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Porridge and oats specialists, Stoats, has just been named as Scotland’s 1 000th Living Wage-accredited employer. There are around 3 500 across the UK with 28% of them in Scotland.
https://news.gov.scot/news/1-000th-living-wage-employer
This 8% of the population but a bigger percentage of something else is becoming, I insist, a meme in this blog. See, for example:
Scotland takes nearly 26% of Syrian refugees settled in UK with only 8% of the UK population
Most of the other 8% stories are about the economy so not too relevant to this one which is a return to a theme I’ve talked about before – are enough Scots different enough in their political and other values to identify as different enough to run their own country ?
The above two reports say Yes to me. Here are some others:
Scientific evidence that Scots tend to be different from the other groups in rUK?
‘Scottish tooth fairies are the most generous.’ See, even more evidence we are different.
Who said Scots were not more left-wing than those in the rest of the UK?
Remember, I’m not saying we’re all nicer than all the English. I know, from personal experience, some really nasty Scots and some absolutely lovely English. We’re talking about more communitarian values being more widely held in Scotland, even in its Tories (!), than elsewhere and that being reflected in statistics and in political policy-making by our leaders too.
Changed days from when we proudly said of our fighting abilities – Wha’s like us? Damn few and they’re a’ deid!
Talking-up Scotland 
As is the purpose of the site, you are seeking to counter the unionist assertions that either, we’re ‘no very good’, or ‘there is no difference in the attitudes of Scots to those elsewhere in the UK.’ This posting falls into the latter category.
Of course, we always have to be careful in statistics, not to generalise from particulars and, psychologically, to be aware of ‘confirmation bias’.
So, the fact that you have identified a number of such things tends to give the view that there are differences between the attitudes held by Scots compared to those elsewhere a bit of credence.
Of the two ‘assertions’ I mentioned in the first paragraph, the former is only used when there is evidence that we drink too much, or have low life expectancy, or have a greater incidence of depressive conditions, etc. and the latter is used to include us in things like attitudes towards immigration or ‘welfare scrounging’, based on a wholly reputable poll (aye, right!) by the wholly reputable Lord Ashcroft’s polling company.
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Thanks Alasdair. Is Yougov now down the pan?
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It will be interesting to see what, if anything emerges from the Paradise Papers, since the Panama Papers vanished fairly quickly from the media.
There is an interesting dichotomy in the BBC. Panorama has gone fairly strongly on it – as, of course the media ought to be doing. However, on Good Morning Scotland, the line seems to be :’it’s legal’, ‘they are not doing anything wrong’, ‘why shouldn’t people seek to reduce the amount of tax they pay?’ In an interview regarding prince Charles’ lobbying, the question was asked, ‘We’re only (sic) talking about $100 000 here, out of a turnover of nearly $1 billion for the Duchy of Cornwall. It’s hardly worth bothering about, isn’t it?’
Stuart Hosie was then asked, sneeringly, “An independent Scotland could not do anything different (from Westminster) could it?”. After answering that the questioner then moved on to Mr Hosie’s membership of the UK Treasury Committee and implied he had been ineffective there, too.
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I don’t know how you can listen to it.
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Correction: I believe the sum was $13 000. I might have misheard as my hearing is not perfect. Nevertheless, the point remains the same.
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He hid in a toilet
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Thanks for sharing
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