Bethany Elliott

The first ministers of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have a clear message for Westminster: Your 'time is coming to an end'. For the first time since devolution began, all three pro-independence parties – Sinn Fein, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru – are in power in their home nations at once. Irish nationalism has already produced an independent state and, in Northern Ireland, helped fuel decades of bloody sectarian conflict. The prospect of Scottish secession remains a serious and enduring political problem for Prime Minister Andy Burnham. But do we take the prospect of Welsh independence as seriously?

Some wear their hearts on their sleeves. Others wear convicted sex offenders on their biceps. The phrase “Rolf Harris tattoo” is now often used online to accuse someone of poor judgement, lack of foresight or even possessing a hard drive in urgent need of checking. But what happens when the person you immortalised in ink as a hero is later exposed as a sex offender? How do you live with a permanent tribute to someone whose reputation has been eternally destroyed? Does it get covered once they’ve been uncovered? “I’ve had some requests which leave me baffled.

If, as the joke goes, war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, then sport is arguably His way of instructing the British in their own history. The World Cup provoked an outpouring of anti-England sentiment, much of it rooted in the colonial past. An Irish Times article posited that it is “totally fine to hate England during the World Cup”; Union Jack flags were burned in Buenos Aires; and Sinn Fein Senator Chris Andrews announced that he would “support anyone who’s playing England until England isn’t occupying Ireland”. The national curriculum really doesn’t cover history with the colonies in mind “Anyone against England” isn’t new for Andrews’ countrymen; Taoiseach Eamon de Valera sent condolences on the death of Hitler.