The Calcutta Cup

Today at 5pm GMT the 119th Calcutta Cup competition will take place.  It struck me as an interesting fact that the trophy was inspired by a game between British expatriates in India in the late c19.  Of those British expats who lined up to play, the English took side against the Scotts, the Welsh and the Irish.  They knew they were British expats but a simple demarcation was to delineate on some pseudo ethnic grounds.  I say ethnic, but of course ethnicity is a socio-political construct.  Biologically we are all the same species and genetically the story is very much more complex.

This morning on Radio4, I think I heard Alastair Campbell  say he was Scottish before he was British.  I would like to deconstruct this sentiment in a moment but I believe he then went on to say his parents were Scottish, he was born in Yorkshire and moved to Leicester when has was 11.  So really, and by really I mean legally, he was British - English.  British since that is the internationally recognised nation to which he claims citizenship and presumably holds a passport for and English because he lives in an English county as defined in The Interpretation Act 1978, Schedule 1.  I find it particularly interesting that "Scotland" itself is only partially defined in legislation.  This definition is in section 126 of the Scotland Act and has the effect of specifying that "Scotland" extends into the marine environment to the limit of territorial waters (ie out to 12 nautical miles).  Alastair went on to lament the irony that his bag pipe playing father and staunchly "Scottish" mother are not even able to vote in the referendum for Scottish Devolution.  To me though this is fair, as the only sound definition of Scottish is: To be a British citizen and reside within the marine environment of the largest Island in the archipelago and not to be English, where English means to reside in the area consisting of the counties established by section 1 of the Local Government Act 1972, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. (Note: Wales is explicitly referenced in this context, as it was formerly treated as part of England).  In short, do you have a UK passport? Do you reside north of the area defined as England in the 1972 Act?  If the answer to both is yes then you can rightly call yourself Scottish.  

Would you call yourself Scottish first though?  Even if you could claim a link to relatives that once lived there (ok, parents is a close link, but you get my point.  Al didn't live there himself, ever).  I have recently explored my not too distant heritage  and established that despite my evident Irish heritage in my surname I am 62.5% "English" from name origins.  First and foremost though, I consider myself British and part of me is deeply saddened when our nation, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, seems destined to break up the unity that has been fought for, for generations.  So why do people from certain regions feel that they need to put that first?  I appreciate the need to feel like you belong, to understand your heritage, and to honour your ancestry by remembering it; but why put it first?  Should we not be looking to secure our unity and to put our nation first?

There is a potential contradiction for me here though, I am a big supporter of localisation and devolving more powers regionally but not when it damages the necessary sovereignty of the nation.  Also why only the 3 regions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?  This I think hit the heart of the problem for me about the devolution debate.  It should be about political power and regional control within our nation, it should not be about ethnic rivalry and cultural divide.  Alex Salmond, like Alastair Campbell, is British first and foremost.

So back to the Calcutta cup,  today I will be cheering my local team, England, where I live, but I will not be engaging in quasi-racist chanting at my fellow British citizens who choose to support their own local team, even if it was only their parents who lived there. 

Pedigree

Recently I have started building a family tree on ancestry.co.uk .  It's turning out to be a lot of fun.  One view is called your pedigree, like a prize bull or a Crufts winner.  What is fascinating to me is that I am naturally predisposed to having an affinity with the name McDermott, my father's name, his father's name etc. My great grandparents, the earliest was born around 1880 and the most recent died in 1978 (I met at least two of them), like most peoples' great grandparents they had 8 different birth names.  Each of these names is as influential on me as McDermott, so for posterity here they are:

McDermott  "a famous royal and noble Irish surname"  :-P

Gladden  "the Old English C.7th word "gloed", probably means 'the people of the merry, joyful one'"

Sherman  "this famous surname is English, it was originally an occupational surname for a cloth-finisher" 

Chambers  "is of French origin, and is an occupational name for an officer charged with the management of his lord's private living quarters"

East  "is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is derived from the Olde English pre C.7th "east", east, and is topographical for someone who lived in the east"

Chawner  "of early medieval English origin, and is an occupational surname for a maker or seller of blankets"

Bowyer "an English occupational name for one who made or sold bows"

Atkinson "This famous surname is regarded as being of Anglo-Scottish origins, although with Norman antecedents - Son of Adam"

So purely on the origins of my great grand parents' surnames I am, 12.5% Irish, 62.5% English/Anglo Saxon and 25.0% Norman/French. 

