The Flag in the Wind
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CAMPAIGNING FOR SCOTLAND
(Owned, Edited and Printed in Scotland since November 1926)
Compiled by Jim Lynch
[Issue 48 - 4 May 2001]

On Friday 27th April 2001, I attended the official opening of a viewpoint/seating area at the Athelstaneford Heritage Centre. Athelstaneford has a special place in Scotland’s history; tradition records that near this East Lothian village in 832 AD a battle was fought which led to the adoption of the St Andrew’s Cross, or Saltire as Scotland’s national flag. An army of Picts under King Angus and aided by a contingent of Scots was invading Lothians, at that time still Northumbrian territory, and found itself surrounded by a larger force of Saxons, led by Athelstan. Fearing the outcome of the encounter, Angus led prayers for deliverance and was rewarded by seeing a cloud formation of a white saltire, the diagonal cross on which St Andrew had been martyred, against the blue sky. The king vowed that if , with the saint’s help, he gained a victory, then Andrew would thereafter be the patron saint of Scotland; he did win, and the Saltire became the flag of Scotland.

The viewpoint was opened by Dr Winnie Ewing, MSP, one of the Trustees of the Scottish Flag Trust, and we had a welcome speech from the minister, Rev Kenneth Walker, and from David Williamson, Trust Chairman; the viewpoint was dedicated to the late Dr Allan Macartney, MEP, and the late Nigel Tranter, OBE, without whose inspiration the project would not have been realised, and it was fitting that the event was attended by Mrs Anne Macartney, Allan’s widow, and his children.

In her speech, Winnie referred to the enormous bank of goodwill towards Scotland that she had experienced in her time in the European Parliament, and how appropriate that the viewpoint was being dedicated to Allan Macartney, who had also had close links with the indigenous peoples of the world. The ceremony was also attended by Professor Neil MacCormick, MEP, whose father, John, had written "The Flag in the Wind", which was the first political book Winnie had read, and which fired her love of Scotland.

Winnie and the children from Athelstaneford village school, were piped around from the church to the viewpoint by Peter Aitchison, and as anticipated, the sun shone; many people went into the Doocot, the heritage centre, to attend a short audio visual dramatisation of the traditional origins of Scotland’s flag. Interesting, and a further note of continuity, the doocot was built in 1583, by George Hepburn, father of Sir John Hepburn, the founder and first colonel of the Royal Scots, referred to as Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard in this publication a week or two back.

QUIS CUSTODIET CUSTODIES?

It is fashionable for the Unionist parties to ask what is the relevance of the SNP in Westminster, and to point to the voting record of the SNP in the House of Commons as evidence, completely ignoring that the SNP do not vote on English issues, that all SNP MPs have a dual mandate, sitting both in Edinburgh and London, and that as Labour have such a massive majority, voting is a pointless exercise. However, the Labour Party lobby fodder trot dutifully in and out of the voting lobby, as testimony to the fact that they attend; they do not do anything, but record that they were there.

Alex Salmond, MSP, MP, has published new research, based on official House of Commons figures that exposes very poor participation levels for many New Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs ; the fact that the SNP’s six MPs have the best six records out of all the dual mandate members conclusively proved that the SNP were the true champions of Scotland at Westminster.

The figures are for Written Parliamentary Questions (WPQ), Oral Parliamentary Questions, and Commons Hansard - contributions to debates (CH); they are for the period from 5 May 1999 to 27 April 2001 - the first two years of the Scottish Parliament. The voting percentage is from 6 December 2000 to 14 March 2001.

It should be noted that top of the Westminster class was Tam Dalyell, Lab, and the runner up was Menzies Campbell, Lib Dem; Des Browne, Lab, came in at No 11, being able to spare some time from working for William Hill the Bookie, and Frank Doran, Lab, came in at No 45, but managed to run up 86% of voting. Note from the above the voting percentages of Ernie Ross, Frank Roy and John Maxton, who can boast of their "attendance".

What should be the motto of the Labour Parliamentary Group at Westminster? How about "I do very little, but I do it very well?" - no, only half right!

THE HUNT FOR PALE PINK APRIL

Yes, we know it was a different colour and a different month, but Sir Sean Connery did star in "The Hunt for Red October" and he stars in this hunt as well; as we trailed last week, the Scots Independent Newspaper has devoted a lot of time and effort, and money, trying to find out who sabotaged the "Caledonian Trilogy" film made by the Scottish Parliament for Tartan Day in the United States last month. The paper has named the suspects, and even published their pictures, and in a provocative move, sent them all copies of the paper; well, every politician likes to see his/her picture. The suspects are : Peter McMahon, First Minister’s Press Secretary, Wendy Alexander, Labour’s General Election General, Dr John Reid, ex Secretary of State for Scotland, Mrs Helen Liddell, next ex Secretary of State for Scotland, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, and the puppetmaster general, Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The story has not received much publicity in the Scottish press, making us suspect that there is the equivalent of a D notice on it, but it did surface in the Atticus column in the Sunday times; apparently much of the footage has been used in a video to be shown in San Marino in Italy to a meeting of the William Wallace Association of Italy. The video has a greeting from Lord Steel, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, in Italian, and the video has Italian sub titles; the paper does state the original film was deemed "too nationalistic by some executive ministers and officials", and comments that the tune on the new soundtrack is Sempre Libera from La Traviata, translated as "always free."

