Leading article: Auld enemies

Why do Scots, or at least some of them, still feel they have to do it – define their identity oppositionally? The opposition, of course, is to perfidious Albion, a trait just highlighted by the case of an Aberdeen shop selling "Anyone But England" World Cup T-shirts. It was visited by the police on the grounds of potential racism, or at least, potential for causing a disturbance, which of course is a nonsense.

But the T-shirt's popularity does constitute a reminder of that enduring tendency to feel properly Scottish only when expressing hate for the Sassenachs. Come on now. Can't these two great countries be friends? Let us start by not bringing up historic victories over the other any more. Let the Scots stop mentioning Bannockburn (1314). And perhaps the English will stop mentioning Dunbar (1296), Falkirk (1298), Halidon Hill (1333), Neville's Cross (1346), Flodden (1513), Solway Moss (1542), Pinkie (1547), Dunbar (1650), Culloden (1746), etc etc etc...