I was just reading the election results and surprised at the difference between Scotland and Wales and thinking I WONDER WHAT BECCA THINKS.
I think your analysis of what the SNP have done in Scotland is pretty right on. There is definitely a similar centrality of Labour and unions, particularly in the industrial and ex-industrial central belt (which is something like 90% of the Scottish population); I'll see your Aneurin Bevan and raise you Ramsay MacDonald! This election, the SNP took Glasgow Shettleston, which is one of the poorest urban constituencies and one of those places where Labour just goes without saying; I thought that was pretty significant. The SNP have totally become the party of wanting to distance oneself from England, and with the Tories in power, that is something Scottish people want a LOT.
Since the ConDems got it, I've really seen a different feeling among my Scottish and English/Welsh friends and family; Scotland feels as if it has a certain distance from the cuts, for all they do affect their budget, and this vote is an attempt to maximise that. I see the SNP win as a protest vote against Westminster rather than a vote *for* independence, but if and when the referendum happens I can see it going in favour.
I have lefty friends who are intensely pro-independence and those who are anti, but everyone is pretty pissed off with Labour, not just at the Westminster but at the Scottish Parliament and local level; they've had a lot of corruption and general fuckups. People tend to think the SNP try to do more than Scotland can pay for, but at the same time, they have made tangible improvements in government, and Alex Salmond is by far the biggest profile Scottish politician. If they can convince people that Scotland is able to survive economically without England, I think independence will happen. My gut positivity and my intellectual suspicion war over Scottish independence; but if they let expats vote (my last registered address is in England so I can't get a postal or proxy in Scottish elections now unless I actually register at my mum's address and raise her council tax) I would probably vote yes.
Your explanation of the language issue makes it all make a lot more sense to me. There are so few Scottish Gaelic speakers, and they are in the very sparsely populated north of the country, that those issues make very little difference to Scottish politics. You see a lot of Gaelic signs but rarely hear it spoken. Something that seems to be happening with the SNP's growth is more of Lowland Scots (think Burns) being recognized as a living language--there was a box on the Scottish census to say if you were a Scots speaker--but I think that's still pretty confusing for most people who are used to seeing dialect more as a class than a national issue. Scotland also has so many institutions that hold it together as a country, with the separate law and education systems to England and Wales, so that it is probably less easy to dismiss it as not really a country the way it seems your colleague was trying to do with Wales.
no subject
I think your analysis of what the SNP have done in Scotland is pretty right on. There is definitely a similar centrality of Labour and unions, particularly in the industrial and ex-industrial central belt (which is something like 90% of the Scottish population); I'll see your Aneurin Bevan and raise you Ramsay MacDonald! This election, the SNP took Glasgow Shettleston, which is one of the poorest urban constituencies and one of those places where Labour just goes without saying; I thought that was pretty significant. The SNP have totally become the party of wanting to distance oneself from England, and with the Tories in power, that is something Scottish people want a LOT.
Since the ConDems got it, I've really seen a different feeling among my Scottish and English/Welsh friends and family; Scotland feels as if it has a certain distance from the cuts, for all they do affect their budget, and this vote is an attempt to maximise that. I see the SNP win as a protest vote against Westminster rather than a vote *for* independence, but if and when the referendum happens I can see it going in favour.
I have lefty friends who are intensely pro-independence and those who are anti, but everyone is pretty pissed off with Labour, not just at the Westminster but at the Scottish Parliament and local level; they've had a lot of corruption and general fuckups. People tend to think the SNP try to do more than Scotland can pay for, but at the same time, they have made tangible improvements in government, and Alex Salmond is by far the biggest profile Scottish politician. If they can convince people that Scotland is able to survive economically without England, I think independence will happen. My gut positivity and my intellectual suspicion war over Scottish independence; but if they let expats vote (my last registered address is in England so I can't get a postal or proxy in Scottish elections now unless I actually register at my mum's address and raise her council tax) I would probably vote yes.
Your explanation of the language issue makes it all make a lot more sense to me. There are so few Scottish Gaelic speakers, and they are in the very sparsely populated north of the country, that those issues make very little difference to Scottish politics. You see a lot of Gaelic signs but rarely hear it spoken. Something that seems to be happening with the SNP's growth is more of Lowland Scots (think Burns) being recognized as a living language--there was a box on the Scottish census to say if you were a Scots speaker--but I think that's still pretty confusing for most people who are used to seeing dialect more as a class than a national issue. Scotland also has so many institutions that hold it together as a country, with the separate law and education systems to England and Wales, so that it is probably less easy to dismiss it as not really a country the way it seems your colleague was trying to do with Wales.