Devolution and the separation of the English mind

These local elections will measure the role of English ignorance towards Scotland and Wales in Britain’s disintegrating union.

Those of us who wish that the people of this country thought more about their own history, to better understand who they are and take reasoned decisions about their future, can sometimes be guilty of looking back at our own schooling through rose-tinted glasses.

True, we can at least be grateful that we did not endlessly study the Nazis to the exclusion of most of our own history, as too many children still do today. But the history that I devoured at school and university was British history in name only. In reality it was English not British. Most people educated in England know little about the history of either Wales or Scotland, let alone Ireland. And this ignorance carries a price.

That price is England’s institutionalised indifference about the non-English parts of Britain. When the English think about their country in the world, there is a [continue reading in new window...]