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I had a great laugh at this silly article by Jenny Hjul in which she makes fun of the unusually high concentration of Yes supporters in the Scottish arts community, even going so far as to name Tommy Sheppard (a former assistant general secretary of the Scottish Labour Party) and Steve Cardownie whom she describes as "another prominent Nat".
But as Jenny 'outed' herself only last week as the wife of The Telegraph's Scottish editor, the estimable Alan Cochrane, I'm not sure if this husband and wife newspaper tag team places Jenny in much of a position to offer the rest of us advice on the subject of 'fair representation' and 'hunting in packs'.
Have Scottish Nationalists taken over the Edinburgh Fringe?
Photo: Getty Images
By Jenny Hjul - The Telegraph
If the Scottish referendum were a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, the result would be a resounding Yes. As this paper’s reviewer Charlotte Runcie wrote on Friday, the debate from the perspective of indy-themed plays has been distinctly one-sided.
After a fortnight at the festival, Charlotte said: "Everywhere there was confidence that independence was just around the corner … this wasn’t so much a conversation as a call to arms."
She endured, so we don’t have to, performances of Nationalist rants, such as Alan Bissett’s The Pure, The Dead and The Brilliant, which had its Anglo-bashing premiere at the SNP conference in the spring.
Bissett is a leading light in the artists for separatism movement that calls itself the National Collective. This has signed up any vaguely cultural Scot with secessionist sympathies and has been touring Scotland for rousing singalongs with the already converted, before turning its attention to Scotland’s capital.
Ross Colquhoun, the collective’s organiser, said before the summer: "The Fringe is one of the foremost cultural events anywhere on the planet, and it’s only right that we use this as an opportunity to reflect on and engage with Scotland’s independence debate."
Also at the Fringe is All Back to Bowie’s, conceived by the Nationalist playwright David Greig in response to David Bowie’s plea to Scotland to "stay with us".
And then there is Spoiling, made possible by funding from the SNP government and featuring the musings of a post-independence foreign minister.
Much of the pro-Yes offerings are being staged daily at the Assembly Rooms on George Street, or in the Famous Spiegeltent in St Andrew’s Square or in the Stand Comedy Club, all a short stroll from each other and all operated by the seasoned Edinburgh impresario Tommy Sheppard.
Sheppard, an energetic Yes man, made no secret before the festivals started of his ambition to turn a chunk of central Edinburgh into a "boulevard of creativity", with pavement cafés connecting his pedestrianised field of patronage.
Presumably when he went to the city council with his plans for expansion he didn’t spell out that his festival within the festival would be a fairly brazen Nationalist rallying cry – or maybe he did. After all, Edinburgh’s cultural chief is Steve Cardownie, another prominent Nat.
At the other end of George Street, Charlotte Square – home of the Edinburgh International Book Festival – is also accommodating the Nationalist cause, with a heavily politicised agenda and discussions on Scotland’s future chaired by some strikingly partisan players.
Scottish Nationalists have long claimed to have a monopoly on passion, and who better than cultural types to make a last-ditch plea to the electorate’s hearts and souls? In the weeks leading up to the referendum, perhaps they thought people could be persuaded by artistic endeavour, if not by political argument.
But the momentum they hoped to generate and the separatist surge they prayed they’d unleash have not materialised.
Bemused visitors bombarded by the local politics may go home entertained, but the natives do not seem to have been affected. In fact, during the course of the festival there has been a marked swing to the No camp and opinion polls suggest that the Unionists’ lead is now all but unassailable.
Politicians are to blame, of course, not artists, with the leaders of the Nationalist campaign, from Alex Salmond down, tying themselves up in increasingly silly knots in the past weeks, mainly over the currency and the fate of the NHS.
If writers and musicians and comedians and actors have done anything at all to influence the referendum, it is those on the No side who have made the greatest impression. The 200 household names who signed a letter recently, urging Scots to keep Britain together, gave Unionists a welcome thumbs up from a cool constituency and made a group like the National Collective look rather B list.
The Fringe still has a couple of weeks to run and the volume from the whole Yes circus may become deafening. The comfort for us Unionists is that they will be shouting largely at themselves.
