States cannot easily split their way to happiness, and working out how to accommodate differences can improve them. It makes them more tolerant, pluralist and open, and teaches central governments how to relinquish power. When nations cannot bear to hold together, they must of course separate. But Britain has not reached that point. Scottish nationalists like to say, cheerfully, that their nation is capable of standing on its own. It certainly is. That doesn't mean it should.
Notes
1. Caledonian is a geographical term used to refer to places, species, or items in or from Scotland, or particularly the Scottish Highlands. It derives from Caledonia, the Roman name for the area of modern Scotland.
2. Adam Smith (16 June 1723 — 17 July 1790) and David Hume (26 April 1711 — 25 August 1776) — Scottish philosophers and economists, the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Adam Smith laid the foundations of the classical free market economic theory.
3. Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (English pronunciation: /'samand/; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician who served as the fourth First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. He was the leader of the Scottish National Party(SNP) for over twenty years, having served for two terms, firstly from 1990 to 2000 and subsequently from 2004 to 2014. Politically, Salmond is one of the foremost proponents of Scottish independence, repeatedly calling for a referendum on the issue. The day after the 2014 independence referendum, at which a majority of the Scottish people voted to remain as part of the United Kingdom, Salmond announced his intention not to stand for re-election as leader of the SNP at the SNP National Conference in November, and to resign as First Minister thereafter. He was succeeded in both capacities by Nicola Sturgeon.
4. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour Party politician and philanthropist. Blair served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. Blair led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, winning 418 seats, the most the party has ever held. The party went on to win two more elections under his leadership: in 2001, in which it won another landslide victory, and in 2005, with a reduced majority. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government introduced the National Minimum Wage Act, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carried out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly, fulfilling four of the promises in its 1997 manifesto.
