Racist by a Royal Mile

I feel compelled to mention the experience of Nigel Farage yesterday in the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, this being a mere 25 miles away from me.

It seems that Mr Farage had to take refuge in a pub and be escorted away in a police van after an angry mob more or less went for him. Apparently they were loudly accusing him of being a racist and then telling him to clear off back to England.

Yes, exactly.

I am afraid there is a small but significant number of Scots who are either, largely affiliated to the hate-filled left, or just filled with hate. There are numerous examples of how English people have been targeted in the past. Personally, I have never had anything overt said or done to me, to my knowledge, but one is certainly aware of an undercurrent at times. I will be interested to know if there were any arrests over the Farage incident, since the police up here can more or less do what they like under the "breach of the peace" rules - something they have exercised in the past against a man who told his neighbour to "fuck off".

Racism in Scotland appears to be confined to certain areas. Edinburgh is certainly one of them, then there is most of the Highland mainland and especially around Aberdeen. Sheltand does not consider itself Scottish and is therefore devoid and the Western Isles are a law unto themselves. On my first visit to Edinburgh, many years ago, on the Royal Mile,I overheard a conversation in what I called a "tartan tat" shop to the effect that these two protagonists were looking into the possibility of targeting English homes in some way. I did not open my mouth and left sharpish.

Where I live, we English live cheek by jowl and as you would expect in the Borders, there is an amicable mix, especially because they are so dependent on tourism and also because we are all over the bloody place.

And that brings me to a minor but irritating thing and it happens all the time. I have lived in Scotland for ten years and still I get asked if I am on holiday. Given the wonderful scenery and the fresh air and the casual and unassuming kindness shown to me by the Scots, it often feels as though I am, so I am not complaining, really.

As for Nigel, this kind of thing only seems to make him stronger, and after all, he does actually represent a majority of feeling in this country.

*****

I have seen some "news" that Christians will be in a minority in the next decade. This is hardly surprising if you visit a church and clock the average age of the congregation. The report also says that the number of Muslims in this country has surged by 75% between the times of the census (every four years).

To those who like to celebrate the demise of belief in "the sky fairy", I just wonder if you know what you are replacing him with?

The left love to brand people with labels that are very sticky but which rarely stand up to intellectual rigour; I mean words that end in "ist" or "phobic" whose meaning has less substance than a vegan vol-au-vent.

I enjoy reading points of view and comments that differ from mine but I just wish that those who re-cycle the same cliches in a spirit of piss and vinegar would just go away and decease.