Letter: Goodbye Scotland

Sir: The Scots joined England for sound economic reasons, helped by wholesale bribery of the Scottish Parliament.

The Corsicans were seized by France, as were Alsace and Lorraine. The Corsicans, like the Scots, went on to make a good thing out of running and exploiting an empire. There is now no empire and the Corsicans and Scots would now rather enjoy their own identity.

I worked in the City of London for many years; it is largely funded and run by non-UK entities; the staff are international. Without this ability to deal with capital and human resources without regard to national origin there would be no City. Does Peter Gresham (letter, 4 December) imagine that the imperial nation state is the only basis of political organisation.

The greatest cultural re-awakening we know came out of the Europe of mini-states and principalities. Big states, like big companies, may well be a sign of economic and cultural weakness: merge when times are bad, demerge when times are good.

J S H McLAREN

Dunbar,

East Lothian