The rapid change in the city’s makeup was soon recognized as disastrous. Relocating workers and their families to new towns was described in mid-1960s parliamentary discussions as “skimming the cream”. In an internal review in 1971, the Scottish Office noted that the manner of population reduction was “destined within a decade or so to produce a seriously unbalanced population with a very high proportion [in central Glasgow] of the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable….”

Scotland has voted decisively against breaking from the United Kingdom and becoming an independent country. The key thing to grasp is that there is no precedent for a modern, highly integrated country breaking into two pieces in peacetime. True, Czechoslovakia divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia back in 1992. But both new countries were emerging from communism. Both had to bring in huge numbers of new laws, rules and regulations to create modern, market-based democracies almost from scratch. 

This question is by no means frivolous. Look at the present prime minister, David Cameron. Yes, Mr. Cameron was born in England, and is the product of Eton and Oxford. But he is very obviously of Scots descent. His surname fairly reeks of heather and haggis. Mr. Cameron’s immediate predecessor, Gordon Brown, was born and educated in Scotland. Mr. Brown’s immediate predecessor, Tony Bair, was also born in Scotland. Brown and Blair were both from the Labor Party, which was co-founded by a Scotsman named Keir Hardie. Ramsay MacDonald, another Scot and Labor Party co-founder, became Labor’s first prime minister in 1929.

Why should a sober, respectable and hard-headed people like the Scots choose for their national poet a romantic rebel who thumbed his nose at all authority and was as free with liquor as he was with women? Instead of Burns Night suppers, asks Morton, shouldn’t we expect the practical-minded Scots to have founded Macadam Societies, to honor the pioneer of improved roads? Or Mackintosh Societies, to honor the inventor of the waterproof? 

In Scottish Country House, Knox takes you on a wonderful journey through the history of 10 houses and castles that have survived centuries in the Scottish countryside. All of these homes are largely privately owned by the original families or as part of a Scottish Trust. Not only does Knox bring you on a delightful tour through these charming houses and castles, but he also revels in the history of Scottish architecture and interior design.

“Whiskey” is used for whiskeys made in Ireland and North America.  “Whisky” is used for those made in Canada, Japan, Scotland, and Wales. Your best bet is to go by what’s on the label of the bottle. (For example, Maker’s Mark is labeled as bourbon “whisky,” even though it’s made in Kentucky.) Though “scotch” has become ubiquitous, it is simply known as “whisky” in Scotland.