What a difference accent makes to language. Some years ago, an Irish judge died, of sufficient distinction to get an obituary in the London Times. But its most striking point was not his judicial ability, but his detestation of Britain.

That was no rarity among the elite of the Irish republic. Its iconic leader, Éamon de Valera, hated ‘the Brits’ so much that in 1945 he went in person to the German legation to commiserate on the death of Hitler — a courtesy he did not parallel even for the United States when Roosevelt died. Later, Irish courts at times went through legal hoops to save IRA gunmen from extradition. What was unusual was this judge’s way of showing his dislike. At European conferences, wrote his obituarist, he would speak in French rather than English, to avoid being taken for a Brit.

To any Briton, that seems ludicrous: merely open your mouth in the accent of southern Ireland, and you proclaim your origins. Yet maybe the late judge was right. What’s obvious to us is not so to many outsiders, however fluent in English. I can’t tell the English of a Tamil from that of a Bengali; let alone, despite four years spent in France, the French of Bordeaux from that of Brittany. Would a Frenchman, even one fluent in English, necessarily know the Dublin accent from that of London or Birmingham?

Yet distinct enough they are. Any Irishman indeed would query the notion of “the” accent of his country. There are many, as there are within Britain or America or India. And just as a tone of voice can alter the significance of words, so can accent.

I was lately on the phone to what turned out to be a BT call-centre in Delhi. A calm young woman listened patiently to my rage against that shambolic oligopoly; and her replies, in faultless and barely Indian-accented English, persuaded me that someone at BT might actually care.

I’ve had many similar conversations — if you’ve ever met British phone companies or banks you’ll know why — and the replies may have been phrased in English just as faultless. But their accent was at times impenetrable enough to make any over-excited Briton think well of Peter Sellers; and they did not calm this one in the least. Only my realization of my own absurdity did that.

The issue of accent is today alive within Britain itself. Many British call-centres are located in Scotland. Not only is that cheap, but the accent (in fact, there are several) is also widely thought to sound trustworthy. So it does. But it also sounds very Scottish, and we English — me included, for all my Scottish childhood — have begun to wonder if we do trust it after all.

That is not just because of the recent vote in Scotland, amid rising anti-English communalism, that made a secessionist party top dog in the Scottish parliament. It’s more to do with who runs England. Scotsmen played a big part in running the British Empire, and, not least, the East India Company. Today, all three of our main party leaders have Scottish surnames, and one is a genuine Scot. Tony Blair is, and sounds, essentially English, despite his Scottish name, descent and education. But his cabinet and party are overweight with Scots, as Labour usually has been. And when shortly he steps down, his assured successor, his long-time chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, is thoroughly Scottish, accent and all.

The lying about Iraq long ago destroyed faith in Blair. But Brown sounded dependable, and quite often was. And his accent helped one to think so. Now, however, as he gets ready to take Blair’s place, it has become counterproductive. The words are the same. But increasingly, in England, they arouse a reflex of hostility. His accent gives them resonances that he does not intend and may not even be aware of: “another self-righteous lecture from that goddamned Scot.” And resonance is a large part of language.