John Swinney says Scotland would be a better place after a yes vote, but the overlap between England and Scotland means their vision isn't going to happen, says Mark Smith

The English have long memories but so do the Scots. I’m in the market square in Corbridge in Northumberland and there’s a big street sign detailing the terrible behaviour of the Scottish. It specifically lists, with admirable restraint I think, the three times the Scots burnt the place down: Wallace in 1296, Bruce in 1312, and David II in 1346. I can hear lots of Scottish accents around the village today though, so perhaps all is forgiven.

And as I say, the Scots have stuff to remember too. While scooting round Northumberland on a visit this week, I’ve been reading Dan Jackson’s excellent history, The Northumbrians, and there it is in black and white: the Scots bashing the English and the English bashing the Scots. At the capture of Berwick in 1215, the Scottish townsfolk were put to death by torture, with King John himself setting fire to their houses with his own hand (as if we needed another reason to dislike King John). But it’s also true that no domestic medieval buildings survive in Northumberland because the Scots destroyed them all. As Jackson points out in his book, there’s a reason part of Wallace’s body was sent to Newcastle.

But if there are signs in Northumberland of the often ropey historic relationship between the Scots and the English, there are clear signs too of its current state, and maybe even an indication or two of its future. In every ancient town and village in the county, the stories of the border raids linger, but Dan Jackson observes that the centuries of violence and burning have left little or no bitterness. “To some in the south of England,” he writes, “Northumbria’s distinctiveness derives from being little more than........

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