'You do not speak for Scotland, sir'

Gerry Hassan has written a very detailed analysis of last night's Newsnight debate on 'the future of the Union'. I must say that personally I wouldn't be quite so effusive about Rory Stewart's performance - he's undoubtedly very articulate and has a 'screen presence', but he got himself into very unwise territory when he flatly informed a Scot in the audience who gave primacy to a Scottish identity that "you do not speak for Scotland, sir". Stewart's proof for this assertion was that his own father is Scottish, lives in Crieff and is "very proud to be British". This, of course, is the classic Tory delusion that got them into such a pickle over the Poll Tax - forget about elections and opinion polls, authentic Scottish opinion is represented by their father or third cousin once removed, or that well-bred chap they once canvassed in Drymen. Admittedly, for as long as there is more than one view held among the public, no-one can literally claim to speak for all of Scotland, but what evidence we have on majority opinion is clear enough - the Scot in the audience was much closer to speaking for modern Scotland's aspirations than that British imperial throwback Rory Stewart, former Deputy Governor of two Iraqi provinces. No wonder Rory still thinks there is something terribly "precious" to be lost if the Union bites the dust - how many other thirtysomething Scots have been given the wizard opportunity to rule a conquered Middle Eastern country? Would never happen under independence.

While we've seen much worse from Paxman, he was scarcely the most even-handed moderator, allowing Michael Portillo to wax lyrical for several minutes about the supposed historic British tradition of anti-fanaticism, but almost biting Joan McAlpine's head off when she tried to introduce a bit of balance by pointing out that one of the first acts of the British state was a pogrom in the Highlands of Scotland. "Oh, we're not going back to that," he groaned after an apparent Damascene conversion about the unimportance of British history, "I want to look forward". Earlier, he had taunted McAlpine about the failure of the "Scottish banks", but ten seconds later airily brushed off a member of the audience who pointed out that many of the bankers in those "Scottish banks" were English. My own point would have been more that those banks failed under UK rather than Scottish regulation, but doubtless Paxo would have regarded that as a "cheap shot" as well. He's certainly the expert on those.

The other thing that leapt out at me from the debate was the utter incoherence of the argument put forward by the representative of the English Democrats. Once again, it seems that underneath the veneer they are classic right-wing Brit Nats, who are lashing out at Scottish and Welsh presumptuousness with an affectation of English nationalism. What England is crying out for is an equivalent of the SNP or Plaid - a left-of-centre (or at the very least centrist) civic nationalist party that believes in English self-government for the right reasons.

A cautionary tale : listen to Jeremy Paxman and you'll start to wonder if it's safe to breathe

I was beginning to wonder last night if Jeremy Paxman had made a bet with someone that he could break his own record from the infamous Michael Howard interview of how many times he could utter the same phrase in a single edition of Newsnight. This time, a woman called Jelena Lecic had been invited onto the programme to tell the story of how photos of her from Facebook had been used without her permission to conceal the true identity of the Syrian opposition activist Amina Arraf, aka 'A Gay Girl in Damascus' (who may or may not be a real person). But no matter what detail of the story Ms Lecic was talking about it seemed there was only ever one thing Paxo wanted to say in reply - "it's a cautionary tale, isn't it?", meaning she should have thought twice about posting personal photos on the internet. Even when she mentioned how upset she was that the Guardian hadn't responded to her complaints about using one of her photos in an article, he immediately shot her down by insisting they must have been acting in good faith, and that what she should really be taking away is that this is a "cautionary tale", young lady.

But what exactly is the 'lesson' here? The nicked photos weren't embarrassing or incriminating in any way, they weren't nude photos, they weren't photos of her with a secret lover, they were just...well, photos. And she made very clear that she had her Facebook privacy settings turned up to the max, but even that hadn't worked. So it appears Paxo's 'warning' is that you should never post any photos on any social networking site under any circumstances at all, unless you're prepared to have your identity stolen by an opposition blogger in an authoritarian state.

Sure, Jeremy. Whatever you say. Another life lesson learned.