2014

So farewell then 2014, a year which promised to be the most important in Scotland’s history since 1707, but turned out to be more like 1746.

My abiding memory of the referendum year will not be the referendum itself but of the morning after; when we Scots discovered that, far from being about Scotland, the process we had all been through for the previous eighteen months had in fact been, instead, about England, when Mr Irresponsible said his EVEL1 piece. (Paragraphs 19 and 20.)

My first reaction – apart from thinking it was the most spectacular case of missing the point I’d ever witnessed – was that they will just never value us. This was the time to heal, to welcome the result as a coming together, a reaffirmation of what keeps the UK united, a sense of sharing and mutual worth. But what we got instead was an assertion of self-importance, a rejection and dismissal. A Thatcherite Prime Minister telling us that he was in charge and now he’d got what he wanted we didn’t matter any more, that he didn’t care, had in fact, despite his bluster, never cared.

It was only seeing the clip again a few months later that the comparison occurred to me. It was like an abusive husband, told by his wife after a period of consideration that she had decided she had too much invested in the marriage to give it up lightly and was willing to stick with it, immediately turning round and blackening her eye again.

I know not everyone in England agrees with him. Let’s hope they vote accordingly in the General Election in May.

1English Votes for English Laws.

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