8 H


AVE you seen the film of the coronation? I don’t mean the extravaganza in


Westminster Abbey with the young queen done up like a wedding cake, I mean the coronation in Edinburgh.


Actually, I don’t believe it was filmed.


Acting on the advice of her ministers, Elizabeth attended the ceremony dressed in an ordinary coat and hat. The honours of Scotland were presented to her, and she reached out and touched the Crown with a gloved hand.


Even that gesture was apparently the


subject of much diplomatic debate. Was that going too far? Should she even touch it?


Scotland’s royal line is the senior, but


there was to be no glittering ceremony to mark the accession of our first Elizabethan age. That might give the natives ideas!


The 1950s are thought of as a time


when Scotland was unionist and voted Conservative, but it was also the time of the removal of the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey, the vandalising of the EIIR pillar-boxes, and the National Covenant, the home rule petition that gathered over two million signatures. The British establishment was taking no chances.


1952-53 was also the last time until


1997 that figures were published showing how little of Scotland’s tax revenues were actually spent in the country. Of £410 million raised, 9.23% of total UK revenue, only £207 million was actually spent on services in Scotland.


A 1964 report from the Church and Nation Committee of the General


LAW Part of our team out in Law to deliver newspapers while others canvassed houses in the village


Screwing lid on


Assembly observed that this drain “could scarcely have failed to have some influence on the level of Scottish unemployment, double that of England, and also on the continuous stream of Scottish emigration.” Westminster’s solution seems to have been to stop producing the statistics.


In 1968 John Jappy found himself in a


position to take a close look at the Treasury books. Until then he had espoused the common belief that Scotland was a poor country, subsidised by England.


What he discovered was a big


surprise. Scotland “contributed far more to the UK economy than the other partners.” Even before the oil boom.


He realised the Treasury wanted to


keep this secret, “as it might feed the then-fledgling nationalistic tendencies north of the border.” Obviously.


Then came oil, and the deception


ramped up. The “UK continental shelf” was created to avoid having to credit North Sea revenues to Scotland’s account – even though we were being told that the oil was of poor quality, and would probably run out in ten years.


The McCrone report presents the


MORAG KERR was born and brought up in Lanarkshire where her father was a parish minister. After graduating from Glasgow University she worked in the south-east of England, first as a university lecturer and latterly as a partner in a veterinary diagnostic laboratory.


She joined the SNP after the 1992 general election, and for ten years served on the committee of London Branch.


She came home in time for the SNP victory in 2007, and is currently vice-convener of SNP Tweed dale Branch.


She is an enthusiastic campaigner and ambassador for Yes Borders and Yes Tweeddale.


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