Empire builders

Three thumbs up for Scots rapper Darren Mcgarvey, who has blown the myth of Scottish cultural superiority over the poor English (Scotsman, 24 July). Experience has taught him what many of us already knew, that we Brits basically are very similar from Shetland to Southend.

But Darren hips and hops off balance when he says Scotland just held England’s jacket during Empire, merely looking on as it “pillaged the world”.

In fact, Scots were at the spearhead of the so-called pillaging as ships’ captains, colonial administrators and police, military officers and men and farmers on lands seized from unfortunate natives in places like Kenya and Rhodesia. It wasn’t by accident that Glasgow cashed in on the union of 1707 and became the “second city of the Empire”.

By jingo, there were few “cultural differences” across the land when it came to enthusiastic support for the British Empire and reaping the rewards.

We cannot clearly see the present if we continue to distort or ignore the past.

RODNEY PINDER Stradella Road, London