“SCOTLAND is a region in England.” At least, if the UK Parliament’s official website was to be believed.
Thankfully, swift action was taken to remove the egregious error after it was spotted on Thursday – with a spokesperson saying that the mistake was down to faulty software.
That excuse went down like a lead balloon with Scots, however.
“Software error … who loads the software?” one social media user responded to the story, while another claimed it was “not possible” for that to have caused the issue.
A third added: “[It] can only mean the software lifted that designation from other files in existence.
“What other UK Government departments designate Scotland as part of England?”
And another questioned: “So someone typed in country, and an algorithm in the software spotted that and corrected it to region. That's what you're saying? ... aye, whatever.”
"Aye, right", summed up more than a few responses.
Software developed by Infosys? https://t.co/ZkaZlPZATL
— Jim Clark (@JimClark2004) September 21, 2023
And one user quipped: “Software developed by Infosys?” referencing the Indian IT firm which made Rishi Sunak’s in-laws their billions.
“In the trade, we call such software errors ‘features’,” one user added, while another quipped: “Is this the muscular Unionism we have heard so much about!”
It is. Forget one webpage, look at the actions of that Parliament to tell you
— P (@not_ewe_again) September 22, 2023
Whether or not it was a software error, many saw in the description of Scotland as a “region” an attitude they had seen elsewhere in the UK.
“Freudian slip,” one user wrote on X/Twitter, while another added: “It is. Forget one webpage, look at the actions of that Parliament to tell you.”
Scotland is a Country & should be sovereign. Not a region! This reminds me as a student when we travelled down to England they called us a region. This is ludicrous which was repeated by the trade unions too unfortunately https://t.co/uUzsOKjNrw
— Cllr Roza Salih (@RozaSalih) September 21, 2023
Councillor Roza Salih also responded to the error after SNP president Michael Russell shared the National’s story on social media.
Salih wrote: “Scotland is a country and should be sovereign. Not a region!
“This reminds me as a student when we travelled down to England they called us a region. This is ludicrous which was repeated by the trade unions too, unfortunately.”
It’s not just the trade unions. Scottish Labour itself is treated simply as an accounting unit of the UK party – and is officially based out of the regional office in Newcastle …
