For most of my adult life, I’ve heard people say that Scots are – politically – different to the English. Not small differences, but fairly fundamental ones. This never rang true to me; I grew up in or around military bases which bring families from all over the UK together and never noticed any difference. If anything, I noticed a bigger difference moving from the Highlands to Glasgow than moving from Glasgow to London. But anecdotal evidence counts for nothing, and you can’t deny that Scots have a tendency to vote for left-wing parties. But was this simply because they had the more impressive candidates, or because – as the SNP allege – Scotland and England fundamentally disagree?
There has been strikingly little study in the last question; it seemed to suit everyone to continue with the idea that Scots are different political beasts to the English. This was, after all, the basis of devolution. But if you test this proposition, as I did for my Daily Telegraph column today, you can fairly quickly establish that it’s utterly untrue. My article is here, and some of the findings, from the British Social Attitudes Survey, are here:-
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