No fairytale ending to my dream of being Scottish (or Farage's visit to Scotland)
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 9:25 I have been following the fallout from Nigel Farage's visit to Scotland.
But first, some background. As I have mentioned before, my family moved to Scotland when I was ten. I had six months at a local primary school, six years at secondary school in St Andrews, and four years at university in Aberdeen. I then lived and worked in London for 13 years before moving to Edinburgh for six and a half years (1993-1999).
My maternal grandmother was originally from Bannockburn and when I was at school in Maidenhead (ie before we moved to Scotland) I told everyone I was Scottish, to the obvious disbelief of my classmate Duncan Macintosh.
Ignoring him I wore my Scotland football shirt with pride when Scotland lost 4-1 to England at Wembley in May 1969, a week or so before we packed up and headed north.
I can't tell you how excited I was to move to Scotland. I'd never been north of Watford Gap so when we boarded the car-sleeper train at the old Motorail terminal in Kensington it was the start of a huge adventure.
We arrived the following morning in Perth. The sun was shining as we drove to our new home overlooking Dundee and the River Tay.
A day or two later I enrolled at the local primary school. My new classmates must have been sceptical about my Scottish credentials because on my first day I was asked to recite "It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht".
I did my best but from that moment I realised I was ... English.
Actually, I didn't mind. Being English in Scotland in the Seventies was no big deal. I don't remember it ever being an issue.
Fast forward to Edinburgh in the Nineties and the atmosphere had changed. I experienced frequent anti-English sentiment.
The Scottish media in particular was full of it. Whether journalists were reflecting or leading public opinion, I don't know, but as someone who reads several newspapers every day it wore me down.
Two episodes stand out. (I have written about this before so apologies for repeating myself.)
In 1994 the Rugby Sevens World Cup came to Edinburgh. England rugby captain Will Carling was a hated figure in Scotland but the sevens team featured none of the big name players who played for the Five Nations team.
Despite that, every time England walked out at Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby, they were booed mercilessly by a remarkably hostile crowd. Bile rained down from the stands. (As it happens England won the tournament so it may have helped!)
Two years later, at Euro 96, the England football team famously reached the semi-finals. One newspaper (the Scottish Daily Mail) ran an article with the headline 'Why we hate the English when they're winning'.
It wasn't tongue in cheek. It was poisonous and there were plenty more articles like it. Among other things, England fans were castigated for waving the flag of St George as if this was nationalism gone mad.
In fact, Euro 96 was the first time I can ever remember England fans using the English flag en masse. Prior to that they always brandished the Union flag and, guess what, they were criticised in Scotland for commandeering the British flag in the name of England.
So it was alright to wave the saltire but not the cross of St George, and it was OK to have pride in being Scottish but not in being English.
In my experience most of this hatred and hypocrisy came from the Barbour-jacketed middle class. Typical of the type was a solicitor I met socially via a friend.
He was shortly to become a partner at an Edinburgh firm but could barely bring himself to speak to me or my English friends. He hated England so much he refused to go on holiday there – not even a weekend break.
Bizarrely the animosity seemed to get even worse after devolution in 1997. I realised I no longer wanted to live in Scotland and started looking for a job in London. (That's how I came to work for Forest.)
Ironically my wife is from Glasgow which makes my children half Scottish. They were both born at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. I support a Scottish football club and I love visiting many parts of Scotland, the Highlands in particular.
I am a regular visitor but as things stand politically I have no wish to live there again.
Anyway, that's the background to my reflections on Nigel Farage's unhappy visit to Scotland this week.
I say unhappy but, for a moment on Thursday, I thought it had gone rather well. Nigel had been shouted down by a handful of protestors, forced to retreat to a pub, before being driven away in a police van for his own safety. Allegedly.
Stories emerged of the UKIP leader laughing at these mindless bigots and with first minister Alex Salmond refusing to condemn the extremists the whole thing was a disaster for the independence movement.
But – and I say this with a heavy heart – Nigel couldn't resist putting the boot in. Instead of being statesmanlike, he stoked the fire and accused the protestors of being "yobbo fascist scum". He also said the incident the previous day was "deeply racist" which isn't true.
He then put the phone down during an interview with BBC Radio Scotland, describing the questions as "insulting".
Having occupied the moral high ground the previous day, Nigel threw it away by using language and hyperbole similar to his opponents.
Salmond was off the hook and the story was all about UKIP and its leader instead of the extremists who were attacking him.
Yesterday I heard Farage vow to return to Scotland. I admire his determination not to be intimidated but he has to look at the bigger picture.
Polls suggest that, by a substantial margin, the majority of Scots don't want independence. At the same time, in my experience, they don't want English politicians telling them what to do or how to vote.
David Cameron understands this, hence his current low profile on the independence issue.
If I was Alistair Darling, leader of the No campaign, I would be tearing my hair out. The all party campaign was chugging along quite nicely. Then UKIP turn up and it's all about them.
Nigel Farage had an opportunity to be a statesman in Scotland on Friday. Sadly, he blew it.
PS. Minutes before the story broke on Thursday I sent an email inviting Nigel to take part in a forthcoming Forest event.
We could start by asking him about Scotland and the smoking ban ... Now there's a double whammy.
Then again he may read this post and decide the event is not for him. I'll let you know.
Reader Comments (6)
Nigel Farage will learn from this
“Nigel Farage had an opportunity to be a statesman in Scotland on Friday. Sadly, he blew it.”
Personally I don’t think that Nigel did blow it. He was confronted by a particularly nasty bunch of ultra left wing morons who weren’t linked to the SNP but were in favour of Scottish Independence (Radical Independence Campaign), and since the yobbish demonstration, two people have been arrested. In actual fact some political commenters have said that Farage has emerged stronger as a result.
He will need someone to school him ways of diplomacy that he may not be used to. Something he will need to think about in the future. There will be further tests of this kind to come.
Just off topic. On the Daily Politics programme Jacob Rees-Mogg was talking quite openly about forming a coalition with UKIP at the next election, it is no longer an embarrassment to hear this kind of talk, albeit from a Conservative back-bencher, about a possible alliance with UKIP, and with Cameron's grip on his party growing weaker, then expect these sentiments to escalate over time.
Rees-Mogg said this. "You have to maximise your part of the political spectrum that will vote for you." He and others in the Conservative party believe they have views that coincide with UKIP.
This I hope will play into our hands one day.
There is an explanation of Nigel Farage's response to the attack on him here - and a defence to the outrageous suggestion that he drinks and smokes too much. A must watch. It will make you smile https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uj5vdGANylU
How impertinent of you!
Excellent Pat...I thoroughly enjoyed the way Godfrey Bloom tongue lashed the too far up himself Gavin Esler. It was outrageous to ask that stupid question, this has nothing to do with anything...and was absolutely non of Esler's business.
The sooner this nasty piece of putrid legislation is ripped from the statute book the better!
Well done Godfrey.
@Pat Nurse - The Beeb managed to plumb even greater depths than usual in that interview. Has the Beeb ever really deserved the journalism plaudits lavished upon it? Well said that man, Godfrey Bloom!
A little story about BBC TV Scotland:
I spent a brief while in Scotland in 1992 and was astonished by the weather maps shown on the BBC. In England the BBC had always and still do show a map of the whole of the British Isles. But in Scotland they only showed a map of Scotland. It wasn't even that they didn't show the forecast for south of the border, they didn't show anything at all. As though Scotland was an island.
I should add that I never experienced any anti English sentiment whilst I was there although I did hear from people who had.
Well done Godfrey.