England, My England

No, not the poem by William Ernest Henley, but a poem that surfaced around 2009 according to my scant research (JFGI).  I received this just recently, considering my views expressed on this blog previously, it's no surprise I felt I needed to comment, so here goes:


English? Does it mean:

1. English the ethnic group?
2. England the Sociopolitical construct?
3. England the Geographic region?


1.  The ethnic group is descended originally from Iron age Britons a celtic people who ultimately inhabited Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria following complete domination by the invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes.  The Angles a Germanic Peoples from Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany, the Saxons from a broad region in Central Northern Germany and the Jutes a Germanic people from Southern Schleswig or Jutland Denmark, one of the 3 great Germanic tribes according to Bede ("The father of English History").   This was the origin of the ethnonym but later invasions by Danes (Viking expansion in the c.9th) and Normans (Norse Vikings from Normandy a fiefdom in the Kingdom of France who invaded in c.11th) also added many genetically similar peoples to the gene pool.  English = Northern German / Viking.

2.  The Kingdom of England existed from 927 to 1707, it was formed by Athelstan the Glorious, Grandson of Alfred the Great.  It existed as a Sovereign State until the Acts of Union politically unified The Kingdom's of Scotland and England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. Then in 1801 The Kingdom of Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another act of union to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.  In 1922 the Irish Free State was established and an Act of Parliament in 1927 formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  Wales had been a Principality since 1284 until 1536 having been conquered by Edward I and then finally annexed in 1536 by the Laws in Wales Acts (1536-1542).  England=Dominant Political Power in Britain

3.  Geographically England is the larger part of Great Britain and is only 21 miles away from mainland Europe (Dover to Cap Gris Nez).  If you look at google maps, London to Milan is a 765 mile drive and Milan to Messina in Southern Italy is 1252 miles.  Geographically we are part of the same land mass that has only recently (in geological time) been separated by Sea.  England = Parts of the archipelago on the west of the European landmass

The Flag:
The Union Flag (like the ensign the Union Jack) is made from the Cross of St. George representing England and Wales, the Saltire of St Andrew representing Scotland and the Cross of St Patrick representing Ireland.  It couldn't be a better symbol of unity.

The Battles it mentions:
Agincourt was characterised by the strength and bravery of the English and Welsh Longbow-men.
Hastings was the death of an Anglo Saxon England and the Birth of Anglo-Norman England.
At Mons English, Welsh, Scots and Irish all fought and died under the Union Flag
At Arnhem English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh all fought and died under the Union Flag defending Europe from the tyranny of a fascist dictator from the heartland of our ancestors.

My Thoughts:
I do think though at the heart of this poem is a message that needs to come out.  The inequity created by only Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales having devolved governments and the greater part of the nation not having any strong regional representation must be addressed by Westminster.  Unfortunately the message can get buried in the mire of jingoism for a state that ceased to exists in 1707 and worse still, hostility and fear that fuels xenophobia, the very same notion that mobilised the Axis and triggered a staunch defence by the Allies in WWII.

I am a Briton and believe our nation is stronger with a strong Union.  Devolved power to regional governments should create a fairer society allowing people to live in a subregion that has social and political harmony with their own views.  I also believe that the only way that UK (of GB & NI) can continue to play a role on the world stage is by uniting with Europe in a stronger way than we do already.  With the rise of Eastern superpowers our culture and society will be consumed by a world dominated by Eastern cultures if we do not.  This is not a bad thing, its just a thing, but I would like the children of Britain to play a role in shaping European culture and in turn for European culture to continue to play a strong role in shaping the world culture of the future.

