedestrianised the entire centre and banned cars…
It is held up as an example of the moderrn 21sr city…
It can be done. So much can be done with belief and passion and commitment.
I’d like to see Edinburgh centre free of cars…
I take the same view of Massie’s scribbles as my P7 teacher used to take of mine
“Drivel, boy, Drivel !”
The SG gives credence to this idea that we are subsidised as it constantly complains that its budget is fixed. The only people who fix the SG budget is the SG, not Westminster.
That might work under a settled devolved administration , but it undermines the campaign for Independence.
The only way to demolish the subsidy claim is for the SG to decline to accept the Block Grant and raise all public funding for devolved matters itself under existing legislation.
Massie was educated at Glenalmond, an English Public School located in Scotland, where sneering is part of the curriculum
‘Massie is floundering … because his political party is in a death spiral and the goal he has longed for, a Tory Scotland, will never exist.’
I suspect that Alex Massie would put the continuation of the union as the ‘goal he has longed for.’ At present, the union looks reasonably secure; far more so than it did at the end of September 2014. There is almost no sign of the momentum which built up before the Referendum being re-established.
While his party (the Tories) is clearly in a bad way, it is in rude health in comparison to any party on the Scottish Left.
Brilliant! The response to Alex Massie’s article is to criticise the SNP.
You couldn’t make it up!
As Scotland has access to 37% of GB resources, and as we provided the oil revenues and paid more in tax than English punters, the Barnett formula is a bribe, in part recompense and to shut us up. Of course the mendicant Scot argument goes down well with the gutter English press, all except the Guardian ( and even they can sometimes dance to the wrong tune). As long as this situation obtains, there will be no independence – they need us too much.
Revolution – the only way – create a republican social democratic Scotland in Europe
Rergards Bill
Good for Massie!
More that anything else, over decades, it has been this particular sneering, trolling “talking-point” that motivated me to support independence for Scotland.
The sooner Scotland can free England from receiving Scotland’s revenues and returning a fraction back, the better.
Idea: How about a big sign on a big red bus? “Scotland costs us £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote LEAVE”
Didn’t England vote for austerity anyway? In 2015, 2017, 2019 and particulary in 2024 they voted in parties that promised cuts in public services and more austerity. Taking back control innit?
Has anyone used Ai to seek the answer to this question “How can Scotland leave the United Kingdom and become a sovereign nation as quickly and successfully as possible?” It’s just that it seems like Westminster has developed some sort of flesh and blood “Yooniebot”. The Massie 5000 is a fully automated drivel spouting machine.