A post from Cameron McNeish caught my eye this week. He wrote, “Scotland’s wild landscapes are being torn up by wind farms and miles upon miles of goose-stepping lines of pylons.”
I never really noticed pylons in my 1960s childhood. On bus trips to Troon or the Heads of Ayr the landscape looked pretty much rural and natural. I drank it in during excursions from urban decay. Mony a weekend ma mammy would take me doon tae her ‘railway hut’ at Meadowpark near Irvine. It was an old maroon-red carriage (wheels removed) with two compartments at either end turned into small ‘bedrooms’. Two other compartments were knocked through to create a kind of living room. Otherwise it felt like being on a train with doors and windows as they were. Old petroleum lamps and candles supplied the lighting — there was no electricity installed. A gas stove was situated in a kind of wooden extension area, where the smell of mice was most noticeable. A long walk to the sea went through an area with odd radar-type stuff. I used up one of my nine lives on the beach there when an on-rushing tide caught my cousin and myself on a sand bar. We made it across, barely able to touch the bottom.
A lifetime away, the sea on the north coast of Sjaelland is 18C. My daughter wanted a wee dook during last week’s heatwave so we drove up to a little town called Aalsgard. From a long wooden pier you can choose your torture — the full-body breenge intae deep watter or the slow ladder descent. Submerging in the benign non-tidal Baltic was invigorating, with great views across the Sound to Sweden. You’d never know, but just along the coast from here a huge interconnecter cable from Sweden comes ashore. Effective, yet no blight on the landscape. Out of sight, out of mind.
Back up at the car, I mention a symbol on the small supermarket where we’d parked. It was a Scottie Dog. “I know,” my daughter said, “We studied that one in the ‘company branding’ module. The Scottie was chosen because Scots have a reputation for being mean,” she continued in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Unfortunately that impression gets verification in the eyes of the foreigner by the caricature of the Scot presented by some Scottish professional comedians. Of course, we have a quiet smile at the foreigner’s ignorance, but such an impression is not good publicity from a prestige point of view.” (England’s Vassal State, Part 3)
After a trip to Scotland with her boyfriend this summer she knows that Scots are certainly not mean. The Scoto-Danish pair connected with family all across the greater Glasgow region, even some I didn’t know — but then again I don’t use Facebook. Her boyfriend was impressed with Glasgow and especially the people. My older brother, sister, nephews, nieces, and their bairns were generous hosts and local guides. Edinburgh was a disappointment, though. After five days in our capital, Mr boyfriend felt it was a lovely city but a bit of a tourist ghetto. Tae see oorsels as ithers see us, eh?
When I first arrived here in Denmark there were adverts with tartan backgrounds that promoted discount bargains. These were headlined as ‘Skotte Priser’ – Scottish Prices. You don’t see them anymore, they’re not really politically correct these days. I mentioned this to my daughter and pointed out that making do with little has been our lot as Scots, and that it leads to a certain thrift in financial affairs. The Ayrshire getaway ma maw conjured out of hard work on low pay was a testament to this.
The Meadowpark railway hut was later upgraded to a small caravan just south of Ayr. How she could afford it I’ve no idea. We were not a well-off family. Claithes fae ‘The Sales’ on the Trongate were what I wore much of the time. But I was also too young to understand why she needed a getaway. As the years went by, though, I did notice that a frown was never far away from her face. Friday evenings didn’t improve her mood when the inevitable arguments would break out behind closed doors. As the breadwinner revealed a pay packet that had been on a pub tour via the betting shops, the mood inside our tenement flat was as soot-black as the colour on the outside. Betting shops were only legalised in the early 1960s, I’m led to believe. A poison gift from the political class to my generation of tenement weans. Thanks for nothing.
Which brings me back to Cameron McNeish and his ‘goose-stepping lines of pylons’. He asks why these scars are tolerated on our landscape, and goes on to answer: “So that England can be powered…”
We Scots have to make do with little because we have, for centuries, lived on far less of the wealth our nation actually generates. Cameron’s tweet highlights another reason for this — that England helps itself to our natural resources in what can only be described as colonial theft.
“In 1963, Scotland contributed about £645,000,000 to the London Exchequer, and, judging by past records, will be lucky if 6/8d in the pound is sent back to be spent IN Scotland.
