Plans to make school-leavers swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country as a way of enhancing British citizenship were unraveling last night under a barrage of criticism in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Nationalist politicians in Wales and Scotland pledged to use their devolved powers to block the plan. And a nationalist politician in Northern Ireland said that any attempt to force an oath to the Queen and United Kingdom on the Province would be “divisive and dangerous”.

…which is all fine & dandy as far as your humble correspondent is concerned. In fact I completely understand the feelings on the Celtic fringe on this one & fully respect the position on this particular issue.

In exactly the same way, I have no doubt that the same said nationalist politicians will fully respect the fact that we in England find that massive (& I mean massive) amounts of disproportionate government spending on this small minority of Her Majesty’s citizens equally as “divisive and dangerous”. So how about you don’t have to swear an oath of allegiance if we don’t have to continue to shovel vast sums subsidies & additional state spending in your direction. Seems like a fair trade to me.