If for centuries the English have failed to understand the Irish, the evidence is mounting that the English also misunderstand the Scots. At the height of last year's general election for Scotland's first democratic Parliament Tony Blair's New Labour withheld £100,000 in advertising from The Herald (formerly The Glasgow Herald) newspaper, because it did not like its editorial coverage, particularly the reports of its Political Editor Murray Ritchie. Crudely, Blair's spin-doctors feared that The Herald and Ritchie had become out and out nationalist. In the event, The Herald did not urge its readers to vote either Labour or the Scottish Nationalist Party - but both its readers and its New Labour critics knew that its sympathies lay with Holyrood rather than Westminster.
The Blairites would have embraced paranoia had they known that Ritchie, Scotland's most seasoned political writer, was keeping a diary of the campaign. In Scotland Reclaimed, Ritchie provides ample instances to show how New Labour's control-freak approach is out of kilter with Scottish character. Having spent five years in Brussels as The Herald's European Editor, Ritchie had observed how Scotland had suffered economic loss from not enjoying the sovereignty which enabled Ireland to flourish. On his return to Glasgow in 1997 he was no longer content to accept the Labour shibboleth that what was good for Westminster was good for Scotland.
Ritchie's book is not only an entertaining account of the election campaign, it is the best introduction for Irish readers to the radically changing political situation in Scotland, even though it could do with an index. Ritchie supplies sturdy pen portraits of the leading personalities such as Labour's fumbling heavyweights, Donald Dewar and Gordon Brown, the adventurist leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, the salty radical Dennis Canavan and the unmuted Tory voice of maverick Michael Fry.
Ritchie predicts that at some point the Holyrood and Westminster Parliaments will be run by opposing political parties, most probably with the SNP governing Scotland. When that day comes, the Scots who voted for Home Rule will be asked in a referendum whether they want to remain an integral part of the United Kingdom or to reclaim independence. I have no doubt that Ritchie will be with the majority independence camp.
John Cooney is Political Correspondent of Ireland on Sunday. He is the author of John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland published by O'Brien Press.