The Debatable Land

In Suburbia

Megan McArdle writes:

Because I've always lived in cities, I don't even understand the utility of the big yards I see in the suburbs.  I get the purpose of a yard for children and dogs to play in, and summers on the patio.  But I don't get the point of the vast expanses of lawn that lie fallow in the more upscale suburbs.  They require vast upkeep for the benefit of . . . looking at green, empty space.  And the tradeoff seems to be a world where you can't get anywhere without driving and your neighbors are distant apparitions.

Well, I've divided my life between the city and the countryside and I've never lived in suburbia. Nor can I imagine doing so (though of course children might change that calculation). In an ideal world I would own a flat in the city and a cottage in the countryside. But few of us get to live in our ideal worlds and for many people, in the UK and the United States, life in suburbia is in many respects an attempt to split the difference, combining the fresh air, space and privacy of the countryside with the convenience and access to amenities of city life. (Plus, of course, in many American suburbs, better schools than are to be found in the inner-city).

In Britain at least - or more especially, in England - the garden represents, in many respects, an attempt to retain a link with a peaceful bucolic past in which life was simpler, purer, nicer. Almost every middle-class English family years for a place in the country, far from the hustle and bustle of the metropolitan life. Not for nothing is gardening one of the country's favourite pastimes (newspapers regularly entice readers with offers of free seeds or plants or gardening accoutrements). Nor is this passion confined to the wealthy; every British city still contains allotments, used by people of all classes to grow their own flowers and vegetables. Across the country, you'll find greenhouses wedged into the tiniest gardens and patios, to an extent uncommon elsewhere. in the cities, window-boxes are full to bursting with herbs and basement patios are packed with roses or tomato plants. Afternoons pottering amidst the plants remain a national passion. Much has changed in Britain since Orwell wrote his famous essay England Your England, but the love of flowers remains.

And so suburbia, with its advantages of space and privacy appeals. And in its way, despite all the compromises, it's a place filled with nostalgia; a place where you can mind your own business and expect your neighbours to mind theirs; somewhere the children can run about and play the way children are supposed to run about and play. If an Englishman's home is his castle, then his lawn and bed of roses are his pride and joy: I grew that he says, proud of his efforts at taming a little parcel of nature to his will (even if he relies on fertilisers and chemicals to do much of the heavy lifting).Obviously there's a status thing at work here as well, but it's not the only, or even the most important, consideration.

So, in that respect, the suburban lawn and garden seems a perfectly rational response, adapting an ancient human need  - growing things and forging, in however small a fashion, some link with the land itself - to the needs and patterns of contemporary life in which such connections can often seem frayed or, worse, abandoned entirely.

I think much of this must also apply to American suburban life too, most especially the advantages of size and privacy. It's the logical consequence of the deep-rooted American wish to lead lives free from interference from others. And, of course, at a certain level there's a cultural connection, however thin, between the expansion of suburban yards and building plots and the original pioneering spirit of the homesteaders, spreading out across the prairies and laying claim to their small patch of territory. In that sense, the young family that moves to a large suburban lot from the crowded inner-city is following a familiar, classically American, journey.

It's understandable that those of us fortunate enough to have lived in lovely cities or to have grown up in beautiful parts of the countryside might find aspects of suburban life strange and unfulfilling (or, in my case, find American suburbia a weird, yet fascinating, blend of the familiar and the deeply weird). But the people who live in the suburbs and tend their lawns and yards have good reasons to be there. They're doing their best with what they have.

A Question of Accent

Megan wonders whatever happened to the classic upper-crust New England accent:

Why did this happen? Television tends to flatten regional accents, of course, but how come Britain held onto its aristocratic tones, while America's slipped softly and silently away?

Well, it's true that the aristocracy, in as much as it still exists, has maintained a certain distinctive way of speaking, but it's not heard very often. David Cameron, for example, is sometimes labelled a "toff" but his accent is very different from that of Harold Macmillan or Alec Douglas-Home for instance. There's not much cut-glass around these days. You won't, for instance, find many people in British movies talking in the manner of Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter. Then again, you won't find many movies like Brief Encounter either:

England, Their F***ing England

Amazing.

