We benefit from the wealth of those in the south-east of England

RUTH Marr (Letters, December 27) tells us “the further south you go, the wealthier it gets, and all down the decades ... Scotland’s oil was flowing into the Westminster coffers”. In doing so, she illustrates perfectly the Nationalist mindset she denies – the belief that the greedy English have grown rich by hoarding the income from Scotland’s oil.

Such thinking is purely a matter of choice, or of prejudice. For a start, her assertion is untrue – the furthest south you can go in Britain is Cornwall, which is one of the poorest parts of the country. Similarly her question “is [there] any other country in the world which would lie down and allow itself to be stripped of its wealth in the way Scotland has?” is utterly bogus: the country which has landed oil from the North Sea was and remains the UK. There has been no lying down and no stripping of wealth.

It is true that Scotland has a claim to oil revenues: but also to the revenues of the whole of the UK, for example, those accruing from Toyota in Sunderland, from Sage in Newcastle, from industry in the north-west of England and the English Midlands, and of course from the massive revenues of the financial services industries in London and elsewhere in the south-east.

All Ms Marr and those like her need to do is to embrace the idea that “we” are the UK and that what is “ours” is the wealth of the whole country. Anything else is an economic absurdity.

Indeed, the wealthier parts of the south are populated by taxpayers and indeed probably have a large number of higher rate tax earners. Scottish Nationalists might feel better in the New Year if they imagine all those people polishing their BMWs outside nice houses in Guildford and East Grinstead as a source of revenue just over the horizon which can be put to use for Scotland’s benefit; a bit like oil, in fact. Peter A Russell, 87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow. I NOTE that your contributors Keith Howell, David Miller and Bill Brown (Letters, December 27) are all entirely happy with the present status of Scotland within the UK. They have concerns as to what might happen if Scotland, a supposedly equal partner in the Union, was entitled to a different view on any matter of significance.

Mr Howell claims to believe in “Scotland’s distinctive place” within the UK establishment, but offers no evidence that this is actually the case. I am struggling to think of any examples where Scotland’s separate interests and needs are treated with such respect by the UK governing classes.

Mr Miller asks what would happen in any marriage or union if the two parties had an equal say but disagreed on major issues, and suggests that one or other must take the lead.

Well, we know exactly what happens at present in the UK when the supposedly equal partners don’t have such a say. Just a few weeks ago we saw what actually happened in Parliament when 58 of Scotland’s 59 MPs voted against the replacement of Trident, and its continued siting at Faslane close to the largest civilian conurbation in Scotland. Their vote was swamped by more than 500 other MPs, none of whom has any responsibility for Scottish electors and their stated interests.

Is that Mr Miller’s preferred solution?

Mr Brown is confident that “each part of the Union will continue to display both tolerance and understanding to each other”. I’m afraid I see very little evidence of that from the political establishment south of the Border, in particular from the UK Government and the heavily Anglicised London “national” media. To return to Mr Miller’s example, I suggest that this marriage between a now-overbearing spouse and a rebellious partner must sooner or later end in only one way – divorce, either amicable or contentious. Iain AD Mann, 7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.