“The 13/4d change will be spent mostly in England or at least outside Scotland, thus creating wealth and prosperity in England, and consequent poverty and unemployment in Scotland. We are even told how we must spend our 6/8d.” (England’s Vassal State, Part 2)
Contrast Scotland with England’s neighbour just across the North Sea. Over here, Denmark’s Viking Link opened in late 2023. Just as Scotland, Denmark produces far more energy than it can use. So what better than an undersea electricity interconnecter with an energy-hungry neighbouring country? The total length of Viking Link is 745km between Revsing in West Jutland and Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire. This includes more than 600km of submarine cables. In parallel with this, the government in Copenhagen has funded a decade-long ‘forskønnelses projekt’ — a landscape ‘beautification’ initiative. Older pylons have been removed and where possible cables buried out of sight. The net result is fewer pylons. Those that remain are essential. They are now larger to facilitate the vastly increased capacity but are placed further from populated areas.
If you’re a Dane, what’s not to like about Viking Link? Energy security, renewables that benefit the environment, and the generation of financial profit for the Danish state. Unlike connections between Scotland and England, independent Denmark does not allow its North Sea neighbour to simply help itself to electricity generated in Denmark. Over here, of course, there are no English-based political parties. The print and broadcast media is not controlled by London. Danes are not bombarded daily with propaganda telling them how worthless and poor they are as a nation. Something to ponder, since Denmark has only two thirds of Scotland’s landmass, a smaller percentage of oil and gas, in fact, less of most things. In spite of this, it is immensely rich with a quality of life far higher than what the average Scot will ever experience while ‘in union’.
Ten years on from voting No, most of us realise that Better Together was one of the greatest deceptions ever foist on our national consciousness as a people. Our Anglo-Saxon neighbour cajoled, deceived and manipulated us. Foreign heads of state were press-ganged into supporting the propaganda blitz against our nation. Despite that, the idea that we are more prosperous locked into an exploitative relationship with our avaricious neighbour was a hard sell. Some Scots, to their everlasting shame, were more than willing to betray their nation in the service of the Auld Enemy, who, as it turns out, is also our current foe. The anti-independence alliance promised the earth in the final week of the campaign, knowing full-well it had no intention of fulfilling any promise, meeting any pledge, or accepting a situation where we were a de facto union of equals.
Just as in 1707, Perfidious Albion deceived Scots with a view to exploiting our national wealth and resources. We shouldn’t have been surprised, it’s how England acts in its dealings with most other nations. The mentality of Empire lives on. Just look at the current Russophobia and England’s rush towards a nuclear confrontation with Moscow. The Auld Enemy, and our current foe, is the greatest threat to the existence of Scotland as a nation and to we Scots as a distinct people.
If we feel anger 10 years on from the rigged indyref, perhaps we should direct it mostly towards those Scots who sided with the enemies of our nation? After all, each of the prominent figures in Better Together have been well-rewarded by London. Ermine-clad, Ruth the Mooth and Jackie Baillie are lording it over those they conned. The author of the fake No Borders group is also in the House of Lords. As Mr Offord told us, the union works for him, “it’s like a cup of hot chocolate.” Gordon Brown, too, is still given special status to opine in the Brit state media as Elder House-jock. And that same state’s not-so-secret media assets continue with their licence to shill. Puzzlingly, a decade on we Scots have rewarded those who lied to us by re-electing them — to lie to us all over again. Starmer’s shitebags are shameless and clearly feel no remorse for the fables they told to get elected. We are now well and truly in the era of post-truth politics.
Scots’ buyer’s regret at voting Labour will perhaps be reflected on this winter as oor auld yins suffer without winter fuel support. The 37 Scottish Labour liars at GE2024 won’t give a toss, though. Their heating is paid for. Their £91,000 salary is secure for five years. Subsidised food and drink is plentiful in the English Parliament.
Tragically, every single Scottish-based political party, including those ostensibly committed to ending the union, is committed to turning up at Westminster to swear fealty to the English monarch and his parliament. There is only one exception, the ISP or Independence for Scotland Party led by Colette Walker. Ending Scottish representation at Westminster will terminate the union. If there’s any justice in the world, ISP will get more attention than hitherto, especially in the run-up to Holyrood 2026.
Here in the gentle landscape of Northen Sjaelland, my Danish friends don’t have any of these concerns. There are few if any visible pylons up here. Those pylons that are very visible in Western Jutland will no doubt be transferring Viking Link electricity to England — a nice we earner for Danish treasury. With existing connections to Norway, Sweden, Germany and Holland, there’s never been a better time to be a small, energy-rich independent country — with energy-hungry neighbours.
A decade on from rejecting the chance to run our own affairs, we remain an outlier among the nations of the world. In an act of unparalled historic idiocy we rejected our own liberation. Having placed ourselves ‘out of the game’ we can now only look on as our landscape is ‘torn up’ in order that England can plunder its Scottish colony — all over again.
peteryoung.dk 