George M’s latest dyspeptic vision of the future – at least for benighted folk north of the Wall – has been seen off by Brian Wilson for the “patronizing rubbish” it clearly is. Wilson asks where are the progressive ideas in nationalist politics, claiming never to have found one.
Sceptics of this view might point to free university tuition, except that this is as clear a middle-class subsidy as you'd want to find: all those rich folk who've lavished many years of private education on their bairns suddenly finding there's no more to pay thanks to tax-payer largesse. Joy, rapture and bliss unconfined. Meanwhile, the working poor in Glasgow and Dundee are still paying taxes to fund all this. Not only that, they find that the state funding for the further education their own children use has been slashed to shore up the subsidy. Quite a few people, it seems, want more of this sort of thing.
Responses
I watched Jon Snow chairing the debate on BBC last night. I was struck by someone's (a well-known historian whose name I cannot remember) comments about the rise of English nationalism. It made me think that if the rise of English nationalism is a problem what about the rise of Scottish nationalism? Perhaps it is time for a change?