Pupils are being rewarded for writing obscenities in their GCSE English examinations even when it has nothing to do with the question.

One pupil who wrote “f*** off” was given marks for accurate spelling and conveying a meaning successfully.

His paper was marked by Peter Buckroyd, a chief examiner who has instructed fellow examiners to mark in the same way. He told trainee examiners recently to adhere strictly to the mark scheme, to the extent that pupils who wrote only expletives on their papers should be awarded points.

On the other hand... you might  say, given that I assume that plenty of the questions (in these shabby, fallen days!) are fatuous and gawd-help-us daft, that a swift "Fuck off" might be an admirably pithy and considered verdict that treated the question with an entirely appropriate measure of contempt...

[Hat-tip: James @ Coffee Hoose]

Annals of Punditry

Euro 2008 starts today and happily we're spared the agony of watching Scotland play. The BBC are doing their best to persuade us that even a tournament "without England" might be worth watching even though most sentient people appreciate that England's failure to qualify actually enhances the tournament, especially for the TV viewer who might have an increased chance of intelligent, astute, imaginative, perceptive TV coverage.

Not so fast my friends! Here's the BBC's Gary Lineker explaining why he thinks Spain can win the tournament:

It is open, but I am going for those perennial underachievers in Spain...the feeling is that [the] team chokes, but they have done well in sports like golf and motor racing where they have shown they have the bottle.

So: Sergio Garcia winning a golf tournament or two and Fernando Alonso's success in F1 enhance Spain's prospects of winning Euro 2008? Amazing. Lineker's other reason for supposing Spain can do well?

Spain also have this experience of players going abroad - their national team has never had that before.

By abroad, of course, Lineker means England. Well, maybe, but let's just say that having lots of chaps playing in the Premier League didn't exactly enhance England's prospects for winning the tournament, did it?

Gary Lineker is paid £1.5m a year. By you.

Et in Purgatorio ego?

Thanks to Ross Douthat for alerting me to this trailer for the forthcoming movie of Brideshead Revisited:

As Ross says, this may not bear much resemblance to the novel you read. But come on, isn't this just delightfully over-the-top and wonderfully trashy? I doubt it matters that the adaptation - Emma Thomson as Lady Marchmain notwithstanding - seems certain to be utter tripe.

I remember that when Andrew Davies announced that his adaptation would take the view that the book's really about how catholicism ruins everyone's life, there was much umbrage and outrage at this desecration of Waugh's intent. But there's little necessity for an adaptation to be faithful to the original author's intent. And Davies' view is far from untenable even if it ain't how Waugh would have seen his novel.

And in any case, if we're honest, Brideshead is ripe for a Dynasty style makeover. Brideshead is a soap opera after all and, frequently, a contrived, over-written, nonsensical drama to boot. That's part of its charm of course - itself, natch, the novel's fatal flaw...

Matt Zeitlin, on the other hand, suggests one should weep over this trailer. Now there's something to the argument that given the great success - indeed brilliance - of John Mortimer's Granada adaptation there's no need for a new film. But then again, what damage can there really be? Anyone who loves Brideshead - and it's one of those novels that despite its brilliance attracts too many too passionate defenders - has no monopoly or veto on how the book must be interpreted. In fact some of them need winding up... 

In passing Ross makes mention of Waugh's "more serious novels". Does he mean to say that Scoop isn't a serious commentary on journalism? Surely not. Now there's an adaptation that might be fun - provided, of course, that it was played seriously and not milked for laughs...

Cry Heffer for England and St George...

Happy St George's day, English readers. To mark the occasion, the Telegraph offers us Simon Heffer, the would-be John Wilkes of our times, to declare the Union "as good as over". And this, according to Heffer, is a fine thing since it ensures that England can finally be free from Tartan oppression. Apparently there's been a conspiracy to to prevent the English from being, well, English:

St     Patrick's, St David's and St Andrew's days were decreed as the moments when the oppressed proclaimed their identity and possibly even their liberation.

