"sylvander"

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague’s threat that Scotch whisky would no longer be promoted overseas has backfired after it emerged that the UK Government actually charges Scottish organisations for use of British Embassy facilities.

First Minister Alex Salmond today revealed that the Scottish Development body are charged £3000 every time they hold a reception aimed at promoting the iconic drink.

In contrast, when UK trade and Investment groups hold similar events they are allowed to use the facilities for free.

A strange switch has happened in which the SNP have become thoughtful, pragmatic nationalists as far as you could imagine from ‘Braveheart’ and ‘Trainspotting’ sentiment. Instead, the romantic, fantasyland nationalists are those defending the British state and Westminster world: Gordon Brown, David Cameron and the unionist parties in Scotland.

They are romantic nationalists because they are letting their emotional attachment to the idea of the UK drive how they think of things. They tell themselves and the rest of us a selective, implausible, sanitised version of British history where we only did good things: brought ‘civilisation’ to the Empire, abolished slavery and beat the Nazis, and never address the complexities, nuances and darkside of having been an imperial power.

But the demand amongst Scots for control over our own affairs was strong nonetheless. By 1950 over 2 million - over half the entire electorate - had signed up to the Scottish Covenant, a polite request to Westminster to grant Scotland Home Rule within the Union.  No petition has ever obtained the support of such a large percentage of the population of any part of the UK.  

However when Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee received the request from the Scottish people for Home Rule within the Union, he rejected it out of hand.  He could do so without any threat to his party’s position.  Labour peer Robert Morrison stated that the matters involved were “much too complicated” to be put to a referendum.  Scotland had to suck it up.  

Home Rule was off the table, and would remain so for 20 years.  It was a painful lesson for Scotland.  You don’t get anywhere with Westminster by being Miss Nice and asking politely.  Westminster only understands threats.

Whilst we’ve been expecting a crushingly negative reaction to Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum, we’ve been gobsmacked by the amount of absolute nonsense being spouted by the British press.  Their hysterical scare stories are too good to be ignored, and we plan on bringing you as many as possible here as 2014 approaches.

Scotland’s story is a “Hollywood invention”, we are often told. It was “wildly romanticised”, or simply “didn’t happen”. Whilst we should ensure our knowledge of the subject is as factual as possible, it is fair to say that Scotland’s obsession with freedom is not a post-Braveheart phenomenon but a very real and long-lasting notion centred at the very heart of our culture.  We wouldn’t dismiss India’s struggle for independence as fictional due to some inaccuracies in the 1982 film Ghandi.  Films do not create these notions; they interpret them.

National Collective is an open collaboration of talent focused on driving social and political change in Scotland through a variety of the arts.

With the most exciting political period for centuries fast approaching Scotland, now is the time for the country’s artists, musicians and writers to help shape the vision of a new society and nation.