Silicon Glen vs Silicon Valley: Rachel Reeves and the Caledonian Antisyzgy
Neil Blain argues ” … it’s the very levels of acceptability by the Scots of their political situation, including the manner in which they’re addressed by the London media and their own journalistic institutions, which remain very puzzling.”
I
From the 1980s I was in the habit, for some reason or other, of visiting the Irish republic to engage people involved with politics, culture and the arts in conversation about political identity; often identity with a geopolitical emphasis. This covered topics like Ireland’s relationship with the United Kingdom, particularly the north of Ireland: and Europe, especially the EU.
The conversation tended to reach a point where we’d worked over Irish identity quite thoroughly, and whoever I was talking with was showing signs of wanting me to talk about Scotland.
The approach varied according to the diplomatic skills of my companions, but lurking in the wings was always the question: ‘and what’s wrong with you Scots’?
I particularly recall being asked that question in very direct form by a key figure of the time in the Irish arts world, in Dublin over coffee beside the long-gone cherry tree in Bewley’s in Grafton Street.
But the question was always implicit, even if not always direct: what’s holding you back? In the 1980s the topic of Scottish independence had long reappeared to the extent where the question ‘why don’t they go ahead?’ was puzzling sympathetic and knowledgeable folk beyond Scotland, even including England.
So no surprise that the theme, at least among some interested folk, had salience in a country with as much shared history with Scotland (both good, and also very bad) as Ireland.
Past tense because most Irish folk, at least those who were interested at one time, have given the question up. And also, given us up.
Of course, the perception of a kind of pathology in Scottish consciousness of the national dimension is an old and even boring question in Scotland. I won’t quote the poet Alan Jackson again – I’m always quoting him – ‘O Knox he was a bad man/He split the Scottish mind/ The one half he made cruel/And the other half unkind.’
(I see I’ve quoted him again – talk about the split mind!)

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Sheldon-Lewis
Jackson in these couplets typified a number of Scots writing about conflicted mental states in parts or most of their work – R.L. Stevenson and James Hogg prime among them – as a national trait. It’s no coincidence that it was a Scottish psychiatrist, Ronald Laing, who wrote The Divided Self. (And can be credited with the invention of anti-psychiatry, a more radical kind of divisiveness.)
Duality is considered to be a characteristic theme of Scottish literature. As is well known, G. Gregory Smith initiated the term (in 1918) ‘Caledonian Antisyzygy’ (later taken up by Hugh MacDiarmid) which he explained in various phrases: for example Scottish culture as a ‘zigzag of contradictions’.
Such thoughts returned to me as I was thinking about Rachel Reeves and the Labour government, in a kind of wonder about their conception of the United Kingdom.
Ethnocentrism isn’t unknown south of the border, to put that mildly. But the level of geopolitical myopia displayed by Starmer and Reeves – as has been often observed, you would think that just being called Keir would remind the PM of somewhere called Scotland – is mystifying.
But the greater wonder is how we continue in Scotland to react to being invisible, ignored and slighted. Was the Chancellor’s vision of a ‘Silicon Valley’ ‘twixt Oxford and Cambridge based on genuine ignorance of Silicon Glen, or was it a further test of the mugs north of the border?
Either way, it’s alarming. But the problem isn’t England, if it ever was.
It’s us.
II
The Scottish media reaction the day after the Reeves announcement – to the very limited extent we can talk about there being a ‘mainstream media’ or even a ‘legacy media’ in Scotland in 2025 – was nonetheless very revealing.
The Mail and Express as habitual carried prominent anti-SNP front page stories on 30 January (‘New SNP betrayal of crime victims’; ‘Top police slam new plans to release prisoners early’) and the Times joined in: ‘Watchdogs accuse SNP over failing car policy’. The Herald didn’t display any sign at all on its front page that Reeves had proposed policies that vastly increased the viability gap between southern England and the rest of the UK, preferring to go with ‘Electric rail plans stall as moves to get cars off Scots roads are failing’ and another piece headed ‘Questions over probe into ex-FM’. The Record chose to go with ‘170M shoplifting explosion’. The only mention of Scotland on the Telegraph front page was headed ‘Police Scotland hires gay porn star for abuse awareness ad’.
It has to be admitted that no ferry fiasco stories were observed, at least on the front pages.
(The Courier and P&J , and the evenings, exempt themselves from This Kind of Thing.)
The Star, always good for cheering one up in the morning, carries a front page on Peter Mandelson’s change of heart on President Trump, titled ‘Creepy McCreepface’ (no comment). The Scotsman, rather surprisingly, carries a front page headline ‘Reeves insists Heathrow will be boost for Scots exports’ and a subheading ‘But SNP laments Chancellor’s lack of direct action for Scotland’.
