On the Fact that England Was Always Ahead of Scotland In Terms of Government, Technology, the Arts, etc.

Thomas Sowell (per usual) makes a solid case that it was because England had been colonized by the Romans while the Picts remained untamed (at least until the near two dozen invasions by the British themselves, the Norse occupation of the periphery, etc.), the hypothesis being that while colonialism certainly had its bad side, the conquered people frequently benefited from it (Singapore being a more recent example), especially if they adopted the political and economic institutions left by the colonizers and didn't let the infrastructure shit the bed (two things that Mugabe in Zimbabwe most assuredly didn't do).