Devolution and Communications Policy in Scotland

This chapter illustrates how ‘most of the Holyrood political class has been reluctant to explore the boundaries between the devolved and the reserved’, even on less life-and-death issues such as broadcasting. Conversely, it also tells of at least one post-devolution success story for classic informal pre-devolution-style ‘Scottish lobbying’ in Westminster. Scotland is presently one of the UK's leading audiovisual production centres, with Glasgow as the linchpin. The capacity of the Scottish Parliament to debate questions of media concentration but also its incapacity to act legislatively has been observed. There are both political and economic calculations behind the refusal to devolve powers over the media via the Communications Act 2003. Ofcom now has a key role in policing the terms of trade for regional production that falls within a public service broadcaster's target across the UK. The BBC's position as the principal vehicle of public service broadcasting has come increasingly under question. The Gaelic Media Service set up under the Communications Act 2003 has a line of responsibility to Ofcom in London. Scottish Advisory Committee on Telecommunications (SACOT) determined four key regulatory issues needing future attention by Ofcom.

Scotland’s Fiscal Relationships with England and the United Kingdom

This chapter argues that it may soon go too far and stir up legitimate resentment in Scotland and Wales — precisely because it will get too close to equal per capita expenditures. It also provides the consequences on whether the imperfect integration of Scotland into the union is something to be celebrated or deplored depends upon the perspective adopted. Both the Goschen formula and the Barnett formula became at various times something for the Scottish Office to defend as a means of protecting its policy space and the perceived expenditure advantage they protected. Attitudes to formulae such as Goschen and Barnett are conditioned, partly at least, by the perceptions of the extent to which the arrangements are favourable. It then addresses how the arrangements have worked under devolution. Moreover, it considers the two questions: how expenditure is to be determined; and how it is to be funded. The example presented shows the obvious point that a UK government that wished to make the union unworkable could do so. However, it also shows that union has demonstrated a remarkable resilience and its future is properly a political choice.

New Unions for Old

This chapter recommends a reversion from the 1707 Union of Parliaments to the 1603 Union of Crowns (though not of governments). Its argument is originally submitted to the joint attention of the Royal Society and the British Academy on a date very close to 5 November 2003. James succeeded in preserving peace in the islands during his long reign — long in England itself, longer yet in Scotland. In Westminster as well as Edinburgh and elsewhere, real power has come to be invested in parliaments, and thus in the governments that command parliamentary majorities through the dominance of political parties. The UK system works so long as party ties make more or less unquestioned the loyalty of the head of a devolved Scottish government to the head of the United Kingdom government. Generally, the present contribution is offered primarily as a scholarly, not a political one. It is enough if it has sketched grounds for taking seriously the question what ‘new unions for old’ might mean.

W(h)ither the Union? Anglo-Scottish Relations in the Twenty-first Century

This chapter argues that Britain in 1900 was neither a state nor a nation. It also claims that ‘the scale of grievances in Scotland…is simply not sufficient’ to endanger the union and ‘if anything’ devolution has decreased them. The union may mean what one want it to mean, as Humpty Dumpty observed. The irony is that the imperial connection has in large part reinforced the contradictions of British national identity. The chapter then examines the issues of identity. It also highlights the need not to assume that issues of citizenship and nationality operate according to the same framework in different parts of the kingdom. There does not appear to be an antipathy to being British among people in Scotland, but it does not ring with pride either: hence, perhaps, the usefulness of the ‘withering away’ metaphor. In addition, there is nothing inevitable either about the survival of the union, nor about its demise.

National Identities and Twentieth-Century Scottish Migrants in England

This chapter presents a preliminary examination of the twentieth-century Scottish migrant experience within England by investigating notions of national identity as articulated by individual migrants. It also shows that the analysis of interviews with Scottish immigrants in England reveal ‘predominantly favourable accounts of life in England’ and indicate that ‘Scots did not receive a hostile reception’. The six interviews used here for the exploration of Scottish identity were sourced from the National Sound Archive at the British Library. For the purposes of this discussion, expressions of identity are confined to Scottish-born migrants. In exploring what Scottish identities meant to these migrants, the chapter is mainly concerned with personal manifestations of Scottishness. The internal character of Scottishness briefly outlined in this chapter can misleadingly suggest that Scots were integrated into the societies they settled in. Moreover, the testimonies indicate that interpretations of Scottish identity have for too long been reliant on domestic conditions in Scotland.