Well, the truth is out there somewhere, and while we know that truth is stranger than fiction, we also know that politicians are often unable to distinguish. As to the involvement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we quote from the textbook "Scottish Government and Politics" by Dr Peter Lynch, "Arguably, the Chancellor has had more impact on devolved Scotland than any MSP or Minister of the Scottish Executive through his political interventions, and his role in controlling the UK economy and the Treasury’s financing of the Scottish Parliament."

IT’S NOT CRICKET

The recent outburst by Lord Tebbit, well known Tory rabble rouser, that English people in Scotland suffer appalling levels of racial harassment has provoked more of a backlash from his own party than from any other. Lord Tebbit is renowned for soundbites; people who had no jobs had to get on their bikes and go and find work was one of his solutions, irrespective of the fact there might have been no jobs within a 100 mile radius, and that the cyclists would have done the equivalent of a Tour de France. Another was his "cricket test"; a person’s nationality was determined by which cricket team they supported, again a racist comment in itself, as cricket is not a game usually associated with Scotland, but perhaps Lord Tebbit would not be aware of that. As has been said by us before, English people who get racial abuse in Scotland may get it not because of the fact that they are English, but because of their own attitudes and behaviour.

We like the advice given by a Japanese paper, preparing the good citizens of Japan for the World Cup, which we culled from the Herald "The Scandinavians like a drink. However they do not become violent. The Scots again are well known for liking a drink. They will become very loud, singing and dancing. They become very happy. They do not become violent, mainly to differentiate themselves from the English. The English, however, do get violent with a drink." Can’t say fairer than that.

So, Lord Tebbit - well in a previous existence he was an airline pilot, and we suspect he must have flown in to Edinburgh Airport once and was told "You’ll have had your tea."

ISOLATING THE ISLES

Hope spring eternal in the human breast. This quotation sprang to mind when I read that Shadow Minister for the Highlands, Duncan Hamilton MSP, had written to the Transoprt Minister, Susan Deacon, over the Cal Mac tendering process; the process, which is not the fault of CalMac means that all ferry services are out to tender and that a successful bidder could withdraw the ferry service in future. According to the Government, the state owned vessel holding company (sounds like a dry dock) would act as an operator of last resort; Captain Sandy Ferguson, CalMac’s last marine superintendent, says that VesCo (the aforementioned state owned vessel holding company) would not hold the relevant safety certificates, so could not operate any services.

Duncan said "The latest Government statement says that rather than being an operator of last resort, VesCo will be charged with procuring such a service. That means that if CalMac does not win the tender and a future operator withdraws the service to island communities, there would be a substantial delay in finding someone to run the route." The other factor in this would be that any company coming in would know that they had the Government under pressure, and could virtually name their price.

Duncan was also concerned at the closure of the Jaeger factory in Campbeltown, and the impact on the local economy, and has called on the Minister for Enterprise, Wendy Alexander to take urgent action; in his comments, he refers to the suspension of the Ballycastle ferry service. What happened here was that CalMac wanted to run a ferry service from Campbeltown to Larne, which would have opened up the whole Kintyre peninsula. This was in 1997, and Michael Forsyth, the Tory Secretary of State for Scotland, did not want them to run it, and awarded the contract to Sea Containers. He ordered CalMac to sell the ferry Claymore to Sea Containers, for £500,000; after three seasons, Sea Containers gave up the service; they then sold the ferry to a Dutch leasing company at a handsome profit and then leased it back. When a local businessman tried to restart the service, Sea Containers, who do not own the ship, wanted £1.2 million for it.

See rural communities, see Government’s involvement in tenders - see dogmatic incompetence.

FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

CalMac have a new ferry costing £3 million to run the Corran Ardgour ferry just south of Fort William.

It is tied up, unable to be used, as the ramp on it is at the wrong angle for the slipways; one correspondent asked if they had never heard of the old joiner’s adage "Measure twice - cut once".

Andrew Kerr, one of our SNP stalwarts in a letter to the Scots Independent this month says in regard to voting in the Westminster elections that the people elected should be ambassadors for Scotland, and that one of the qualities of an ambassador is the ability to think on his/her feet, not a quality associated with many of the Scottish Labour members at Westminster.

Andrew knows full well that thinking, irrespective of on their feet or not, is not a quality Labour want for their MPs.

Bae have apparently threatened to leave Edinburgh if they are not given permission to expand their manufacturing facility.

This is the same Bae who expect the taxpayer to pay for ammunition testing at a German plant to bring this up to standard so they can shut Bishopton; we expect the MOD to agree.

Labour have always claimed that the National Health Service was safe in their hands; when they came to power there were 62,477 nurses in Scotland.

After two years, the number had dropped to 61,591, but they have arrested the decline; in the following two years it only dropped to 61,464. We wonder if this shortage is connected to the 14,000 cancelled operations in 1999/2000?

SCOTTISH FOOD, TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS

See our Scottish Food, Traditions and Customs in our Features section

DATES IN HISTORY

SING A SANG AT LEAST
(compiled by Peter D Wright)

"That I for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some useful plan or book could make
Or sing a sang at least ........"

- Robert Burns

See the SING A SANG AT LEAST in our features section

A KIST O FERLIES
A Keek at the Guid Scots Tung
By Peter D Wright
(Note: All words underlined in this section are RealAudio links)

See Scots Language in our Features Section
for other poems, stories, sayings and words in the Scots language

THE MONTHLY PRIZE CROSSWORD

Each month the Scots Independent Newspaper offers a prize crossword and we're now offering this online in the Flag in the Wind as well.   Should you complete the crossword by the deadline you can fax it over to the SI and the first correct one opened on the closing date will win a £10.00 book token.

SI Prize Crossword No. 17
[Click here to bring up the crossword]