OK ... this is getting hard for one such as I - who am wholly ignorant of politics, and hold it and its practitioners in contempt. I don't have the equipment to argue this much further. I'm surprised I am arguing at all, because I thought, at first, Tom and I were of like mind: he said, you cannot say anything about unique characteristics of Scotland, but you can say what they are not (ie English). That seemed to coincide with what I had said about myself, and with my suggestion that the rebel colonies in America, or the Resistance in France, (all made up of different factions) united against a common enemy. In other words, they had identified what they all did not want to be. Just as I have identified that rather than being 50% Scots/50% English, I would prefer to be 100% Scots .

I know it doesn't matter a gnat's fart whether I'm all Scot, all English, of any mixture of the two. Dig back far enough, no doubt I had an ancestor or two from Scandinavia, that doesn't matter either.

But I do identify with Scotland. Many people in the southern US states still identify with the Confederacy, which no longer exists. The rest appear to think they are Irish! Some people in Quebec wish they had French, or at least Quebec nationality, rather than Canadian. They all choose what they want to be, and it is that - the idea - that they are happy with. If Scotland became independent tomorrow, I would, I suppose, become officially an Englishman rather than a citizen of the new Scottish republic, because I currently live in England. I would STILL consider myself a Scot. It has nothing to do with what politicans say, on that level.

It also has nothing to do with whether I am proud of myself or not, and it is offensive to suggest I am riding on the backs of others to bask in their glory. I have claimed no credit for anything, simply the right to make a romantic choice. And, for the record, I am quite comfortable with what I have done in my life, thank-you very much.

Don't run away with the idea that everyone wishes they were something else. Most people of English birth are proud to be English. Most Americans are proud to be American. Most Swedes are happy they are Swedish. They have no problem with their "political" nationality - the one that really counts - even if they have other feelings too.

Tom, who do you support when Sweden plays another country in an international football match? Sweden, maybe?

Would that be because you are a member of the Swedish football team, or because you are a Swedish national?

TYWD