Whilst I don’t disagree with the central point, as a UK citizen I have to confess to being slightly irritated by the tendency to conflate the UK with England; the two are not the same. Many Scottish people get rightly annoyed at this effective sidelining of their small nation and its many achievements.

And what achievements! The biggest financial collapse the UK has ever seen was RBS, the Royal Bank of *Scotland*. HBOS, Halifax – Bank of *Scotland* isn’t doing much better. The UK’s Prime minister and former chancellor (i.e. treasury minister) is *Scottish*, as is our current chancellor. Scotland has once again punched above its weight and should be proud of its contribution to global bankruptcy.

I don’t claim that England is by any means innocent of involvement in this econonomic fiasco, but of you are going to throw national blame around, at least know for whom you are aiming.

I appreciate that a US reader many not care much about these fine national distinctions, but consider that if it acceptable to refer to any part of the UK as England, then it is acceptable to refer to the US as Alaska, just because both are the biggest states in their respective unions.