I have a confession: I’m an England cricket supporter. I want England to regain the Ashes this year.

But on the other hand, I’m less than enthusiastic (that’s as diplomatic as I can get) at the prospect of England winning the football World Cup in 2010, something that now seems a real possibility.

Despite the win against Iceland last week, it’s unlikely that Scotland will make the finals in South Africa. This is doubly bad news – not only will we have failed to qualify for the finals of a major tournament again, but we will also be subjected to that other national pastime – endless, pointless discussion over why Scots refuse to support Engerland.

I am only just recovering from the mass of coverage devoted to this topic during the 2008 European Championships. Remember that item on Newsnight, recording the reaction of Glaswegians to a car festooned with England colours in order to find out just how bigoted we are?

The more boring reality is that we are talking about football here and football supporters do not want their fiercest rivals to win. Hearts want Hibs to lose and Celtic love it when Rangers get beaten. The fact that many Scots cheer on anybody but England is basically the same as Ipswich Town supporters enjoying a Norwich City defeat. It really doesn’t mean that much.

It’s got nothing to do with our self-confidence, or lack of it, as a nation, and it doesn’t say anything about our wider relationship with England. It’s just football.

When it comes to cricket, I have always supported England. I am not quite sure why, but it’s probably to do with the fact that Scotland are not a Test playing nation which means we are not serious rivals. Scots – like the Welsh and Irish – have also played cricket for England so in some sense the England cricket team is a GB team. But that does not explain why I have followed England, because to be honest I am not a big supporter of other British sporting teams.

In truth, this is about sport and decisions taken about what teams people support can often look a little irrational. Many SNP supporters, for example, are Rangers fans, which seems unlikely given the sheer number of Union flags and renditions of Rule Britannia that accompany match days at Ibrox.

When I worked for the SNP, I remember being bemused at a colleague’s support for Tim Henman, when the rest of us in the office were not exactly regulars on Henman Hill. What did that tell us about anything other than which tennis players we liked? Nothing.

Much more interesting and meaningful in this regard, is the reaction in the London media to the troubles faced by the Scottish financial sector.

One of the more demeaning aspects to Gordon Brown’s premiership has been his constant references to British values – liberty and fairness – and the way they are presented as being unique to the United Kingdom. His real motivation, of course, is to convince voters in England that he is not really all that Scottish and that together we have forged what he calls a “British genius”.

Unfortunately some of his more trenchant critics in the so-called national (ie London) press now see the very fact that he is indeed Scottish as legitimate grounds for criticism.

The term “Scottish bankers” is now used as an explanation for the current recession. The fact that politicians born in Scotland were at the helm during the age of irresponsibility only adds to the sense that we as a nation are collectively to blame. Some of the writing in the traditional right-wing press has been astonishing in its invective, but even left-wing commentators have joined in.

After the break-up of the Dunfermline Building Society, the BBC broadcast an item on the ten o’clock news, highlighting the Scottish nature of banking failures. Fair enough, you might say, but I don’t remember a similar piece about Yorkshire following the disasters at the Bradford and Bingley and the Halifax.

Despite this onslaught, the heartening aspect is that very little of this has been picked up by ordinary Englishmen and women. Outside of the minds of excitable columnists, I don’t detect any rise in anti-Scottish sentiment, just as there has been no English backlash over the West Lothian Question or the contested levels of public spending in Scotland.

This gives me great hope that debates over the constitutional future of this country will not be dominated by unpleasantness on either side of the border over identity politics but by sensible argument over the best political and economic arrangement for both our countries.

I’ve written before about the casual prejudice against Scotland that is now acceptable in the London “national press.”

Probably  the worst examples of this can be found in the Daily Telegraph, but even in The Guardian today,  the liberal Jackie Ashley includes a gratuitous and inaccurate reference to Scotland, designed to remind people that the stupid Jocks are apparently primarily responsible for the global banking crisis.

“He, (Gordon Brown) she writes, “made friends with the same Scottish bankers now in disgrace.”

Apart from the fact that as far as I can see there is nothing particularly Scottish about Sir James Crosby, Andy Hornby and Lord Stevenson, their nationality seems irrelevant – unless you want to whip up some anti-Scottish sentiment.  

I cannot imagine a Scottish political commentator  talking about ”English” bankers in reference to Northern Rock or Bradford and Bingley, so why is it ok to make this kind of remark about Scotland?