Devolution, Social Citizenship, and Territorial Culture: Equity and Diversity in the Anglo-Scottish Relationship

This chapter addresses the ‘blunt’ question: ‘why should taxpayers in the southern half of England pay for everyone else's needs?’ Devolution changes the content of UK citizenship. It also argues that some quite good indicators are available of how the Scots view these relationships and express their expectations of multi-level government. The tensions which can exist between statewide commonality and territorial variation of policy standards, as exemplified in particular in the relationship of Quebec to Anglophone Canada, are investigated. It then considers how citizens as voters plot their ways through multi-level government by studying how far and why voters behave differently at territorial as compared to statewide elections. Moreover, the findings to Scottish-English relationships in the UK are applied, emphasizing first on territorial policy variation and ‘multi-level voting’, then on the importance of territorial financial arrangements in expressing ideas about the statewide solidarity of citizens in all territories.

Scotland and the Monarchy in the Twentieth Century

This chapter demonstrates that Queen Victoria had a talent for interpreting and manipulating history, adopting national identities and evoking a significant response. It also discusses the English reaction when the ‘Stone of Destiny’ was (briefly) taken from Westminster Abbey in 1950 by nationalist students from Glasgow University. It specifically explores Scottish perceptions of the monarchy as part of a wider British identity in Scotland. It begins by briefly outlining the ways in which Victoria re-established the notion of monarchy in Scottish society. The contrast between the popular perception of Victoria and her heir, Edward, is examined to illustrate how notions of Scottishness were significant in identifying the attitudes towards the monarchy. It then addresses the period surrounding the coronation of Queen Elizabeth as it took place in 1953, the 350th anniversary of the Union of the Crowns. It further evaluates some of the reasons why the effect of monarchy as a unifying factor in British identity has decreased in Scotland over the last twenty years. There has been a steady decline in the number of Scots who served in the armed forces in the period after 1945.

Introduction: From Last Empress to First Minister

This book outlines the association between Scotland and England since the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Individual chapters range in focus from the late nineteenth century to the foreseeable future. They cover topics from the monarchy, constitution, parliamentary procedure, public policy and finance to the attitudes, experiences and identities of the ordinary Scots and English — both as majorities and as minorities in each other's country. They also include the natural inequality of the union in consequence of population sizes; trends in culture and identity; the changing role of the state; cross-border sympathy; and the pressure of adversarial politics. Gini's ‘Coefficient of Inequality’ is used to calculate the concentration of income or wealth within countries. Culture and identity are not merely conceptually and empirically distinct, they seem to be trending in opposite directions: cultures are merging, identities diverging. An overview of the chapters included in this book is shown.

Varieties of Nationalism in Scotland and England

This chapter shows that there is an inevitable asymmetry in the very nature and character of Scottish and English nationalism. In particular, it tries to examine the nature of unionism and nationalism in Scotland and England and the prospects for the union. Minority nationalism is the nationalism of politically subordinate groups that seek statehood. The chapter first explores three different aspects of nationalism, namely emotional attachments to Britain, perceptions of conflicts of interest between England and Scotland and constitutional preferences. It gets very different impressions of relations between England and Scotland depending on whether constitutional preferences, affective attachments or perceptions of national interest are considered. The data indicate that, whereas amongst older respondents higher education was linked with unionism, amongst the young it was accompanied by disengagement. The character and behaviour of unionists, nationalists, potential nationalists and disengaged post-nationalists, and the implications for relations between the two countries are elaborated. It is suspected that parties like the Referendum Party in 2001 and currently the UK Independence Party are the most likely to harness the potential for English nationalism and to direct it against Europe rather than against Scotland.

Anglo-Scottish Relations: A Borderland Perspective

This chapter points out that the Provinces of England begins by ‘rejecting the idea of an English parliament’ on the grounds that an English parliament would ‘dominate the federation in the manner that Prussia had dominated the German Empire before 1914’. It also charts the rise of regionalism in North-East England during the twentieth century. Additionally, it argues that after 1914 North-East voices were central to the promotion of regional concerns in England and played a pivotal role in the wider emergence of political regionalism. The political expression of regionalism shifted significantly during the twentieth century. C. B. Fawcett's essay was a distinctive (northern) English contribution to the debate about ‘Home Rule All Round’. It raises issues that had begun finally to be grappled with at the close of the twentieth century. The North-East became the archetypal ‘problem region’ and the focus of multiple ‘regional policies’ over the following decades. Moreover, the regionalism in the era of nationalisation is discussed. The particular identity of the region and the need for institutional innovation to address longstanding social and economic problems is then emphasized.