Dick Mungin
We should be careful
about celebrity support
for politicians
Norman Fenton
Giving up newspapers
George Chalmers
Mother
Hugh Kerr
Theatre
Norman Fenton
The recent discussion in the Scottish Review about the future of print journalism came at a potentially sad time for me.
Last week I had decided that I would no longer be purchasing a print copy of my normal daily newspaper. The rationale I had adopted, to allow myself to sleep at night, was the excessive amount of time I spent reading the latest news, as it was taking effectively twice as long as it probably should. First, you read Google News, essential if you don’t want to miss out on what El Porteño in Buenos Aires thought about the Holyrood election. Then you spend more time reading the print copy of your normal newspaper.
But fortunately, nostalgia is a terrible thing, and I thought back to the day when I purchased my first real newspaper. Up till then, a newspaper was something you bought to find out what was on at the pictures – avoiding the usual clichés about wrapping fish-and-chips and lining the budgie’s cage.
This significant purchase happened on the same day I went to the bank to cash my first university grant. My family did not have a bank account, but a school friend’s big brother, a recent graduate, knew the score. ‘You know the big-band sound at the Friday night dances at the men’s union? Well, that band-leader works in the bank at the corner of Buchanan Street and Gordon Street, so you just take your cheque in there. He’s used to it, and there’ll probably be a queue of students waiting for him.’
So then, money in hand, it was up to Queen Street Station to buy my first real paper. I shyly asked for the Manchester Guardian, paid for it and walked off. With a copy of Amateur Gardening. ‘Speak up, Fenton, don’t mumble’, one of my teachers had always insisted. I always did after that, and I will continue to do so, now that I continue to read my print copy of the Guardian.
The best of pals 3
We should be careful
about celebrity support
for politicians
Dick Mungin
When Sir David Murray, Rangers FC chairman and serial entrepreneur, recently stepped into the Scottish electoral fray to endorse Alex Salmond’s quest for a second term as first minister it certainly caused a media flutter.
In the darkened rooms of the worldwide web the cybernats did battle with Salmond’s detractors to defend their man and his apparent delight in gaining the open support of an avowed opponent of independence. The circumstances of the controversial endorsement and the language used by Murray, however, struck a chord in my memory.
Murray had said, ‘Alex Salmond makes a fine first minister…he is the best man for Scotland during these difficult times’; he went on to aver that ‘this is not a political statement’. He might have said: ‘We are in an emergency situation as far as the economic conditions go…I can not think of a better person to be in place’. But he didn’t. These were in fact the words of Alan Sugar, former chairman of Tottenham Hotspur FC, describing Gordon Brown. He’d just been ennobled by the prime minister in 2009 and appointed as his enterprise czar. The good lord went on to say: ‘I don’t see this as a political thing’. At least Sugar, in his own defence, would have been able to point out that he’d given Labour a small fortune in campaign contributions over the years and was hardly a newcomer to the cause.
The SNP has long pursued the backing of Sir David Murray and other leaders of the Scottish business community. Andrew Wilson, now ensconced in RBS, and John Swinney regularly toured the boardrooms of Scotland to garner business support for the nationalist cause.
Jim Mather, when he became an MSP, scarcely paused in his Powerpoint-assisted selling exercise to Scottish companies and their owners. He presented the case to Sir David Murray, Sir Tom Hunter, Sir Tom Farmer and Jim McColl among many others. All of this took place while Mr Salmond languished on the backbenches at Westminster.
It’s all the more peculiar therefore that Murray should make it very clear that his endorsement of Salmond does not extend to backing independence, the USP of the nationalist party. It can easily be seen that the SNP ministerial team are better communicators and have a wider set of skills than their Labour predecessors. Many of the latter rose to mediocrity via the usual route of time serving in the trade union movement or our town halls. That does not quite make the ministers any better or more perceptive forward looking politicians.
A leading nationalist hopeful in the coming Holyrood elections in her regular, full-page column in the Scotsman said of the Murray controversy, ‘Even the party’s fundamentalists have no need to fear unionist Sir David Murray’s endorsement’. The panegyric which followed might earn her a place on Salmond’s team should both of them get their heart’s desire and win in May, but it displayed a staggering lack of mature political insight into the relationship between powerful men, politics and politicians.
The simple fact is that thinking members of political parties should be careful of celebrity supporters whose backing extends only to the ‘great leader’ of the time. Quite a few prominent Scottish businessmen, not excluding those mentioned above, were close to Jack McConnell and not averse to working closely with him on specific projects. The whole fundraising effort of Labour in the UK and the consequent furore over ‘cash for honours’ was based around selling Tony Blair as leader to rich British and international businessmen. When Gordon Brown inherited the mantle, the flow of funds tailed off and he became, by default, dependent on the coffers of the trade unions leaders.
Powerful men like to move in the circles of their peers and the first minister of Scotland is probably regarded as such. Perhaps successful businessmen and strong political figures each envy what the other has. The starry-eyed columnist in the Scotsman said that Murray ‘saw qualities in Salmond that more blinkered unionists miss’. What did Lord Sugar see in Gordon Brown? Whatever it was the electorate were blind to it. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that if Alex Salmond fails to form the next Scottish government in May we’ll not be hearing much of interest on political matters from Sir David.
But it’s not just Sir David who’s backing Alex