Jingoism and Xenophobia go hand in gauntlet

Is it more acceptable now to be jingoistic?  I find it difficult to be patriotic, many would call me English – I would accept this if it was seen as a synonym for British but it is increasingly seen as the partisan group with some romantic notion of English as distinct from the other geographies that make up the British Isles.  So I am British.  If this is shorthand for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  I say Northern Ireland but as recently as 1801-1922 this would have been shorthand for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, from the 1801 Act of Union.  In 1922, after the Irish War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the larger part of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom and British was redefined again.  Am I a patriot? I cherish what previous generations have achieved in the name of being British, I am embarrassed and apologetic for the atrocities that have been metered out in the name of being British, so I believe in that sense I am patriotic.  I have empathy with the need to belong to a society, I also realise that resources need to be protected and managed largely since humanity seems destined to ignore the benefits of enlightened self interest; but does this need to naturally progress to the extreme?  We seem to have a preponderance of patriots throughout our Union rattling their sabres in honour of disunity, of devolution.  Can they not see that jingoism will inevitably lead to xenophobia, whipped into a frenzy by the rightwing press, to the degradation of society for all. 

Its all in a name:  I suspect my desire to be seen as British, as a descendent of the occupants of the British Isles, stems from my name.

James  (in homage to James I of England and Ireland,  VI of Scotland)

Richard  (in homage to Richard I,  Cœur de Lion, King of all England [oh, and a bit of France])

McDermott (in homage to Dermot mac Tadhg Mor, King of Magh Luirg (Moylurg), progenitor of the surname McDermott in Connacht, Ireland.)

Northern British

I've struggled for a while to understand devolution, it's purpose, it's eventual aim. In one of my first blogs (I vote for the Romans) I displayed an affinity with a concept of belonging to a bigger geopolitical entity. Whilst I appreciate the need for more local government to represent the mood of the local community by such acts as raising taxes locally and distributing the benefit locally, I also understand the benefits of scale afforded a larger community for such things as diplomacy, military, finance, police, transport etc. I specifically avoided writing "Nation" here, since within our understanding of this word, nation; we confuse such concepts as culture, race, politics, religion and Land.

In my blog (An Ode to Joy) I explored my poor knowledge of devolution in the UK, eventually returning to the theme of a pan European Nation. A pan European nation is only a pipe dream when we don't have a single united nation occupying the British Isles.  Recently I have been more irked when I see the media referring to Scotland or Wales in terms of them being nation states. This becomes even more irritating in any debate over public spending as both of the devolved parliaments seem to have domain over large centrally generated budgets and are spending these budgets in dramatically different ways to the majority contingent of the UK.  For example, Scottish University students (what does this mean?) are not paying tuition fees. How does this work? The British Tax payers pay tax to the British government in Westminster. Westminster diverts a portion of this to pay for public services in Scotland (the Scottish Consolidated Fund). Scotland's devolved parliament manage to allocate some to pay for a few of Britain's university students to go to university. Which university? Scottish universities? What about other British universities or the Rest-of-the-World universities? Why decide to just send Scottish students to Scottish universities?

Surely this raises the question of fairness? at what cost are Holyrood making this investment? What are residents of Northern Britain going without so their young folk can go to a university in Northern Britain paid for by the British State? Southern British don't have this option. But aren't we all British tax payers, although the Scottish (Northern British) devolved parliament were given the power (by the British parliament in Westminster) to raise or lower their tax rate, they have not done so. Therefore, if this is a fair distribution of money raised through taxation then something must have to give in that region that is afforded the benefit. Presumably the per capita costs of local government are the same? I've read some reports that suggest it is lower in Northern Britain and others that say its much higher but I have not found the facts yet.

The Scottish (Northern British) devolved parliament website refers often to the "Scottish People" and the "People of Scotland". Assuming that in the modern era these are the same thing. The tribe of the Scotts didn't reach Northern Britain until c. 600 AD.   So what defines a person as Scottish? Bloodlines? Surnames? Accent? Location of birth? Well no, none of these. 

Two things define you as Scottish on the website of the Scottish Parliament. (1) You reside (pay tax) in the northern parts of our archipelago and (2) You are British Citizen.   So, Scottish = Northern British.

Given this then, could I rent a house in a Northern British city say Glasgow, pay local tax and then be eligible to have my children's university fees paid by the state? £9,000 x2 kids x4 years = £72,000 actually wouldn't I be better investing in a property there?