The only thing the English could possibly do on St George's  Day was to reflect upon their centuries of evil, so it really was best not to make a fuss. Anyone seen sporting a red rose or a cross of St George on the day itself was clearly mentally ill, and worthy only of pity.

The Left, though, has other reasons now to keep its jackboot on the throat of England's national identity. Despite the inroads made by Scottish nationalists, Scotland remains crucial to the Labour Party; Wales scarcely less so.

The exercise of power over nearly 50 million in England is enabled  by Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs sitting in the United Kingdom parliament.

Having the toy of England to play with does not merely provide jobs for a number of them, most conspicuously the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

It also ensures a flow of subsidy - about £11 billion a year to Scotland alone - from England to the client state that Labour has created in those parts. In short, it facilitates gerrymandering of the most grotesque sort...

...Just as there were silly, blimpish men tottering around the corridors of the Tory party in the 1960s and 1970s blithering on about an empire that no longer existed, now their grandchildren, equally absurdly, drivel on about "the Union".

The Union is as good as over: and its demise represents the best opportunity for the Tories to seize serious power that they are ever likely to have again.

Labour, too, used to believe in England, and saw no shame in it: but that was in the days before it had dealt the mortal blow to the Union through devolution, and before a Scottish prime minister needed to legitimise himself by banging on robotically about "Britishness".

In the early years of the last century socialists in England used to sing a hymn about their liberation from exploitation and under-representation: its title and opening line serves as the perfect envoi today. "England, arise! The long, long night is over!"

Stirring stuff. But also perfect tommyrot. The English are as welcome to St George's day as we are to St Andrew's. the real reason St George's Day is smaller beer than the other national saints days is largely because rather a lot of Eglish folk don't see much, or any, difference between Englishness and Britishness. (That attitude, of course, is a major contributor to a kind of girning Scots chippiness that does us little credit. If we could be a more relaxed bunch we could afford to be more relaxed about this. But we're not and it irritates us.)

Still, my paternal grandfather for one would have laughed at the notion that St Andrew's Day had anything to do with "liberation" or, for that mater, "oppression". As a rubber planter in Malaya before the war he considered himself British, "except on St Andrew's night when we were Scottish first". That was in the days of Empire Glue of course. And even these days St Andrew's Day is such a festival of liberation that a) it's not even a public holiday and b) I doubt more than 60% of the population could tell you it falls on November 30th.   

Still, the niceties of the West Lothian Question and the matter of who subsidises who aside, Heffer's analysis betrays a considerable misunderstanding of the forces that led Labour to support devolution. Home rule for Scotland was designed to strengthen the Union, not weaken it. Despite all the Scottish Labour party's blathering about Home Rule being what Keir Hardie wanted, the party was only converted to the cause by the SNP's success in 1974 when the nationalists sent a football team of MPs to Westminster.

There's Romance in the Union

One of Gordon Brown's flunkies* writes in today's Telegraph:

More than a year ago I argued that a debate about the future of the United Kingdom was long overdue. I suggested that, unless we start to focus more on what unites us than we do on what divides us, there     is a real risk that one day people will wake up and find that the benefits of the Union - which they had taken for granted for so long - had disappeared.

I was accused of crying wolf. But when secessionist forces are loudly at work it is not the time for silence and passivity. We must be resolute in defending the Union and argue against those who put it at risk.

What follows is blather about

common values we share across the United Kingdom: values we have developed together over the years that are rooted in liberty, in fairness and tolerance, in enterprise, in civic initiative and internationalism.

Because, obviously, all these things are at risk if Scotland (or any other part of the United Kingdom, for that matter) were to secede?

It gets worse, if you can believe it:

So although the Union reflects self-interest - and indeed enlightened self-interest - on the part of its constituent nations it means much more than that; and much more too than a contract of convenience that can easily be renegotiated when it suits each party.

