I beg to differ... Scotland
Scene: The last day of Creation. God is busy creating a wonderful land, full of handsome, inventive people, with fantastic mountainous scenery and rivers and lochs full of fish. St Peter, who's been looking over his shoulder, asks: "Aren't you being a bit too generous with this country?" At this the Creator smiles and replies: "Yes, but wait until you see who I'm going to give them for neighbours."
And so Scotland was born, like most small countries always viewed in comparison to the bigger, richer people next door. It has tended to see itself in such a light, too, perpetually matching itself against the big boy next door and regarding him with a mixture of envy, condescension and almost perpetual irritation.
Scotland has generally come out of that comparison very well over the centuries. A hunger for knowledge combined with a congenitally disputatious nature and allied, in former times at least, with a firstclass education system produced a country and people that have always punched way above their weight — sometimes literally, given our reputation as soldiers.
While the English are a large enough race to be self-effacing about their attributes, we're small enough to get away with boasting about ours. As any Scot will tell you, we have given the world telephones, television, tarmacadam, penicillin, pneumatic tyres ... the list of inventions is almost endless. Our inherent canniness means that we also proliferate in the world of business.
However, perhaps where we're most visible is in that area where our desire for an argument is augmented by a genuine belief in public service. This prime minister and the last were Scots, the leader of the third party is a Scot and even the Etonian David Cameron is of Scottish lineage; with a name like that he couldn't be anything else.
The new devolved administration in Edinburgh has recently abandoned its predecessor's favourite slogan that Scotland is "the best small country in the world". Not because it's so obviously boastful but because, despite our size, we don't really think of ourselves as small. We're Scots, after all.
Alan Cochrane In association with
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