‘Lack of direct action’ is a mighty euphemism! But while the Scotsman tries to put a positive spin on the announcements (‘greeted with optimism by Scottish business groups’: Heathrow? really?), at least it raises doubts by omission.
It’s left to the National (obviously) to state: ‘And nothing for you, Scotland’, listing initiatives by the chancellor which occur exclusively in England, and to England’s benefit.
It will be objected that all this is predictable, routine, merely tedious, and that we all know the press is terminally ill in its print form, and struggling online.*
And moreover, that none of this matters in Scotland and everywhere else, because younger people don’t read newspapers, and that the only regrettable consequence of note is that even more people will lose their living.
That this is a dangerous argument in the online age and with current developments in AI, is a crucial subject in itself. Online, in the sense of Insta or TikTok, is not in the main concerned with the real world (the consequences of which have just been seen in an American election).
The many responsible information-driven online outlets, which include quality newspapers globally, are nonetheless competing for attention with Facebook and X, which work mainly to distract or disinform.
The fact that the primary purpose of the London press has not been to inform about the world, rather to maintain the socio-economic and class structure of the United Kingdom, doesn’t affect the argument about the value of a national press. Even in the London press, hard information gets through, and not just in the Guardian and the FT.
In Scotland, both through loss of resource and editorial policy, the press has become greatly less significant, and yet more imbalanced on the constitutional question. These trends arguably apply in whatever measure also to the BBC.
But it’s the very levels of acceptability by the Scots of their political situation, including the manner in which they’re addressed by the London media and their own journalistic institutions, which remain very puzzling.
III
Reactions to the Silicon Valley and Heathrow announcements were more evident in England than Scotland, in the context of the ‘north vs south’ debate. (Which generally means England.)
Late on 29 January even the Guardian (which has drifted far from its Mancunian roots) carried an Ella Baron cartoon online, featuring a poster showing Reeves and Starmer, in theatrical posture, against an Oxford and Cambridge backdrop, announcing the new Silicon Valley, ‘coming soon’.
The poster is displayed in a rail station titled ‘The North’: a slumped figure leaving the station has painted a correction, ‘not coming soon’ and ‘not here’. The platform has a series of maps of rail routes, plastered over with stickers saying ‘suspended’, ‘canceled’, ‘delayed’, ‘closed’.
That about sums it up.
But the protest is about ‘the north’, and in Scotland we know what that means. We’re beyond even the north.
Today, the last day of January, as I scan the Scottish media (I keep meaning to seek therapy for the habit), the Scotsman has council tax on the front page, the Herald has a story about Scotrail (also the Washington plane crash), the National is back to SNP stories, and only the Express carries a front page which jumps out, ‘WE NEED PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN BREXIT’ (N. Farage).
The BBC Scotland news website leads with a story about the two missing sisters, as does the STV news website. Both carry a story about Scotrail fares increasing, though they slightly disagree by how much (STV 3.8%, whereas the BBC is paying 4%).
Meanwhile, across the water: in this month in 1972, a Treaty of Accession was signed in Ireland, and after a referendum the following May with 83% in support, Ireland joined the European Economic Community in January 1973 which later became the EU. Of which the republic is a long-time member.
And thinking about that occasion in Bewley’s maybe 40 years ago, I’m not any clearer on the answer to the question ‘What’s wrong with you Scots?’.
*When our last cat died, I stopped buying print newspapers, which I had used to line cat trays (after reading them, obviously), moving to online subscriptions. Being fastidious, the cats preferred separate trays, thereby doing twice as much to maintain the Scottish press in print form. I think they deserve that to be put on the record. Not the actual Record, the cats preferred broadsheets on account of their better coverage.)
Fascinating and nostalgic Neil, thanks. RD Laing! 1970s Stirling Uni – if only John Reid and Jack McConnell had read that.
Antisyzgy – now that’s real prof talk – I’m away back to my line graphs of prostate surgery waiting times.
John
I can never recall the SNP and independence cause in general being promoted by written or visual media but pre independence referendum they were given a hearing even if either weren’t presented as a serious prospect.
I get impression that post 2014 this approach has changed to an overwhelmingly negative approach to not only SNP and independence but Scotland itself. Some of the hostility in print media borders on hysterical negativity.
I am not arguing that media should not hold SNP government to account or rigorously investigate independence cause but this should be undertaken in a fair non partisan manner.
The upshot of the last 10 years of ‘Scotland’s a shit wee country’ approach by media is almost inevitably encouraging an already historic underlying lack of self confidence in Scottish population and electorate.