The fact is, the Union is more like a covenant founded on shared values that have created bonds of belonging that make us all feel part of a wider Britain. Out of these bonds of belonging we have     created not just the rights and responsibilities of a political citizenship but also of a social and economic citizenship too.

So today, wherever and whoever you are in any part of the United Kingdom, you enjoy not only the right to liberty within the law but also the right to education, to healthcare, to help when unemployed     and to a state pension and soon, for everyone, an occupational pension too. It is through such social insurance that all parts of the UK share risks and resources to provide security for each of us.

It is precisely because these shared values are so important and continue to flourish that it is possible to reconcile English, Scottish and Welsh pride with the progress of the Union - because the Union succeeds in combining recognition of separate national identities with the ideals and common values that reflect our wider Britishness.

Again, I think it's probably that an independent Scotland would have an interest in educating Scottish children. I dare say there'd be some kind of health service too. Perhaps even, if we're bold or fortunate, some pensions too.

Brown has it exactly wrong: the Union was forged as a contract of convenience (for both parties) and is, whether rightly or not, increasingly viewed as such again today. There's nothing wrong with that.

Whether he means to or not, Brown's op-ed today reminds one that the debate has turned full circle. Whereas 50 years ago the idea of an independent Scotland seemed a laughable proposition that could only be taken seriously by incurable romantics or eccentric, even by their standards, Jacobites, today it is, in many respects, the Unionist cause that appeals to sentiment. That too is a perfectly sensible, defensible position. If the head said preserve the Union 50 years ago, today, for many people, it's more likely to recommend independence leaving the heart to pine for the old glories of Union days. At no point does Brown pause to ask why this might be.

The Prime Minister signs off with this:

There is a modern case for the Union, and it must be heard: it is not about partnership at the expense of pride, or about pride that can be satisfied only by sacrificing partnership. Instead, it is to ensure that each region and nation of the United Kingdom flourishes within a covenant and in a partnership of equals for the benefit of all.

If there is - and actually I think there may be -  "a modern case for the Union" it might have been wise for Mr Brown to share it with us. If he chooses not to he can hardly complain if folk remain unpersuaded by his assertions.

*I give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt here, assuming that he's too intelligent to have written this cliched pap himself.

Department of Credibility

I'll have more to say about this video discussion at National Review in due course. The summary, mind you, gives you a decent flavour of the thesis:

The Decline and Fall of Europe: Chapter 3 of 5

Prof. Thornton discusses how a bureaucratic European Union “super state” is undermining the old nation-states of England, France, and Germany — a dangerous process. Uber-nationalism, of course, gave us the fascist European movements of the 20th century. Under the “enlightened” guidance of the EU, however, any nationalism is looked upon as reprehensible. Thornton counters that deep-rooted nationalism is a net good, and that its deterioration will coincide with the loss of representative democracy.

But at the risk of indulging a pet peeve or seeming unduly snarky, let me observe that this analysis of Europe might be more convincing if  England were actually a nation-state (or for that matter if Germany were an "old" nation-state). If you can't get the names of the countries correct...

Berwick Irridenta!

Salmond says it's game on!

ALEX Salmond would start legal moves to bring Berwick back under Scottish control if the town's residents voted to leave England in a referendum, it emerged yesterday.

A spokesman for the First Minister said borders were "fluid" and there were precedents from around the world of towns changing hands from one government to another.

He was responding to the results of a new poll of residents in Berwick-upon-Tweed which found a clear majority in favour of becoming part of Scotland...

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: "If there was an official referendum, there is no administration, no matter what party is in charge, who would not take Berwick back. It would be foolhardy for Westminster to ignore the wishes of the people. If there was a vote in favour, we would respect that self-determination and make the necessary representation to Westminster.

"Borders are fluid and there would have to be negotiations, but  there are precedents for this happening from around the world."

Writing in a Sunday newspaper, the First Minister said it was clear that there was "significant support" for Berwick to become Scottish, but he said it was wrong to see the debate solely in terms of public services and money.

