Salmond on the Riots: Ned In Our Name!

The great traditions of journalistic hyperbole justify this magazine’s cover image this week (Subscribe!) but that doesn’t mean we must take it literally. “Britain” is not “ablaze” even if the riots we’ve seen in London, Birmingham and Manchester might make it seem as though the entire country is on fire. So a little perspective might be thought useful. Is the situation serious? Yes, of course it is. Is it crippling? Of course it is not.

So one can see why Alex Salmond – and his allies –  have been determined to point out that these are not “UK riots” but “English riots”. In one sense this is correct. There have been no disturbances in Scotland; this is a matter of some good fortune and, I’d suggest, explained, at least partially, by the monsoon-like conditions that have cancelled summer. Nevertheless, this is Salmond’s view:

Asked by the BBC whether the violence was less likely to happen in Scotland, the First Minister replied: “Yes but we have no complacency about it.” Scotland had “a different society”, he added. “It is important that we present that,” he went on.

He said: “One of the many frustrations yesterday was to see the events being described on the BBC network and Sky as riots in the UK.

“Until such time as we do have a riot in Scotland, then what we have seen are riots in London and in English cities. And it is actually unhelpful to see them inaccurately presented, because one of the dangers we face in Scotland is copycat action.”

Well, maybe. But this is tiresome stuff. While Salmond may be correct in one, narrow, geographic sense it’s also pretty grim that, as Kenny Farquharson suggested on Twitter, for some Scots the whole thing boils down to a version of the tedious-beyond-belief “Is Andy Murray British?” argument. I’d hazard that, no matter how much this kind of thing excites parts of the nationalist movement, it bores most Scots and that, furthermore, few people in Scotland looked at what’s been happening in London and thought “That’s happening in a foreign country.” But perhaps I’m mistaken about that.

More to the point, if Salmond really is such a stickler for geographical accuracy and proper labelling he might reflect that his party, like the Scottish Labour party, is quite happy to tell us that Glaswegian problems (to use a convenient shorthand) are problems for the whole of Scotland. Indeed: “Until such time as we do have outbreaks of sectarian, football-related violence in Elgin/Forfar/Ullapool/Kirkudbright/Eyemouth, then what we have seen are stabbings and wife-beating and yobbery in Glasgow and other west of Scotland conurbations. And it is actually unhelpful to see them inaccurately presented, because one of the dangers we face in the rest of Scotland is copycat action.” You get the point.

And, as Torquil Crichton points out, it’s not as though Scotland’s First Minister has much to crow about when it comes to the country’s ned problem. If they’re not rioting right now that scarcely means all is sweet and lovely up here. Hardly. Many of the same problems that contribute to – but fail to explain – the disturbances in England also apply to or exist in Scotland and it’s daft to suppose otherwise. These failures  – some of which, like the poor, must always be with us – manifest themselves in different ways but they’re much the same failures nonetheless. So Salmond’s chippyness – some might say complacency – is scarcely warranted even if, on the trivial matter of how the news channels’ tickers describe the riots, he has a minor point.