Indeed, the evidence is clear and overwhelming now.
John – if I remember correctly the biggest factor identified in independence referendum for voting No was home ownership and that the more affluent you were the less likely you were to vote Yes.
In addition the media are in the main UK based with Scottish offshoots and consequently opposed/hostile to independence. The people working in senior positions in these media organisations will either be selected on the basis of their support for union or at least expected not to rock the boat. Their future promotion prospects within organisation outside Scotland may also be affected by their support for union.
This attitude to independence and senior personnel can to some extent be extended to UK businesses and organisations who are based in Scotland.
The upshot from this is that many. rich and powerful people in Scotland tend to be hostile to independence and that large sections of financially aspiring middle class are also encouraged to oppose it to protect what they have.
The farcical ‘reporting’ of SNP government supposedly threatening to ban people from owning cats demonstrates far the ridiculous levels that ‘journalism’ have plumbed to.
This is not such a mystery really.
England is essentially the Roman province of ‘Britannia’. I suggest this is one reason why England and ‘Britain’ are often treated as synonyms. When the Anglo-Saxons took it over they also took over its claim to rule the whole island. A claim that wasn’t actually realised until the military campaign on 1746 and its aftermath. They also inherited the sense of superiority and supposed ‘civilisation’ of Rome.
The derivation of the name ‘Britain’ is uncertain, but the earliest mentions of the word ‘British’ refer to all the islands in the group, not just this one. Until the Roman conquest there is no suggestion that this island, Alba, Albion, might be superior in any way to the others. And it’s clear that there was in fact constant movement of peoples between all the islands and continental Europe in the Bronze and Iron Ages.
The Romans took the name Britannia for their province, and they sailed around the north coast, and they claimed the allegiance of the King of Orkney, but they never conquered the highlands. Nevertheless they applied the name to the island as a whole and it stuck. Today even the Gaels use ‘Alba’ to refer to Scotland rather than its original meaning.
The island is therefore divided into Britannia, now ‘England’ and the parts not subdued by Rome. This makes Scotland a frontier zone, especially from the modern border to the highland line, populated by people with a cultural and linguistic divide that has been exploited mercilessly by the powerful over many centuries.
Scotland has been receiving settlers since Roman times – some of them loyal to the imperial power, some of them refugees from it. And some of them seeking relief from poverty and dispossession. Ot has created a country of regional identities which too often have been played off against each other. Scots have had to live with this internalised tension for centuries, and it has been used to divide and rule. Roman culture was supposedly superior and the highlands , like Ireland, were literally beyond the pale, populated by’ natives to be feared, ‘wild’ like the land of the Highlands and Islands – which is still promoted as a ‘wilderness playground’ where urban folk with money can ‘escape’ and do as they please. Who cares about the Highlanders?
Ever since Roman times, the Gaels have had cause to remember the battle of Mons Graupius – for the same reasons as Tacitus puts in the mouth of ‘Calgacus’, the swordsman with a Gaelic name. But the land and even the cultural heritage have been colonised and handed over to a small number of people to be exploited purely for private profit.
This history has meant that Scotland has internalised a deep seated colonial mentality, never quite sure whether to suck up to the colonising power or fight it.
Wales and Ireland are not like Scotland.
Wales was part of Roman Britain, and its people were proud of their Roman citizenship. In 1485, Henry Tudor was able to take advantage of the civil war in England and (re)conquer ‘Britannia’. However England (or rather London) was where the economic power lay and it was the English language and culture that dominated. Nevertheless even today, the Welsh language has a recognised, official status denied to Gaelic.
If the Welsh are, however grudgingly, accepted as ‘Britons’, the Gaels in Scotland and Ireland never have been. Ireland was a separate island with its own identity but Scots, do not have that. Scots Gaels have lost their natural cultural snd political leaders and are still seen as ‘other’ by some Scots. There are even objections to the use of their language on road signs. Since the ending of the Lordship if the Isles, there has been no defined political identity for Gaels. Gaelic has little real official support.
James Vi clearly identified himself as ruler of the British Isles, and he also seems to have regarded the adoption of English language and culture as fundamental to his new United Kingdom. He effectively declared war on Gaelic culture with the Statutes of Iona, and his plantation of Ulster and Fife Adventurers in Lewis were colonising projects little different in conception from contemporary ones in America or elsewhere. Encouraging Scots to take part in such colonising projects was itself a way to promote and reward loyalty among Lowland Scots whose ancestors might have been colonists or equally refugees and rebels from Britannia.
So Scotland has remained a frontier country, a colony with a land border to the colonising power, receiving both colonists and those who came as rebels or refugees.
