The Scotland I know is dying… I must accept it

IHOPE you don’t mind me telling you about Anne and Rob. Anne and Rob were neighbours of mine and, until their deaths a couple of years ago, I would visit them every Sunday for a cup of a tea and a natter and an update on what was going on in their lives and the world. Rob was in his 80s, Anne in her 90s, and their experience and references went back to way before the Second World War. I think we can learn a lot from Anne and Rob.

I mention them because I’ve been imagining what they might be saying about the current state of politics if they were still around. Anne and Rob were ordinary, working-class, Ayrshire Scots who didn’t have a lot of cash when they were growing up, took a deeply practical view of life, health, and other people, and were wary of salesmen, politicians, and journalists (including me at first).

Like a lot of Scots of their age and experience, Anne and Rob also had several core instincts that drove most of their views. First, they were cautious about spending money unnecessarily. Second, they were wary of change and had generally conservative instincts. Third, they were resistant to governments telling them what to do (and charging them for it). And fourth, they had a dual identity that they pretty much took for granted: their Scottishness was their Britishness was their Scottishness.

All of these instincts – formed and confirmed by the war, and post-war governments (good and bad) – led both Anne and Rob to be deeply suspicious of Scottish nationalism and the people who led it: first Alex Salmond, then Nicola Sturgeon. Salmond, as far as they were concerned, was a blowhard and Sturgeon a troublemaker and a stirrer. In later years, Anne would sit back in her chair after we’d finished our cups of tea and cake (home-made, naturally) and say: “So, tell me, what has that besom been up to now?”

I realise not all of you may feel quite as affectionate about Scots like Anne and Rob as I do: indeed, some of the nastier nationalists on Twitter take great delight in the fact that Scots of Anne and Rob’s generation (who are likely to vote No) are dying out. But, as the law of demographics adjusts the population without pity, and there are fewer Scots like Anne and Rob and more Scots who take different views, I can’t help feeling a bit down; dispirited; depressed. The Scotland I know, through people like Anne and Rob, my grannies, my mother, is dying. And I need to accept it.

A couple of recent trends have confirmed where things seem to be going. Scots like Anne and Rob were generally thrifty – my granny in Thurso used to give us felt-tip pens to colour in the bald patches on her rugs so she didn’t have to buy new ones – and much of their antipathy to Scottish independence came from the realisation that it would be expensive for Scots like them. They would be worse off.

However, increasingly, many Scots take a different, and more cavalier, view of money. A lot of them have credit cards and overdrafts (Anne and Rob would never have dreamed of such things) and the idea of debt, and the cost of debt, is not off-putting to them, which explains why the economic cost of independence is no deterrent. They shrug their shoulders. So what? A Panelbase poll the other day showed that 55 per cent of Scots believe independence will be good for the Scottish economy.

Anne and Rob’s instinctive caution and suspicion about politicians, especially politicians telling you what to do, is also clearly under threat. Many Scots listen to Nicola Sturgeon’s briefings obediently rather than questioningly; they are more likely than people in the rest of the UK to wear face masks and to do it zealously, belligerently even; they also bristle at criticism of the First Minister. Scots like Anne and Rob may have been conservative, but they weren’t conformist. What happened to our antipathy to authority? It’s one of the things I liked about us most.

Anne and Rob’s dual British/ Scottish identity is also on the way out. I was chatting to a retired coal miner the other day – he’s in his 80s – and it was interesting to see his take on the world. He was passionately anti-thatcher and is passionately Royalist; he is instinctively Scottish and instinctively British.

Some nationalists would see those positions as contradictory but they’re not. A lot of Scots feel that way. The problem is a lot of them are in their 80s and 90s and won’t be around for much longer.

I have to admit that fact does get me down. I accept there are lots of older Scots who support independence (I was speaking to one in his late 80s the other day: “I Am A Separatist!” he told me in no uncertain terms). But it seems to me that, as more of the postwar generation dies out, the more we lose the voices of caution and conservatism. Younger Scots are always going to be a bit more relaxed about risk – that’s natural – but we are losing the Scots who look at the idea of change, and the cost of it, and say: ca canny.

The only hope is that some younger voters won’t always be the same as they are now and that, as they get older, their views will moderate and change. Who knows, they may even start to understand the value of Anne and Rob’s approach to spending money, and to politicians and nationalistic politicians in particular. It sometimes happens as you get older: you see more.

But I am not hopeful. Increasingly, when I speak to people under 50, they feel uncomfortably different to many of the Scots I know, and the effect is even more marked when you speak to people under 30. They are aggressively supportive of Nicola Sturgeon and aggressively attached to Scottishness. They are dismissive of the risks of independence and the benefits of being in a union. I do not like any of this. I think it is a mark of nationalist ideology. I would prefer it if more people thought like Anne and Rob, and my granny, and me. But I can also see that it’s happening nonetheless. I cannot change it. I cannot stop it. I must accept it.

Younger Scots are always going to be a bit more relaxed about risk – that’s natural – but we are losing the Scots who look at the idea of change, and the cost of it, and say: ca canny