I was pleased to see that Jenny Hjul offered something of an apology, however graceless, for the nasty little opinion piece which she penned for The Telegraph the other day.
I was also pleased to note that Jenny finally 'outed' herself as none other than the wife of The Telegraph's Scottish editor, Alan Cochrane, which I pointed out a long time ago, so she has 'form' in this area which is what I said on the blog site back in August 2013, as Jenny and Alan performed a kind of 'tag team' attack on Alex Salmond albeit in separate newspapers.
But the real problem facing Jenny, as a journalist at least, is that she seems to think her original attack on David Hayman was funny which it wasn't and I have a really good, if slightly childish, sense of humour.
Now that Alan Cochrane, Jenny's husband, he's a funny chap who can also be serious and argumentative at times, but he can laugh at himself as well and that's what good humour is all about, if you ask me - a sense of the ridiculous as opposed to picking on one person or just one group of people.
Which reminds me, what was that old joke about jumped-up, snidey, Edinburgh Tories and Unionist eggshells?
No pleasing the neighbours on eve of the Scottish vote
By Jenny Hjul - The Telegraph
As the referendum draws near, Nationalists are having a sense of humour failure
If you live in Edinburgh’s New Town, things always go a bit crazy during the Festival. For one thing, you never know who is going to end up living next to you. Most sane families choose to move out for the month to avoid the flyer-wielding drama students and roar of the crowds. But we don’t. We like the annual invasion.
This year, we have some nationalist-leaning actors in the house next door, where they will stay for the duration of the festival, and I decided to write about them on a blog for this newspaper. Perhaps I was foolish to think people would see the funny side when I wrote about my “horror” at living so close to “the enemy”. But, then, I assumed everyone would know I was joking when I mentioned the Union Jack duvet on the washing line, and the flags in the flowerpots.
For a while after the new neighbours moved in, things went well. My eldest daughter went over to babysit for one of the troupe’s children and encountered no hostility (perhaps they didn’t notice her Better Together wristband). When their hot-water pump broke, we offered them our shower. My husband (The Telegraph’s Scottish editor, Alan Cochrane) put out their overflowing bins and even cut their hedge. We all watched them rehearsing in the garden before the previews and thought artistes on one’s doorstep were a good deal more fun than, say, accountants or civil servants (no offence to our regular neighbours).
But this is Scotland on the eve of its independence referendum and, as I wrote in that fateful blog, politics has become deeply personal. Friendships across the divide are strained and so, it seems, are those across the fence.
I detected a certain frisson last week when I received a text from one neighbour saying she was enjoying my blogs and wondered what position my cat took. (I said he liked Salmond, of course.) Then a journalist from a Scottish newspaper asked if I’d like to be interviewed about the blog that has “had the luvvies of the Edinburgh Festival gossiping all week”. Has it really? I consider myself something of an Edinburgh Festival luvvie and no one had mentioned it, or even asked me to reveal the name of the famous actor living next door who was “on a mission to convert the masses” in his show.
But then he outed himself in the Sunday Herald, and he does not sound happy. David Hayman, for it is he, said he was “astounded” by my anger and bile and could not imagine where my hate came from. “I’ve said hello to what seemed to be the perfectly charming couple next door,” he said. “And their daughters have been absolutely lovely, but then all of a sudden this worryingly angry attack appeared online.”
Our daughters are indeed lovely (for teenagers) and we are charming, David – well, one of us is, as you would discover if only you got to know us. But I suppose that’s not likely to happen now.
How is it that so intelligent a thespian can genuinely be so indignant over so little. How easy it is to take umbrage in the fervid atmosphere that pervades Scotland at present. As those who recently declared their support for the No campaign – J K Rowling, Eddie Izzard, David Bowie, Mick Jagger – have also discovered, the nationalists have extremely thin skins.
Some of us have known this for a long time. But, if cybernat activity is anything to go by, their prickliness has risen in inverse proportion to their popularity. Following Alex Salmond’s pitiful performance against Alistair Darling in the first televised debate last week, we unionists are having to walk on eggshells.