The Gaidhealtachd – which is really to Scotland as Wales is to England, has no parliament or political leadership. It is run as a colony from Edinburgh as much as London. Gaels have no real political voice at all. There are in any case now too few left to matter in an election. No wonder the Unionists always campaign here on a platform of protection from central belt centralisation.
In Ireland, cultural and linguistic independence was a rallying cry. Here it rejected as divisive. If anyone in the Scottish establishment is serious about independence, they need to start listening to the Gaels.. Instead of mocking them as ‘teuchters’, or paying lip service to them for political purposes while doing little in practice to support either the land, a local economy or its people, there needs to be some demonstration of respect for this ancient language and culture – which actually underpin a lot of what so many of us appreciate in Scotland today. Stop defunding running down’ the so-called ‘remote rural areas’ and start investing in them in sustainable ways, that benefit locals. There have been far too many clearances already.
But saying that we also need to respect and listen to a diversity of historic identities. Scotland is Edinburgh and Glasgow, and Dundee, and Perth, and Dumfries, and Fife, and Angus, and Inverness, and Aberdeen, and Peterhead, Oban, and Stornoway, and Kirkwall and Sumburgh. They all have their distinct identities that contribute to the whole. The problem with our colonised history is that there is always too much negative focus on what divides us. That diversity could surely be something to celebrate and make part of a reimagined national identity. A decentralised, diverse Scotland could be an empowered one
While we hold on to the colonial attitudes, the centralisation, the authoritarianism, the legacy of sectarianism and colonialism, we are going nowhere. A national conversation is needed about what defines ‘Scotland’, that celebrates regional diversity and builds a new consensus about what sort of country we aspire to be.
Let’ start listening also to our neighbours – Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland – that have had a huge cultural influence on Scotland. After all large parts of northern and western Scotland were Scandinavian until the later middle ages. Today we can ask them why they are so successful.
Scotland’s problem is the result of its history. It’s a history we can learn from. Colonialism is dying. Trump, Starmer, Musk, Gates, Schwab and the rest are its desperate dying gasps. We now have a great opportunity – and urgent need – to build a completely different model based on power with rather than power over.
It takes courage, and the vonfudrnce to reject ‘Project Fear’.
The Anglo-Saxons arrived at least 200 years after the Romans had left. Therefore they did not ‘take over’ anything from the Romans. They used the word Britian as synonymous with what became England. Even back then, the meaning of ‘Britain’ was vague though the Romans did use it ‘geographically’. I would suggest it was in fact the Normans, the invaders responsbile for merciless mass slaughter across England, who developed the ambition for the ‘English’ conquer of the different nations of the British Isles.
My point is is that the ‘Romans’ didn’t exactly leave. Rome wasn’t a group of people but a political and ideological entity, employing people from all over Europe and North Africa. by The administration fell apart but the people didn’t go away. And they still looked back to the days of relative prosperity. So the Roman army eas withdrawn but the idea of the Empire persisted and was revived with the spread of Christianity. The Anglo-Saxons appeared initially as mercenaries employed by the ‘Roman’ authorities. Oswald of Northumbria had himself crown in York as a Roman Emperor, with all the symbols.
Romans were really all sorts of people who shared a colonial idea. ‘ English ‘ too is just an identity formed from the coming together of Angles, Saxons, Danes, ‘British’, Jutes, Frisians, , Franks and so on. who developed a common language.
The Normans didn’t claim a Roman identity or aim to take over a Roman province. Quite the opposite: they were Scandinavians, ‘North men’ successors of Vikings who had settled in Northern France and adopted feudalism as a system. They were just out to grab land by conquest. By that time the legacy of Rome -in the west- had transferred to the Catholic Church. In theory Norman feudalism was transactional – like a protection racket, you entrust your land to me and I will protect you from harm. But I agree that it is still ‘power over’
My point really was that our history can be seen as a clash of cultures – ‘power over’ vs ‘power with’ (which is the basis of kindred based systems).
The Roman legions were recalled c. 410 AD.
Saxon mercenaries were recruited almost immediately to defend the Romano -Britons against The Picti and Scoti from the north.
Gildas the Wise (c. 500-570) in
De Excidio et Conquests Britanniae, (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) describes the gradual takeover of most of Britannia by these mercenaries and their descendants.
Just to say that Britanniae is plural – so the Britons rather than ‘Britain’ as a place?
No, John
Brittaniae is the genitive case of Brittania.
Spellchecker mangled the title of his book.
“De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae”
This is whst may have misled you. Apologies for being so late back here!
I stand corrected, thanks.
