It's not really a "perception" of unfairness... it's a long rooted and fossilised class system, acting to the detriment of the entire country. (Hopefully your politics postgrad included the clearings.) England at least had the Civil War to equalise things a bit, Scotland has never had any kind of revolution or similar to break very old land ownership structures.
Scotland's second biggest problem is England, in the form of unbalanced monetary transfers from borrowing from London, and the brain drain to England, and for that matter the rest of the world. But its greatest problem is itself, and the domination of control in a few families hands.
You've repeatedly crossed into personal incivility in your HN posts. We've had to warn you about this before. We ban accounts that do this, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
"...someone who is poor in Scotland can become rich..."
Five minutes of casual googling didn't yield Scotland's current measure of social mobility. The Great Gatsby Curve is a rule of thumb suggesting that inequity & mobility are strongly correlated. Further, the members of the commission responsible for the Elite Scotland report (meant to update the measurements) all resigned in protest, which is probably a bad sign.
> It is amazing that you aren't able to distinguish between your opinion and reality.
This is snark, and is not welcome here.
> my politics postgrad most certainly did not "include" the clearings (I am not even sure what this means
neffy is referring to the Highland Clearances which were a brutal and iniquitous time for tenants in the Highlands. I'm quite surprised that given your chastising tone and appeal to authority by bandying around your politics postgrad studies you hadn't heard of this.
> the result of the Civil War for Scotland was imposition of govt from England.
Whilst there may have been some ripples down through history as a result of the Civil War, there are more conclusive reasons why Scotland became governed from England. Perhaps you should read some Scottish history. In particular the bits about the Union of Crowns and the 1707 Act of Union.
I'd also suggest grabbing a copy of Andy Wightman's "The Poor Had No Lawyers"[1], he explains land ownership in Scotland and the reasons why it is difficult for ordinary folks to make inroads into fair land ownership here.
> It not only reeks of bigotry but is a self-destructive pattern of thought. Scotland's decline is a function of the nation and it's people. These "stab in the back" myths only help the weak-minded find (empty) solace in their failure.
Hoo boy....I'm shouldn't even grace this with a response it's so ludicrous and ill-informed; and I'd suggest you not accuse others of bigotry as it's downright rude.
Politically (not culturally) England has always been a problem for Scotland. I highly doubt you're a member of the SNP (I am and your claim from the comments above fail the sniff test), maybe you meant the BNP?
You've broken the site guidelines badly yourself in this comment. Please don't cross into personal attack and name-calling, regardless of how another commenter has behaved.
Scotland's second biggest problem is England, in the form of unbalanced monetary transfers from borrowing from London, and the brain drain to England, and for that matter the rest of the world. But its greatest problem is itself, and the domination of control in a few families hands.