Absolutely true, and in fact I still don't think we've been fully honest with ourselves about how much of our fabulous wealth and success as a nation over the centuries came not just from our own ingenuity but from our willingness to exploit and oppress through the Empire - I'm not sure whether we're better or worse than the English in that regard but many of us are still too willing to pretend that Scotland was an unwilling victim of England in all this rather than a very active henchman in imperialism.

I wonder if there's a bit of a "tale of two nations" in this though, with the Highlands & Islands vs the Lowlands - did the former benefit quite as much as the latter when the near-eradication of Gaelic culture is taken into account?