Mr Salmond said: "We prefer to look on the views of the people of Berwick as an indication they prefer the policy programme of Edinburgh to the diktat of faraway London."

And he added: "We have no territorial ambitions for any part of England. But if it were to be agreed by Westminster that the views of the people of Berwick should be respected, I am sure any government in Edinburgh would be happy to welcome them home."

As y'all know, Berwick changed hands no fewer than 13 times before being annexed - unhappily - by England in, er, 1482.

Sadly, Wikipedia suggests that the most entertaining thing about Berwick - namely it's century long war with Russia - is, well, not true:

There is a curious apocryphal story that Berwick is (or recently was) technically at war with Russia. The story tells that since Berwick had changed hands several times, it was traditionally regarded as a special, separate entity, and some proclamations referred to "England, Scotland and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed". One such was the declaration of the Crimean War against Russia in 1853, which Queen Victoria supposedly signed as "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions". However, when the Treaty of Paris (1856) was signed to conclude the war, "Berwick-upon-Tweed" was left out. This meant that, supposedly, one of Britain's smallest towns was officially at war with one of the world's mightiest powers – and the conflict extended by the lack of a peace treaty for over a century.

The BBC programme Nationwide investigated this story in the 1970s, and found that while Berwick was not mentioned in the Treaty of Paris, it was not mentioned in the declaration of war either. The question remained of whether Berwick had ever been at war with Russia in the first place. The true situation is that since the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 had already made it clear that all references to England included Berwick, the town had no special status at either the start or end of the war.

Nevertheless, in 1966 a Soviet official waited upon the Mayor of Berwick, Councillor Robert Knox, and a peace treaty was formally signed. Mr Knox is reputed to have said "Please tell the Russian people that they can sleep peacefully in their beds." To complicate the issue, some have noted that Knox did not have any authority with regard to foreign relations, and thus may have exceeded his powers as mayor in concluding a peace treaty. The whole curious scenario was the focus of a question on the third series of the gameshow QI.

what's needed, however, is a multi-option referendum. Berwickers should be given the choice of a third way: independence. Just think, the town could become the Monaco of the North Sea...

Will ye no' come back again?

Should Berwick leave England and return to Scotland?

An unofficial vote is taking place in the English borders town asking locals whether they want to switch from England to being part of Scotland.

The town, which is near the Scottish border, has changed hands between the two countries at least 13 times...

A television debate and vote is being held for the ITV Tonight show to gauge local views on becoming part of Scotland again.

Fair enough. But in a spirit of conciliation, perhaps we could give england some town in Scotland as compensation for the loss of Berwick. I'm tempted to suggest Galashiels but am conscious there are many more deserving - ie, places we would be well shot of - towns in the west of Scotland. I have, in this respect, no problem with an English enclave in an independent Scotland.

But let's hear your nominations for the town we could swap for Berwick?

Department of English/British Conflation

Radley, Radley... Please. This isn't the "British Olympic soccer team" giving the Nazi salute in 1938, it's the English soccer team. You may think this a minor matter, but I assure you it makes all the difference in the world.

But yes, it's rotten that the British Olympic Association should be wanting to gag athletes who might - albeit improbably - feel like protesting China's, er, mixed human rights record from doing so.

The Symbolism of Sarko?

An entry for Pseud's Corner. Adam Gopnik on Sarko's romance with Carla Bruni:

It is possible to imagine that Sarkozy is not simply a man governed by his impulses and appetites but one trying to use a situation to make a strategic point. In the past, all French politicians were involved in an organized hypocrisy, where mistresses were known, and hidden with a wink. Just as Tony Blair used the cold body of Princess Diana to underline the need for a departure from the national habit of perpetual emotional postponement, Sarko conceivably is using the very warm body of Bruni to make the point that the French need to escape from their habit of perpetual cloaked privilege—of allowing an educated élite to have prerogatives and manners different from the great mass of the people. No more subsidized mistresses; instead, openly carnal vacations.

Or maybe, you know, he's just enjoying himself.