Which brings me back to my neighbours. We have two more weeks to go, side by side, and I hope it doesn’t end on this sour note. How, though, to retrieve the situation? I could hang a Saltire out to dry, or put a white flag in the flowerpot…or maybe just give David’s play (The Pitiless Storm, Assembly Rooms) some free publicity.
Here's a rather rude and nasty little comment piece by Jenny Hjul which appeared in The Telegraph the other day, Jenny being the partner/wife of the newspaper's Scottish editor, Alan Cochrane.
Now I like Alan, he's a 'hail and well met' kind of chap, good company and a great laugh, but I've no idea what his better half is on about because I know lots of people with different views on Scottish independence, yet they all seem able to debate the issues, passionately on occasion, while remaining on perfectly good terms.
So where all this nastiness comes from is a mystery to me although if you believed everything the 'No' campaign has to say, you'd come away thinking Scotland couldn't run a whelk stall never mind an international event like the Commonwealth Games.
It's a referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country for goodness sake - not a rerun of the American Civil War.
What to do when Scottish Nationalists move in next door
By Jenny Hjul - The Telegraph
Photo: Getty
When our neighbours told us they were moving out for most of August to make way for an acting troupe we weren’t particularly surprised, or bothered. This is Edinburgh and "festival lets" are commonplace for those whose properties are close enough to the town centre to make them coveted by visiting artistes and impresarios.
We did it ourselves once, but managed only a week. To turn your home into a rentable prospect you have to remove every trace of your family, from bagging up and hiding the clothes to taking the framed photographs off the mantelpiece. It’s far too much effort for too little return and things can go wrong. We came back to find our "guests" – a Radio 1 DJ and his crew – still in residence and there were words. Later, we listened to his version of events on national radio, an episode our teenage daughters have still not forgotten, or forgiven.
Anyway, back to our neighbours. Their tenant is a famous actor appearing in the Fringe, they told us, and for a moment we were excited. Imagine the parties, the glamour, the gossip. Imagine the pressure. No more watering the plants in my dressing gown. No cursing at the kids when the windows are open.
Then they dropped the bombshell: his name. Oh no, not that, my husband and I said in horrible unison, anything but that. But the deal is done and there is no escape. For the next month we will be living next door to a Scottish Nationalist. It gets worse.
His show is about Scottish independence; he is on a mission to convert the masses. He is a vocal supporter of the other side; he is the enemy.
In Scotland, with just seven weeks until the referendum, politics has become deeply personal. We might have friends who are nationalists but they aren’t speaking to us at the moment. There was a time in Edinburgh when political persuasion was rather like religious denomination, a talking point maybe but not all defining and not divisive.
We used to entertain politicians of every leaning, and I can recall election-night gatherings where SNP spin doctors perched on sofas with Tory MSPs and Labour stalwarts. The coming referendum has rendered such cross-party comaraderie inconceivable and it’s hard to see the day when things will return to normal.
The two camps have dug in for the final countdown and what has long been a bitter campaign has entered its last, nasty phase. Civility is reserved for the ‘don’t knows’. We don’t belong to that group, and nor do the new folk over the fence.
So how do we play it? Pretend we are impartial, peel off the Better Together stickers from the eldest’s bedroom window and take the Union flags out of the flower pots (I said this has got serious)?
Or do we go the other way, declare war, refuse to lend them a cup of sugar, put our rubbish in their bin, hang the Union Jack duvet on the washing line and keep it there for four weeks?
I can envisage the actor’s friends, for he surely has many, trooping in and out for soirees on the terrace (do Scottish Nationalists have soirees?). Famous faces and famous Yes sympathisers, herding together in Scotland’s capital to make their desperate assault on audiences before September 18, could headquarter in our street.
There will be politicians among them. Good lord! A horrible thought: there could be the politician himself. Never one to pass up an opportunity for promotion, the Nationalists’ leader would relish an invitation from his luvvie loyalists and may appear in person, just beyond the party wall.
As I sit at my computer I can already hear our regular neighbours taking their leave. By tonight, the actor will be installed and life in these parts may never be the same again. Wish us luck.
I came across these two opinion pieces in recent days - the first is by Alan Cochrane in The Telegraph and the second by Jenny Hjul in The Sunday Times (Scotland).
