It strikes me that it's only the meeja and the usual rent-a-quote tossers that are making a song and dance about it. As somebody on the box said, in the army, if you're Welsh you're Taffy, if you're Scots, you're Jock, and if you're Irish, you're Paddy. FFS, I'm a Northerner living in the South, when I ring some colleagues I'm greeted with, "hello Norhern bastard", and I reciprocate, no malice, just lads being lads, a bit of banter that helps get you through the day
I'm convinced these tossers have competitions to see who can throw the biggest stone they can into the pond and see who can cause the most ripples. I shall now step down off my soapbox, I'm getting vertigo