Yes to Scotland. Yes to England.

...Trafalgar Square

I thought I’d stumbled on a gathering of the Brishit National Party but it turned out to be a rally for the Scottish referendum’s ‘Bitter Together’ campaign. I saw someone called Dan Snow looking around Trafalgar Square and telling the crowd that St Martin-in-the Fields was designed by Scottish architect James Gibbs; Canada (as in Canada House on the west side of the square) was founded by a Scot and that country’s first two prime ministers were Scots; Nelson at the top of the column dominating the square was sculpted from Scottish stone; the Radar that helped save London from the Nazis was developed by a Scot, as was the Tarmac on the roads around the square.

So there are plenty of reasons here for the voters of Scotland to have the confidence to vote ‘Yes’ to going it alone. Holding this rally in London must have been a ruse to get publicity on the BBC (John Scot Reith) TV (John Scot Logie Baird) news. If they managed to get on the news with Dan Snow’s little speech, it would have been an own goal.

I believe one of the later speakers was Bob Geldof. Does anyone from his native Republic of Ireland campaign to rejoin th’ yUK? I don’t think so. Has independence stopped anyone from the Republic crossing the Irish Sea, settling in this country and making a full contribution to life here? It didn’t stop Bob. What was good for Ireland will be good for Scotland. And England.

I didn’t have time to hear Bob Geldof’s contribution as I had to get to the Coliseum for Xerxes, an opera by one of England’s greatest composers - Georg Friedrich Händel: not a Scottish gene in him.

Trafalgar Square 2nd April 2014
Trafalgar Square 2nd July 2011