Also: it's piffle to suppose that the English - for here Gopnik means the English rather than the British - have a "habit of perpetual emotional postponement". It's just that they channel to their emotions into sensible areas. Spaniels, for instance. Or roses. Other people's children, sometimes. The English are in fact a very emotional people; it's a great mistake to believe otherwise.'

Moore's Weekly Almanack

Among the many pleasures of The Spectator - greatly improved under Matthew D'Ancona's watch - few are greater than Charles Moore's weekly column. Having edited the Speccie himself Mr Moore knows how to write a notebook-style column. Ranging over acres and acres of ground - an archive of the column is here - it's classic Toryism of the finest sort. Some recent snippets of common sense, wry humour and insight. Proof of the column's excellence is that one need not agree with it to appreciate it.

For instance:

The working week began with what the press call ‘Blue Monday’, the day in January when all the worst things about being alive  — post-Christmas credit card bills, the dreariness of work, foul weather etc. — combine. It lived up to its billing, with the slump in the stock market, and wind and rain. I went for a walk. There were no colours but grey-green and brown, and almost no sign of life. Even the snipe that normally flourish in our marshy field seemed to have fled. I found this absence of redeeming features cheering. Looking back on previous recessions, I realise that I have enjoyed them, even when they hurt me personally. Recessions are moments of truth, which human nature needs after the lies that always go with a boom. The best way to deal with bad weather is to go out in it.

And this:

Through all the apparent banality of campaign speeches, politicians do, in fact, convey a message about themselves. There is a vital distinction between candidates who, mentally, face outwards and those who face inwards. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair all faced outwards: they instinctively wanted to communicate with voters, just as good actors or good preachers wish to reach their audiences. Although she may well win the Democratic nomination because of her standing with the party establishment, Hillary Clinton is a politician who faces inwards. She says she ‘found her voice’ in New Hampshire, but what does her voice say? One of her stated reasons why she should be the Democratic candidate is the need to resist the ‘Republican attack machine’ (shades of the ‘vast, right-wing conspiracy’ she identified years before). No doubt that machine is strong and frightening, but surely it is not an issue for voters. Inside her head, it seems, is a constant battle with political enemies, not a conversation with the American people. The British equivalent, with this brooding inwardness verging on paranoia, is Gordon Brown. It is not a good model of leadership.

And one more:

Responding to a recent statement by Harriet Harman about her difficulties over donations, the Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell, told the Commons that her remarks had been ‘charming’. This will have surprised most of those who listened to Ms Harman, but in fact Sir Peter was using a convention which, until I heard him, I thought had died out. Just as MPs who were regular soldiers are referred to as ‘gallant’ in the House, and MPs who are also QCs are called ‘learned’, and MPs who have courtesy titles are (or were) called ‘noble’, so the speeches of women MPs used automatically to be characterised as ‘charming’. The word sometimes sounded strained but, when you think about it, it is no more so than the word ‘honourable’ or, also in the parliamentary context, the word ‘friend’. Is it time for an epithet for those who have followed the profession of spin-doctor — ‘eloquent’?

He also has an excellent long-running war (and obsession) with the TV licensing authorities.

There'll Always Be an England...

Not to intrude into private grief or anything, but how can you children not be amused by this?

Croatia rose to the occasion in their crucial Euro 2008 defeat of England - after an apparent X-rated gaffe by an English opera singer at Wembley.

Tony Henry belted out a version of the Croat anthem before the 80,000 crowd, but made a blunder at the end.

He should have sung 'Mila kuda si planina' (which roughly means 'You know my dear how we love your mountains').

But he instead sang 'Mila kura si planina' which can be interpreted as 'My dear, my penis is a mountain.'

UPDATE: Commenter Damir suggests a more accurate translation is:

"Mila kuda si planina" means "You (Croatia) are dear to us where you are mountainous." The preceding line is "You (Croatia) are dear to us where you are a flat plain."

"Mila kurac si planina" would render closer to "Dear penis, you're a mountain."

