Empty phrase

THE latest ‘in’ phrase, presumably supplied by the SNP’s heavily manned – and taxpayer-funded – spin department, is: ‘It’s normal’.

This is usually made in reference to breaking off Scotland from the rest of the UK, and I have heard several of the SNP’s leading propagandists trot this out whenever a ‘suitable’ occasion arises.

The dreary, old and completely inappropriate comparisons with small European nations are laid out again and again. What is never mentioned is the other European and Asian countries that were once separate entities, as was Scotland, and who decided to gain strength and better the lot of their people by joining with other close entities sharing much the same culture and thus providing strength and solidarity.

A good example would be Bavaria, now happily part of Germany, or the former Italian states which got together as a unit and formed present-day Italy.

These examples are perhaps infinitely more ‘normal’ than breaking up a centuries-old union. Only in Scotland has there remained rancour and longing by a deluded minority for the fabled and wonderful old days, which in truth never existed. These people prefer dreams of Brigadoon and Braveheart to reality.

ALExANDER MCKAY, Edinburgh.