I WAS a bit upset last week when I discovered John Cleese had rumbled my plans, as a half-educated tenement Scot, to run the press in England.

So I guess it’s over to plan B, where I hope to spend the rest of my days swigging Buckfast and eating fried food, eventually succumbing to the Glasgow Effect at an early age – because if we’re dealing in Scottish stereotypes, why not go the whole way?

In all seriousness, like most of Scottish Twitter, I was a bit devastated that an actor I’ve always liked exhibited such a poor attitude towards Scottish people.

The incident came about when Cleese took to Twitter in a rage against Spectator magazine editor Fraser Nelson, who’d written something that wasn’t to Cleese’s liking. But rather than address whatever the problem was, Cleese went off on a rant about “half-educated tenement Scots”.

“Why do we let half-educated tenement Scots run our English press? Because their craving for social status makes them obedient retainers?” he tweeted, adding: “Seriously, I’d rather have educated, cultured and intelligent people in charge. Sorry for the elitism.”

Naturally, Twitter reacted pretty severely. BBC journalist James Cook saw a clear problem with it, tweeting: “Replace the words ‘tenement Scots’ with, for example, ‘slum Pakistanis’ and see how this reads.”

But others thought there was nothing in it. Journalist and commentator Kevin McKenna tweeted: “Am trying to be upset by John Cleese’s ‘half-educated tenement Scots’ jibe: been called far worse by my own chinas; nothing in this at all.”

While I agree with McKenna to some extent – I genuinely didn’t feel a deep sense of rage about it – I think we need to step outside the bubble of stereotypes we’re used to living in and realise that this is not OK, it’s nowhere close to OK.

It’s very telling that Cleese’s response to being irked was to go straight for identity; rather than taking Nelson to task, he took a nation to task, suggesting its journalists are subservient halfwits. It was a snobby, sneering tone, dismissive of a group of people on account of nationality. Never mind elitism, John, try xenophobia on for size.

It exuded a sense of nationalistic superiority in a union of nations that has never been, and will never be, equal. We are troublesome Scots and we should know our place, and that place certainly shouldn’t be anywhere near the great English press, where we can’t be trusted.

And of course we can’t be trusted. Just ask Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson. While rubbing shoulders with Prime Minister Theresa May at last week’s Conservative Party conference, Davidson joked: “I’m delighted we have such spectacular surroundings. Usually they put the Scots in a place where nothing can be broken. Or stolen for that matter!”

It’s infuriating that the Scottish Tory leader, a Scot, would indulge in such belittling tripe to get a few slaps on the back from the high-heid-yins of a party with only one MP in Scotland (on that point about subservience, I concede Cleese may have had a point …), but in the context of the mood of British nationalistic superiority, which oozed from the post-Brexit Tory conference, it made perfect sense.

Many Unionist commentators, the Prime Minister included, have tried to paint the Scottish independence movement as divisive nationalism, but Scotland’s referendum invited foreign nationals to vote in it as equal citizens. Britain’s EU referendum saw them excluded. If we want to see an example of divisive nationalism, we need look no further than the British elite.

Cleese’s sneering tone at half-educated tenement Scots – and I speak as a proud one – and the muted response to his outburst were symptomatic of Scotland’s unequal status. It’s ingrained in the psyche. Even if Cleese’s words didn’t have me seething with deep offence, they still meant something.

Post-Brexit, we’re living in a UK where the acceptability and visibility of xenophobia is on the increase. Those indulging in it are growing in confidence, boosted by the shamefully irresponsible rhetoric of the UK Government, and we can expect it to become all the more common and all the less controversial.

But while Scots may have taken these jibes on the chin before, in Scotland we have become more assertive about identity and the nation we want to be. Acknowledging the culture that underpins attitudes like Cleese’s is not the sign of silly over-sensitive Scots, it is part of a nation awakening, and finding its voice.

When Scotland is often so vocal in rejecting xenophobia aimed at our friends and neighbours from outwith the UK, it’s entirely legitimate to start speaking up when it’s aimed at us.