“Blistering barnacles!” (as Captain Haddock of Tintin fame would say)
Regular Rusters will be aware of my general antipathy towards the country of Scotland and its inhabitants and indeed my petition currently before Parliament demanding a national referendum to decide whether the country as a whole would like to eject Scotland from the United Kingdom.
Let’s examine a few numbers and facts.
According to the official statistics [to June 2019], the population of the United Kingdom is 66,796,807 of which 56,286,961 (84.3%) live in England, just 8.2% in Scotland, 4.7% in Wales and 2.8% in Northern Ireland.
There are five major areas of England with populations larger than that of Scotland (5,463,300): the South East (9,180,135), London (8,961,989), the North West (7,341,196), the East of England (6,236,072), the West Midlands (5,934,037), the South West (5,624,696), and Yorkshire and the Humber (5,502,967).
Annual Public expenditure budgets set by Westminster are allocated according to the famous “Barnett Formula”, the calculation system devised in 1978 by (and named after) Joel Barnett, then Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the Labour Government of the time.
In 2015-2016 (the latest figures I have been able to find via googling) the average amounts per head allocated to each individual country were as follows: England £8,816; Scotland £10,536; Wales £9,996 and Northern Ireland £10,983.
I’ve no doubt that, like me, many of us who live in England feel that over the course of the Coronavirus crisis we have spent an inordinate amount of our leisure time being force-fed excessive amounts of Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish First Minister) and Mark Drakeford (Welsh ditto) playing at being ‘wartime leaders in peacetime’ of their respective nations over the airwaves of the BBC.
You know the sort of thing to which I refer: in imitation of President Trump’s White House briefings, using as impressive a building as they can find, wall behind them bedecked in their respective nation’s flag, flanked by either a medical or scientific adviser and/or a sign-language interpreter, they present to their populations – but also the world, in stern and measured terms (as if they are addressing the United Nations) – the latest developments and decisions that each of them have taken in either controlling and/or combating the pandemic that has turned ‘normal life’ upside-down.
Frankly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s like watching a pair of secondary school prefects addressing their sixth form debating society.
I could understand it if the BBC was pumping this stuff out just via its BBC Scotland and BBC Wales services, but to have its main news channel effectively affording Sturgeon and Drakeford – who more resembles a East Midlands town clerk than a nation’s leader-to-the-world – equal “breaking news” time with the UK Prime Minister [and okay, our current incumbent is only Boris, but at least he’s the man with his finger poised over our nuclear button] is borderline ridiculous.
The nation would be better served – in terms of diversity, fair representation and everything nitty-gritty – if the Mayors of major England cities such as London, Manchester and Birmingham were also given equal access and time on the nation’s airwaves.