Now I was struck at first by the fact that two such well known papers were having a 'go' at Alex Salmond - nothing unusual in that, you might think, because the First Minister is fair game and it's always good copy to give him a bit of a bashing.
But then I thought 'hang on a minute' - 'isn't there a close connection between Alan Cochrane and Jenny Hjul?'
Now the last time I saw Alan and Jenny together they were partners - man and wife for all I know now, at that time or now - attending a dinner hosted by the then First Minister, Jack McConnell.
So, isn't it a great coincidence that Alan and Jenny should both come up with a similar line of argument - in separate and independent Scottish newspapers?
First Minister picks a fight that should be beneath him
Alex Salmond has demeaned his office by getting involved in a banal dispute with a local council about his visit to a school before an important by-election
By Alan Cochrane, Scottish Editor - 7 August 2013
Even for someone with Alex Salmond's poor judgment when dealing with critics, his astonishing behaviour in relation to Aberdeen city council really does take the breath away.
He has chosen to take part in a running battle with the Labour/Tory-run council but in a stupid escalation yesterday, the First Minister demeaned his office yet further in a letter that suggests that the strains of political life may be getting too much for him.
The details of this row are banal in the extreme and should certainly not tax someone, like Mr Salmond, who prides himself on being a "big beast" in our national life.
They concern what Mr Salmond did or didn't do during the successful SNP by-election campaign in the city's Donside constituency. He has allowed what he should have regarded as no more than a minor irritant, and something that was well beneath him and better handled by some of his many minions, to provoke him in an extraordinary manner.
What he did was to write a letter to the chief executive of Aberdeen city council in which he sought to defend a visit he made during the by-election campaign to a school that was threatened with closure.
There had been criticism of this visit from Labour councillors, the allegation being that the First Minister's visit was of a purely party political nature and was intended to boost the chances of the SNP candidate in that Scottish Parliament by-election.
That criticism was contained in a letter, written nearly two months ago, by Valerie Watts, the chief executive of the city council.
In his reply, released to the press yesterday, Mr Salmond stretched our credulity to the utmost by saying that his visit was not "pre-planned".
He insisted it had been arranged at the invitation of a member of the school's parent council and that he had been "delighted" to talk to pupils "about their project on democracy". But the First Minister then went on: "The visit was totally private. There was no press, media or party or Government officials and I was accompanied at all times by the class teacher and the parent council member."
And it's this assertion that is causing him trouble because of the simple fact that on the very day of the school visit, the SNP issued a clear and unambiguous invitation to all newspapers and broadcasting organisations to meet Mr Salmond at the school and, significantly to my mind, also telling them that the trip was indeed part of the by-election campaign.
But, challenged about this obvious discrepancy, the Nats compounded their nonsense by saying, in effect, that while Mr Salmond was outside the school gates his visit was public but once he went inside it became private.
They really are asking us to believe this wholly outrageous and unbelievable claim.
But the row wasn't just over that school trip. Labour in Aberdeen had also accused Mr Salmond of trying to influence the by-election result with a £100,000 Scottish Government donation to a memorial to the victims of the Piper Alpha tragedy.
But Mr Salmond said there was no ban on such donations during by-election campaigns and that all his government had done was to acknowledge the 25th anniversary of the disaster with its donation.
This spat led the First Minister to accuse the Labour councillors in the city of behaving in an "extreme manner", adding that they were "in danger of bringing the council into total disrepute".
It is highly likely that most of those witnessing these exchanges will agree that someone is bringing something into "total disrepute".
I'm happy to leave it to you, dear readers, to decide who's the guilty party.
Aberdeen fiasco may herald Salmond's exit
How demeaning this is, not only for the Scottish government but also for Scotland. Just when we’re told we should be contemplating weighty constitutional affairs such as national identity and fiscal responsibility, a mandarin in Whitehall has questions in his in-tray about our first minister’s use of fire escapes.
The nationalists are obviously anxious because they have sent in Nicola Sturgeon, Salmond’s deputy and the minister deployed to calm things down whenever her boss has apparently lost the plot.
