Scotland
in the
heat
SR Extra
Dounreay end game has arrived. What happens to the people?
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SR Forum
A new series of articles debating the issues around the referendum
Today: Alex Wood
In the end, the British ruling elite may hand
the Scots devo-max
on a plate
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The Cafe
Paul Cochrane
Thank you for including in Wednesday’s SR a selection of poems written by David Donnison in memory of his wife, Kay Carmichael.
I, like many others I am sure, found the poems very affecting and would love to read the others in the collection. You state the collection has been published privately. Do you know if Mr Donnison is likely to make it possible for the wider public to acquire it?
David Spalding
The book, ‘Requiem’, is available for purchase. Any profit will go to the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture – one of Kay’s favourite charities. For further details email: lapidus.scotland@yahoo.co.uk
Could Mr Salmond
be blown away
by his own charisma?
Kenneth Roy
A European journalist working in London asked me yesterday if, in the unhappy event of Alex Salmond falling under the proverbial bus, there might be someone to replace him. He did not put it quite that way; I am not even sure whether European journalists working in London are as familiar with the concept of proverbial buses, and people falling under them, as we are in a country where gloomy fatalism is bred in the bone. As I myself wait for the bus in the morning, it is not invariably with hope that it will arrive; or, that if it does, I will get to the airport in one piece.
I replied that Nicola Sturgeon would be a popular successor to our great leader; that the admirable but almost invisible John Swinney would continue to add up the sums; and that Alex Neil was an all-round good egg. Did I mention my former phone-in host, Mr Neil? Perhaps not. Anyway, that is roughly what I replied.
The European journalist – who was scarily well-informed not only about Scotland but about the Scottish Review – seemed mildly interested in the curious notion that we would stagger on somehow without our great leader and that it was conceivable the governing party would win the referendum even without the late, much-lamented Eck. But in my wildest nightmares – I have been having a few recently – I do not see Mr Salmond anywhere near a bus under which he could conceivably fall. He is more vulnerable to hubris, a condition which originated in Greece and to which ambitious politicians are often prone.
At this point I recall Douglas Crawford. When I was very young and unsure what I wanted to do with the rest of my career – nothing changes – he entered my life and took it in a certain direction. For a while we were colleagues. As I came of age to vote, Douglas was the second-brightest person I knew; the first was the Marxist literary critic Christopher Small, whom I held in awe. Douglas could think, and analyse, and write, and edit, and sell lots of business magazines.
I remember being shocked when he confided in me that he was a member of the SNP and that he might go on to work for the party. For heaven’s sake…Douglas Crawford? I associated nationalism with a wild romanticism characterised by such heroes as Douglas Young and Ian Hamilton and, of course, John Rollo of Bonnybridge, who hid the Stone of Destiny under his factory floor, and to whom close members of my family were devoted. The SNP was not a serious party. It was a rabble whose history of flyting and secession made free presbyterians look almost disciplined by comparison. It was a party of lost deposits and frustrated hopes.
Yet, I think he is in a little danger. He may be starting to believe his own publicity. He may be nursing the illusion that it would be a splendid thing
to do business on the back of Bannockburn 2014.
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