Scotland and England

I wrote about the overlooked progressive similarities Yes voters and my fellow Remainers, and how they could give a new rationale for the Union. https://t.co/18GQIwyTNp

— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) January 26, 2021

I enjoyed this opinion piece  by Hugo Rifkind in The Times - he's a writer with a sense of the ridiculous who can laugh at himself (and others) without being vicious or cruel:

"What were we actually fighting for? Why could nobody quite put it into words? Try as he might, David Cameron was incapable of discussing Scotland without sounding like a man primarily worried about his grouse moor. Worse still was a Ukippy vein of unionism that seemed to believe in the UK in much the same way that Vladimir Putin reckons Russia should include Ukraine.

"As if the whole population, from Carlisle down, was basically Nigel Farage in cricket whites, standing there being anti-Europe, anti-immigration, anti-NHS, and anti everything else, except for maybe the War. And as if anybody who didn’t want shot of the Union must want to be all of that, too."

When I think of England I immediately think of London where my children were born - where I lived, worked and enjoyed life to the full throughout the 1980s despite the excesses of the Thatcher government.

I think of all the friends I made: Londoners, cheeky Cockney rebels, Scousers, Geordies, Brummies, Mancunians and fellow Scots who were all part of a rich cultural and social mix - far more diverse than anywhere I've ever lived or worked in Scotland.