In related news*:

TRIBUTES are being paid to Scotland this morning after the entire country laughed itself to death.

Small groups of volunteers from Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Carlisle ventured north just after midnight only to find houses full of dead people gathered around still blaring television sets.

By dawn, as RAF helicopters flew over deserted city streets, it was clear that the whole country had suffered a catastrophic abdominal rupture...

Moving tributes are already being placed along the Scotland-England border with many mourners opting to leave a simple bag of chips or a deep fried bunch of flowers.

Yes, not proud. I actually felt  - and, so long as I don't spend too much time thinking about it - still do feel rather sorry for the poor old English. Their newspapers and television pundits deserve every misery of course, but the average English football fan is a decent, if somewhat lugubrious, cove who knows full-well that England are not an especially good football team. They deserve better from their players and leaders.

For what little it's worth I'd hire Fabio Capello to take over. He at least knows what he's doing and has a better track record than any of the other plausible candidates. I offer this advice in a constructive spirit, unlike Alan Hansen who, I assume, must be working undercover for England's enemies since he seems to think Alan shearer is a sensible choice.

[*Thanks to old college pal GT for the tip.]

Alex Salmond's Southern Helpers

Sometimes it is useful to be reminded that the English are often barely more knowledgeable about Scotland than Americans are about Canada.Today's Guardian piece "Life Without Scotland" is by turns juvenile, irritating, superficial, irritating and ignorant. It's meant to be tongue-in-cheek funny but it misses each and every one of its targets.

Nonetheless, the most interesting element of the piece is that it was published at all. It is rather odd to see the English slowly waking up to the fact that Scotland is now officially a semi-detached member of the Union. They don't seem to like it much.

Complaints about lavish spending on health and education north of the border  fail to recognise that these policies could have been pursued by the old Scottish Office in the pre-devolution era without anyone noticing at all. If Scotland spends more on health that's partly because it spends less on policing. And so on.

Equally it's useful to remember that Scotland's public-spending advantage is refers only to the 85% of UK government that is considered "identifiable". It is a reasonable supposition that most of the remaining 15% is spent in England generally and London and the south-east particularly.

That's by the by. John Swinney delivered the SNP's first ever budget this week. It's a characteristically sober document, neither especially dispiriting nor terribly uplifting. That's probably sensible.  There's little need for the Nationalists to poke the English lion any more at this stage; not when the English are doing their best to inspire Scots to say to hell with it all perhaps even by Salmond's predicted date of 2017).

Still, if Salmond wanted to be truly bold he'd wait a year or two and then use - or try to anyway, given his minority administration's wobbly status - the parliament's power to vary income taxes. The amount of revenue returned to citizens by a 3 pence in the pound cut in the basic rate of income tax would not be the point of the ploy (welcome though it would be). No, the point would be to further enrage the English so that a comprehensive reform of the Barnett Formula became inevitable. Of course, any such revision is unlikely to be favourable to Scotland.

That would be, despite what you may think, a victory for the Nationalists of course since it further dents the economic case for maintaining the Union. If the bribe advantage of extra spending is off the table that's one less reason to be afraid of filing for separation.

If English Unionists want to save the Union then, they should be careful. Getting what they seem to want - a revision of the arrangement governing Scottish representation at Westminster and recalculating funding formulae - will further increase the distance between London and Edinburgh. That's a pyrhhic victory for Unionism.

Unionists may find it unpalatable, but they need to pipe down and, however reluctantly, accept the current constitutional and financial anomalies. These may be an affront to reason, logic and that famous English sense of fair play. But then so are many things, including much of the (unwritten) constitution in the first place. Grumbling should be a private not a public matter - unless that is these self-proclaimed Unionists are actually carrying water for Alex Salmond. Ruthless consistency and logic are much more likely to bleed the Union to death than bind its wounds. They may not like the alternatives but they'd be advised to lump them.

A tax-cutting gambit might have been a step too far this year, but it's a secret weapon I would deploy at some point in the future if I were Alex Salmond.