Saturday, July 19, 2008

Is Gordon Brown Scottish or British?

According to this report on Newsnight yesterday evening, even the man himself seems unsure.

One undeniable truth though:
Brown has been bitten by the very devolved system he helped to create

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wasn't aware that the two were mutually exclusive.

O'Neill said...

They're not, but Gordon seems to lose either his Britishness or Scottishness depending on what way the wind is blowing.

Anonymous said...

Jeezo, thanks for reminding me about the goal for England against Scotland. I'd forgot about that.

Will put it to good use.

Unknown said...

Not necessarily mutually exclusive but not necessarily inclusive either.

Unknown said...

Oh look, there's a (relevant) letter in the Scotsman:

Sinister anti-Britishness

Small stickers have started appearing on lamp-posts and bus shelters around the centre of Edinburgh and Glasgow. These show a saltire, under the words "Scottish not British".
Do others share my view that there is something sinister about these
signs and this slogan? I happen to be proud of being Scottish and
British, and I think most Scots would share that view.

But more than that, I feel the attempt to say there is something
inherently wrong with Britishness is unnecessarily divisive, and
something of an insult to the non-Scots who live in Scotland.

ROSS D McLEAN
Murrayfield Place
Edinburgh

O'Neill said...

Thanks Wildgoose, I'm going to do a bit more digging on that one.

Anonymous said...

That really is rather sinister indeed. I doubt it was widespread though - I live in central Edinburgh and I haven't noticed a bit of it. What I did see was some similar graffiti when the Nationalists were allowed to host a (disappointedly turned out) march in the city a couple of years ago and left the place covered in vandalism.

Luckily a almost all of their 'Scottish not British' nonsense either had the first two words crossed out or amended with an 'and' in place of the 'not'. There are photographs on Flickr, I believe.

Either way, I feel these sorry souls are to be more pitied than scorned. It must take a certain sort of mentality to engage in such behaviour - and I don't imagine it's a happy one.

Jack

O'Neill said...

This is all I could find:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenmckinley/1418465809/

in quite appropriate surroundings!

Anonymous said...

"Either way, I feel these sorry souls are to be more pitied than scorned. It must take a certain sort of mentality to engage in such behaviour - and I don't imagine it's a happy one."

The only way in which we are unhappy is that we have a British identity rammed down our throats.

What is happening is that Scotland is evolving, just like Australia has and Canada. No one in these countries calls themselves "British" apart from a few old buffoons.

By the way, if you consider this "vandalism", you should list be consistent, and complain about the wopping big billboards covering scaffolding all over central Edinburgh, or the A-boards that litter our streets. If we had that kind of money, that's what we'd be doing...