Scotland The Bountiful

It looks as though unspoken desires of the Scots have come out from under the kilt. Not all that long ago Scots seemed to want to keep Scotland to themselves and stay away the rest, whether or not they were of Scots origin.

Now they are clamouring for more migrants. It is said that this might be something to do with the age balance, too many old, not enough young. A reason for this is all those young Scots who hoofed off to civilised places with reliable incomes and are unlikely to come back.

The new peoples will bring skills, investment (really?),and different ideas about community. How this is to be achieved is a good question, but probably the Scots will do what they have always done; make it up as they go along and if a debit arises blame the English and demand money.

I have a plan, you only need a few shots of Islay to appreciate it. Scotland has a lot of rural land a great deal of it little used for various reasons, not least rain, frost and fog. Your create sectors of this land under the authority of persons who are termed Land Agent Immigrant Rural Developers or LAIRD for short.

Each sector will be divided up into small holdings of a few acres with a simple living space which has basic facilities. There are a lot of streams and bogs to take up the waste. They are termed Community Rural Organised Free Titles or CROFTS.

Because migrants often arrive as families or groupings of an extended family they will be defined as Community Land Acquisition Norms or CLANS.

This process will not be easy and there will be conflicts of interests, title and religion which will have to be policed, possibly by levies from the towns or England.

It could work, if the Scots wanted it to. Why has nobody thought of this before?