More fun about the Scottish Raj currently running England.

The official spokesman for the English nation, alias
Jeremy Paxman, may well feel unhappy about what he calls the Scottish
Raj bearing down on him but he should take heart: all is not well among
the Scotia Nostra.

The idea that there is a united
Scottish force, ready and waiting to take over what bits of the British
political establishment it doesn’t already control when Gordon Brown
inherits the keys to Number 10, is a bit of a myth.

The
Great Broon probably does have a master plan to insert all manner of
extra Jocks into the higher reaches of government when he descends from
Mount Olympus, gets rid of Alan Milburn, wins the election for Labour
and assumes the title of leader.

However, there is still one significant object, other than Tony Blair, in his way.

I
refer to John Reid, the Scot who runs the English health service. Paxo
impertinently referred to him as Labour’s "attack dog", but he is
better described as a Blairite attack dog. The only red meat Reid
really wants to get his teeth into is the Chancellor himself.

They
hate each other with an intensity that would, in any other nation, be
beyond comprehension. Brown and Reid are living proof of the Scottish
Labour dictum: "A long memory is much better than a good memory."

I have to admit I rather like that phrase Scotia Nostra. The column finishes with one of those little lingustic flourishes, factoids that I so enjoy:

However, there are many more raised eyebrows in
Scotland at the decision of the devolved government to allow
homosexuals to inherit the Highland crofts of their partners.

The surprise is not directed at the wisdom of the decision, more at the idea that there might be any takers for the new law.

After all, there is no word in Gaelic – the native tongue of the West Highlands and Islands – for homosexuality.

The absence of a word from a language doesn’t actually prove very much, it could be that the thing itself is unknown, or that it is unremarked. Anyway, any Gaelic speakers want to refute the contention? I’m sure that in both Welsh and Erse there are words for homosexuality, what about Scots Gaelic?