Today’s banner:
Dornoch by night
by Islay McLeod
Alex Salmond and the present Scottish Government should be chary of pursuing too diligently the present investigation of excessive credit card spending by executives in Scottish Enterprise. The devolution process has been accelerated by the progressive growth of business and regional promotion in UK and international media. Who knows also whether lavish spending in Abu Dhabi or Hong Kong may be necessary to establish Scotland as a global player.
Scottish lobbying and media management has come a long way from the 1950s and early 60s. Entertainment (usually for the Scotsman and Glasgow Herald government correspondents) was restricted to afternoon tea in the genteel surrounding of the Saint Andrew’s House restaurant (waitress service and serviettes).
The publication in 1961 of the Toothill Report on the Scottish economy with its emphasis on science-based industry expansion was widely lauded north of the border but disappeared in the dusty archives of the Board of Trade in Whitehall. A fraught meeting the following year in Glasgow when the industry minister (Lord Errol) was confronted by an angry Scottish Council and STUC triggered Harold Macmillan’s intervention in the Central Scotland White Paper which advocated growth point development and the wider promotion of Scottish business potential.
The Scottish Taxpayers Alliance would be interested to note that the promotion campaign would be largely funded by the private sector business. Sir Leonard Paton, the dynamic chairman of the Scottish Council’s London committee, collected cash from 20 prominent companies including ICI, BP and the Thomson organisation.
Seconded from the Scottish Information Office, I teamed up with the versatile freelance Andrew Hargrave, a gifted Scotto-Hungarian journalist. I lunched selected London media people and sent them up to Scotland for Andrew and the Scottish Council to organise appropriate tours.
A credit card would have been useful in dining a Daily Telegraph leader writer (Paton paid the bill when my money ran out at a smart London eatery). Geoffrey Owen of the Financial Times (a Spartan meal) was better value. His Scottish business articles were first class (and led later to his appointing Andrew as the FT Scottish correspondent and later German representative when he became editor). Other individuals and groups provided useful coverage although most preferred Highland visits rather Cumbernauld or the Lanarkshire steel mills and BMC Bathgate.
A major stimulus to national media coverage came from Winnie Ewing’s dramatic SNP by-election win at Hamilton. By that time back in Whitehall as Scottish Office press secretary new urgency towards economic growth was evident.
A casual remark was made by Willie Ross at a lunch with Leonard Paton about the hazards of commuting between Ayr, Edinburgh and Westminster. Paton was appalled to learn that Ross used a B&B in Leith. Scotland’s minister should have an official residence.
Within a month Sir Leonard identified a Georgian house in Charlotte Square. Lord Bute was prepared to offer it to the nation through the National Trust. The permanent secretary was deputed to close the deal. Willie Ross coyly drew back, not wanting to be seen angling with a posh New Town mansion for sleepovers.
Lord Polwarth, the chairman of the Scottish Council, seemed to resent the initiative of a London parvenu promoting a socialist politician. Members of the New Club found difficulty also in associating a gentrified residence with Willie Ross, The more cynical civil servants dubbed the project as Paton Place. Charlotte Square was finally acquired after three years’ delay. The first occupant was Gordon Campbell who became Scottish secretary in 1970 – definitely a gentleman.
Sir Leonard was mortified by the delays and resigned from the Scottish Council, deleting all Scottish references from his Who’s Who entry.
The late 1960s saw a new momentum in economic planning. The Highland Development Board was seen as a ‘growth pole’. James McGuinness, under secretary for regional development, floated the idea of an investment agency handling structural investment on the lines of the Italian agency – the Cassa Del Mezziogiorno – which steered massive infrastructure spending to the regions south of Naples. An agency later marred by the intrusion of the Mafia.
Willie Ross was dubious about launching another quango while the Highland Board was coping with the failure of an oil refinery project at Invergordon which could have been at the heart of a linear city expansion stretching to Inverness. Occidental Petroleum had anticipated the North Sea boom but were thwarted by more powerful oil interests.
The agency proposal was revived in 1974, stimulated by the infusion of 11 SNP Westminster MPs and the baton was handed by Willie Ross to Bruce Millan. The idea of worldwide Scottish promotion was established, all be it on modest credit card backing. Promotion offices were opened in New York, San Francisco and Brussels and agents appointed in Zurich and Tokyo.
Fletcher flinched in deference to the FO. He indicated that any investment inquiries must be routed through the consulate who represented all the regions including Scotland and Northern Ireland. Geoffrey Owen had maybe done his bit for his erstwhile Scottish hosts but, in front of BBC Scotland cameras, the Scottish minister was lightly booed.
Subsequently the top brass of the SDA were replaced and the SDA withdrew from New York. After lengthy deliberations and a vacillating select committee report the SDA were allowed to keep a foreign presence, greatly expanded in recent decades by its successor Scottish Enterprise.
New York is still forbidden territory for a full-scale office but there is little chance of the FO banning Scottish credit cards in China or the Middle East. Time will tell if Asian traders and investors will be visibly impressed.
James Gorie trained as reporter with the Banffshire Journal. He was a press officer with the Scottish Office, promotion director with the SDA, and subsequently a UN and EU consultant in Asia and eastern Europe
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