Drams and drama as interest and ignorance mix in London

THERE may be no WiFi connections on the Caledonian sleeper to help me file this column on the train but, to be fair, despite snow storms and problems with overhead cables, ScotRail got me back to Strathspey in time to write my ‘Strathy’ article at home.

I was in the Smoke for a pal’s 70th birthday and was surprised about how much interest there is in the forthcoming referendum on separation from Britain.

As you would expect at any gathering in London there were quite a few Scots present who now make the capital their home.

It did seem strange that whilst they will have no say on the future of their country of birth, hundreds of thousands of English people who have made Scotland our home will.

There does though seem to be little objection to this. Who could argue that the Nationalists’ most famous supporter and tax exile Sean Connery should get a vote?

What did surprise me, however, was the complete ignorance of some of the issues here in Scotland.

My Scottish pals thought it marvellous that Scottish kids don’t have to pay tuition fees. That’s until I pointed out that the SNP had robbed the Further Education colleges’ budget, cutting funding there by 20% in order to pay for this thus

depriving millions of working-class kids of a decent post-school education.

My friends also thought that free prescription charges were marvellous until I pointed out that the money to fund this had been robbed from hospital budgets.

But what about ‘our’ oil some ex-pats cry out? Well the Shetlands have scuppered that, haven’t they, as they threaten their own independence if Scotland breaks away from the UK.

It’s ‘our oil’ they cry.

Well, at least two-thirds of it is.

As we tucked into a few wee drams, my pals pointed out that the brown stuff was Scotland biggest earner and so it is but who other than King Alex would base their whole economic future on an alcoholic drink?

As a great lover of malt whisky, I always wait with bated breath to see how much tax will go on it in the Budget. Under the Tories, supported by our local MP Danny Alexander, this tax has gone up, but I can proudly boast that never once did Gordon Brown raise it and I like to think I had something to do with that decision.

In preparing his first Budget, Gordon called me and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury into his office and asked what we thought about raising tax on whisky.

I told him that as a Scot he could never do that, neglecting to tell him of my own special interest!

To this day, I never miss the Scottish Whisky Association bash at the Labour Party conference and certainly won’t miss it this year in Inverness. I’m not sure Danny Alexander will be so welcome at their party at his conference.

SINCE I left the Government I haven’t actually watched a single Budget live and I won’t have watched it this year either. No, I will be on the River Spey attempting to catch the first salmon of the year in Grantown waters.

There was a time when the first salmon would have been caught in February but not these days.

Our Government doesn’t seem to care a jot about game angling even though it is such an important part of the Highland economy.

King Alex has promised to

double the amount of farmed smoked salmon produced to sell to the Chinese without bothering to ask how much more pollution that will create in the sea.

It is a proven fact that millions of salmon in cages off our shores kill off wild salmon and sea trout, yet this government ignores these facts and supports their big business backers in approving more and more fish farms.

Tight Lines!

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