Alienation in UK

wHATEvEr the political and financial arguments about scottish independence, there is no doubt that the words and actions of politicians and the media do much to fuel the increasing alienation felt by the smaller nations of the UK.

As long as, for example, politicians and journalists refer to England when they mean Britain and as long as we have a central bank called the Bank of England rather than the Bank of Britain then many UK citizens will continue to feel that their separate national identities are not being properly respected.

Perception is important and it is equally frustrating that we have nationwide BBC Tv 6pm and 10pm news programmes whose content is increasingly irrelevant to scotland, wales and Northern Ireland and frequently ignores the fact that trends and policies with respect to the NHs, education, law and order and even the economy in England often do not apply to the rest of the UK.

The feeling that scotland is being sidelined is certainly not helped by the BBC continuing to persevere with a weather map, which distorts the shape of Britain to make scotland appear much smaller than it really is.

Even radio 4 had to correct itself last sunday when it spoke of Britain’s qualification for the world Cup.

The sad fact is that these failures are often a question of education and those causing offence are probably unaware of the anger which they provoke.

only when the whole of the UK instinctively recognises and values the separate national identifies of those resident in the UK, and such anomalies as those list-