Tartan Day

[expat]

I'll just point out that today is the 690th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath. This is usually quoted as being Scotland's Declaration of Independence (especially from England) but that is IMHO just how our history was at that time. Much more important is the declaration that the king owes his crown to his subjects, and that they can and will remove him from the throne if he ceases to represent the interests of the nation. This is the invention of democracy in the modern world: Magna Carta, important as it is, contains nothing of this; in Magna Carta, King John was forced to cede certain rights to his subjects, but it remained that those rights were his to cede, whereas Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, derived his power from the Scots.

This has clear echoes in the American Declaration of Independence (hardly surprising when 10 of the 13 colonial governors who signed the Declaration were Scots), which is why Americans celebrate Tartan Day today.

It also shows in our constitution to this day: John was King of England, Robert the Bruce was King of the Scots (not of Scotland). In England the King was sovereign, in Scotland the people were sovereign. That means that in the present day in England Parliament is sovereign, while in Scotland the people are sovereign, as ever (the Union in 1707 was a joining of two countries, not the absorption of one into the other).

So you need not look across the Atlantic for a model of constitutional democracy for a sovereign people, whose government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed: it is right here, where it was invented.

Slainthe mhor!

[MarillionFan]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Scots people! Laughable.

(MF Checks Moderator list)

Yep, Scottish people. Skirt wearing alcho's the lot of 'em!

[Cliphead]

Yep, Scottish people. Skirt wearing alcho's the lot of 'em!

Ah, but would you say that to a skirt wearing alcho's face?

Thought not

[minestrone]

Robert the Bruce was very probably not a Scot though.

[TykeMerc]

Robert the Bruce was very probably not a Scot though.

To be fair for centuries the England didn't have an English king and it could be argued we still have a German monarch.

Thanks for the historical info Expat, Scottish history wasn't taught here in England and I wasn't aware of the constitutional changes you described, interesting (genuinely, no sarcasm).

[expat]

To be fair for centuries the England didn't have an English king and it could be argued we still have a German monarch.

Thanks for the historical info Expat, Scottish history wasn't taught here in England and I wasn't aware of the constitutional changes you described, interesting (genuinely, no sarcasm).

Thank you. Strangely, I wasn't taught it in Scotland either. We (our two nations) both seemed to learn at school some kind of video game version of history where the action consisted of armies swinging across the border one way or the other on pillaging trips. Meanwhile in real life our peoples were more or less developing the modern world, and the pitched-battle-oriented version of history doesn't teach us anything about it.

[minestrone]

Scottish history as I was given in school was mainly about the industrial revolution and the Scottish Enlightenment, there was never much thought given to Bannockburn where Robert the Bruce chopped in half the English chap and all that birth of a nation stuff.

Now of course the SNP want every School to go to Bannockburn and revisit this stuff from 700 years ago but I would actually have them read Marx and discuss it it with their teachers, then they could read about Adam Smith and what he gave to the world than some romantic pish forced down their necks by a political education.

[TykeMerc]

True to an extent Minestrone, but the history of how a country was formed can teach a lot about how it is now, a constitutional seminal moment especially so.
It's also a hell of a lot less boring so less likely to put off the students from at least appreciating history. I loathed all the corn laws stuff that I had to sit through, it almost put me off the subject for good as a kid.

[expat]

Scottish history as I was given in school was mainly about the industrial revolution and the Scottish Enlightenment, there was never much thought given to Bannockburn where Robert the Bruce chopped in half the English chap and all that birth of a nation stuff.

Now of course the SNP want every School to go to Bannockburn and revisit this stuff from 700 years ago but I would actually have them read Marx and discuss it it with their teachers, then they could read about Adam Smith and what he gave to the world than some romantic pish forced down their necks by a political education.

There is no point in revisiting stuff from 700 years ago for its own sake. But there is surely a point in learning how you came to be who you are as a people. A big part of my point was that these things are with us still: the constitutional argument about ultimate sovereignty is no dead issue, since it implies that the Parliament in Westminster is NOT sovereign in Scotland. Not because it is not Scottish, but because no Parliament in Edinburgh or London has ever been sovereign over the Scottish people.

And if you think that's a dry legal argument, ask yourself why you have essentially a legal right to roam where you like in the Scottish countryside, but not in England; why you can paddle your canoe in all of Scotland's rivers but only a tiny minority of England's. I'm pretty sure it's because of centuries of that sovereignty.

I don't want schoolchildren to revisit centuries-old sites for no reason, but I would like them to know who we are and how we got here; and why.

[minestrone]

I just do not see legal technicalities defining who I am, if anything I am a German Irish cross with both sides of the family having to change names in the 20th century after moving here in the 19th century. One side had to change a German name to a Scottish name during the first world war to stop the windows getting smashed in and the other had to change an Irish name to get a job. Tartan day is just a cuddly little day the SNP want to use for their own advantage.

Anyway, got to get to Edinburgh from Glasgow in 8 hours so I will continue this tomorrow.