There was a Greek sailor and geographer, called Pytheas, who circumnavigated Britain in 325BCE. His account was quite detailed and stands up to scrutiny.
He called the natives “Pretani”, later latinised as “Britanni”. There’s a possibility that he took it from a Celtic endonym, because it is very likely he made contact. Part of his travelogue gave details of Cornish tin mining.
I realise I am sticking my neck out here, but Pytheas’ account only survives in fragments and quotes by others. It seems that he and other early writers may have been referring to the British Isles plural rather than just the largest island in the group. Pytheas wrote in Greek and he doesn’t seem to have used ‘pryteni’ for ‘Britons’. According to Strabo, Pytheas uses the word Bretannikē. The term ‘British’ seems unlikely to me to really be p-celtic or associated with the Picts – but that would require another essay. There is no real evidence that p-celtic was the language of one island and q-celtic the language of the other. There were ‘cruithne’ in Ireland too. This distinction surely comes later as p-celtic became associated with the ‘civilised’, Romanised areas and q-celtic with the ‘barbarians’ beyond the frontier. Q-celtic is the older and more complex form, while p-celtic I suggest is essentially Gaulish influences from the continent, I assume from the first century BC with those fleeing the Roman conquest of Gaul. I accept that we have plenty of evidence of p-celtic spreading into especially the eastern parts of what is now Scotland, but I don’t think a sound case can be made anymore for it pre-dating q-celtic – but here we get into the Problem of the Picts so I’ll stop there,
I’m sure that languages were not fixed to territories in the way they are seen today. Every locality would have had its own dialects and these would be constantly changing. Peoples became associated with the languages spoken by their leaders, and this I’m sure was often not the same as that spoken by the common people. The leading Anglos-Saxon, P-celtic an q-celtic speaking families constantly intermarried and must have been multilingual.
I think Caesar’ adoption of ‘Britannia’ for the Roman province, and the claim to rule the whole island, led to the name becoming associated with Albion only. The Irish have always identified themselves as not Roman, and the Romans did not conquer Ireland at all. But as far as the Romans and their successors were concerned, ruling ‘North Britain’ was at least the aspiration. And I have met Scots who felt that without a Roman conquest, Scotland was not really ‘civilised’. ( I don’t agree with that!)
The claim to rule the whole island was not made by the Normans until the 13th c. By this time the Normans were reinventing themselves as ‘English’ – hence ‘Edward’ I . He is said to have also looked for inspiration to Rome and to have modelled the walls of Caernarvon castle on those of Constantinople. Perhaps this was more useful in Wales, where the idea of Roman citizenship seems to have lasted for centuries. The word cymry is supposed to be related to it. As far as Scotland is concerned however Edward seems to have seen himself as a feudal overlord rather than a Roman Emperor.
‘Great Britain’ seems to be a name invented by or for James VI, and In the 17th and 18th centuries he and his successors were very strongly influenced by Roman writers and ideas. In the east, after the sack of Constantinople, the idea of empire passed to the Tsars (Caesars) of Russia, and even today Putin seems to have adopted it.
I think that the ‘British’ identity goes with the rise of the ‘British Empire’ and desire to see it as a revival of Rome. The insistence that p-celtic is the language of one island and q-celtic the language of the (despised) Irish, and the idea that Gaelic only arrived in this island via the establishment of Dalriata is just part of longstanding anti-Gaelic prejudice.
But to reconnect with the OP. This confusion of identity – are the Scots British or not? – I suspect plays a significant part on the lack of confidence we see in the independence movement today. We still have the Orange Order and the Union flag wavers who want to make ‘Britain’ great again. But I think (hope) their day is rapidly passing.
What we need surely is to reconnect with our history, our indigenous people, the rebels and refugees who have fled autocratic control; and above all we need to lose that centralising colonial mindset driven by fear. That is kept alive by the continuing denigrate, divide and rule approach of our imperial masters. And the colonial fear of democracy and empowerment.
Surely the only way to make this work is to start a proper, mutually respectful dialogue between lowlanders and highlanders, and indeed between all the different cultural identities we have in this country. As I said, we need to start talking about how an independent Scotland will be local, inclusive and empowering, and set aside traditional prejudices. In other words a major change of thinking. At present, like it or not, the only sort of independence on offer seems to be more neoliberal kowtowing to crooks like Trump. That isn’t independence at all.
When I think about this, I can’t see it happening. prejudiced, colonial mentality is too engrained. There is no real democracy or rule of law in Scotland – we a re ruled by a parcel of rogues. Where I live was part of Norway until about 1266. Perhaps here in the west highlands, we’d do better to rejoin them!