Welcome to England: a land where Union means rugby, strikes and marriage

AS YOU travel out though the suburbs of north-west London towards the new Wembley stadium, it is the cross of St George you see on the railings by the Metropolitan line, not the Union flag. Many of these emblems are tattered and stained, suggesting they have been there since the summer of 2006; that mad, distant season in which England allowed itself to dream, and only in that dream was the World Cup won.

It may seem flippant to approach a question of politics with reference to football, but the symbolism is important. Thirty years ago, English fans would have been flying the Union flag, unaware that it was the emblem of the United Kingdom. This would have been an honest representation of political reality. In London and the shires, England was Britain, and Britain was England. The banishment of this view is one of the most obvious successes of Scottish nationalism.

Now, the stakes are higher, and it isn't just a question of sport. The 300th anniversary of the Act of Union coincides with the elections to the Holyrood parliament. The opinion polls suggest that there is a chance of the nationalists being in a position to lead an administration, taking Scotland significantly closer to a referendum on independence.

O'Hagan argues that England will ignore the anniversary because "to mark it properly would be to speak up for the goodness of their marriage with the Scots, and England isn't feeling too good in that marriage at the moment. It might not want a divorce, but it can't quite sleep at night for the slow workings of resentment. We've been here before - in the late 18th century the cry of 'No Scots!' was often to be heard, apparently, from the pit at Drury Lane - and it is brought on now by a perception that the Scots are running Britain, and doing rather better out of the arrangement than is England. This is an old-fashioned resentment and will go away eventually, unless something seismic happens, like Scotland breaking away. For the moment it means that the anniversary of the Act of Union will probably be met with a bit of a groan by England."