Generally...generalisations are odious

BBC journalist Andrew Marr came to Edinburgh and said the Scots are guilty of anglophobia. He made it sound like it was widespread and also claimed 'everyone knows this'. Sir John Elvidge, former high heid yin in the Edinburgh civil service said the same. It is, of course, the independence referendum - still over a year away, heaven help us - that has got these two and others agitated. I should point out that Marr is a Scot who has lived and worked in London for over 20 years. Elvidge (I wish his name wasn't so close to Elvish) is English, a 'mandarin' who worked here for 11 years. I would suspect he has a fairly limited experience of Scottish life, at least at the level I live at. The report of his comments in the Telegraph (yes, I know - taken with a pinch of salt) suggest he is worried that Scotland will 'break up the UK and opt for separation and independence.'

You'll notice the UK comes first in this quote and independence comes last.

I'm sure there are some nasty elements in Scotland who claim to hate English people. These would be the ones with a limited experience of life generally, a certain lack of common sense and a dramatically low forehead. I myself am not too keen on Scottish neds and racists and, worst of all, people who make it obvious they are bigots as soon as they open their mouths, and take it for granted I'll agree with them. But I know there are - luckily - gey few of these people around.

I can't imagine anyone hating 60 million English people. For one thing, it must be exhausting.

A wee aside. When I was a teacher, I had a colleague who used to watch women going for and getting promotion in the 80s and ask plaintively: 'What is it women want?' This was a man who realised the game in education had changed, not least because he couldn't get onto the promotion ladder, but saw hard working and effective female colleagues in action on a daily basis and still couldn't see them as anything other than a puzzling subset of the true masters of the universe, the men. I also remember from the staffroom a guy who said quite often: 'I like women.' To begin with this was endearing if slightly creepy. Then it was just creepy and the standard reply came to be: 'What, on a plate with chips, like?' It's a few years since I've heard any man say anything as stupid. Times - and attitudes - can and do change.

But I have to put it to Marr and Elvidge - and to you, dear reader - what has anglophobia got to do with the independence debate?

The people in Scotland who plan to vote to keep the Union are not voting for England. They want to remain part of a union of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They hold their belief in the Union sincerely. They see strength in unity. They want to maintain the prosperity of the whole of the UK and see Scotland's prosperity as bound up with that. They are entitled to their opinions.

The people who plan to vote for independence will be voting for a new status for Scotland, not against anything and certainly not  against the English. They too are sincere and entitled to their views. They want a new beginning for Scotland as a different kind of nation from the one that exists now, with a new constitution and a new direction. (And that, by the way, may not mean with Alex Salmond at the helm if he can't come up with a post-referendum plan.)

Even if the Scots don't vote for independence next year, things are never going to be the same again for anyone, be they the London-based meeja people or the civil service or the Westminster parliament: Scotland has changed in the past generation and that process will continue. Both the Better Together and Yes campaigns need to give that some thought and try to imagine solutions to Scotland's big problems: how to reduce the number of children living in poverty, how to improve our education and healthcare and how to exploit North Sea oil and gas and our renewable energy sources to the advantage of the people who live here while maintaining the beauty of one of the finest places to live in the whole of Europe.