Sturgeon met Crockett on Thursday and they discussed the need for the Scottish government and the city council to work together for the good of Aberdeen. But even she cannot keep her reckless leader in order. His judgment has appeared to falter in relation to the nationalists’ fortunes and one wonders whether he has the resilience he was once famed for.
The only SNP big-hitter on the national stage, he has always been his party’s greatest asset (in his opinion at least), afraid of no one as he fought Scotland’s corner. But a series of bad calls — over Europe, his involvement in BBC debates, lobbying on behalf of Rupert Murdoch — are a sign of his desperation as his life’s goal slips from his grasp.
With just over a year until the independence referendum, the separatists remain outnumbered by nearly two to one, according to an Ipsos Mori poll last month, which found 28% in favour of breaking up Britain and 57% against. The Yes campaign has failed to make any progress in converting Scots to its cause, as voters — including many who put the SNP in power in 2011 — no longer trust Salmond to defend their interests.
On top of the poor polls, high-profile departures and rumours of infighting at Yes Scotland’s Glasgow headquarters hint at a campaign in disarray.
Salmond, who until fairly recently had maintained legendary party loyalty, is facing dissent in the ranks, with separatist fundamentalists at odds with him over Nato membership, keeping sterling and the monarchy, and capping welfare benefits. No one would have thought the SNP leader would ever be a liability to his party, but in the wake of the Aberdeen saga that is indeed what he has become, almost an embarrassment in his misreading of the national mood.Scotland will grit its teeth and go through the process of the referendum, but there is a sense that people want to move on, preoccupied as they are with the serious business of earning a living and paying their bills. They can see the future but, for the first time, not Salmond’s place in it.
Have Scottish Nationalists taken over the Edinburgh Fringe?
Photo: Getty Images
By Jenny Hjul - The Telegraph
If the Scottish referendum were a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, the result would be a resounding Yes. As this paper’s reviewer Charlotte Runcie wrote on Friday, the debate from the perspective of indy-themed plays has been distinctly one-sided.
After a fortnight at the festival, Charlotte said: "Everywhere there was confidence that independence was just around the corner … this wasn’t so much a conversation as a call to arms."
She endured, so we don’t have to, performances of Nationalist rants, such as Alan Bissett’s The Pure, The Dead and The Brilliant, which had its Anglo-bashing premiere at the SNP conference in the spring.
Bissett is a leading light in the artists for separatism movement that calls itself the National Collective. This has signed up any vaguely cultural Scot with secessionist sympathies and has been touring Scotland for rousing singalongs with the already converted, before turning its attention to Scotland’s capital.
Ross Colquhoun, the collective’s organiser, said before the summer: "The Fringe is one of the foremost cultural events anywhere on the planet, and it’s only right that we use this as an opportunity to reflect on and engage with Scotland’s independence debate."
Also at the Fringe is All Back to Bowie’s, conceived by the Nationalist playwright David Greig in response to David Bowie’s plea to Scotland to "stay with us".
And then there is Spoiling, made possible by funding from the SNP government and featuring the musings of a post-independence foreign minister.
Much of the pro-Yes offerings are being staged daily at the Assembly Rooms on George Street, or in the Famous Spiegeltent in St Andrew’s Square or in the Stand Comedy Club, all a short stroll from each other and all operated by the seasoned Edinburgh impresario Tommy Sheppard.
Sheppard, an energetic Yes man, made no secret before the festivals started of his ambition to turn a chunk of central Edinburgh into a "boulevard of creativity", with pavement cafés connecting his pedestrianised field of patronage.
Presumably when he went to the city council with his plans for expansion he didn’t spell out that his festival within the festival would be a fairly brazen Nationalist rallying cry – or maybe he did. After all, Edinburgh’s cultural chief is Steve Cardownie, another prominent Nat.
At the other end of George Street, Charlotte Square – home of the Edinburgh International Book Festival – is also accommodating the Nationalist cause, with a heavily politicised agenda and discussions on Scotland’s future chaired by some strikingly partisan players.
Scottish Nationalists have long claimed to have a monopoly on passion, and who better than cultural types to make a last-ditch plea to the electorate’s hearts and souls? In the weeks leading up to the referendum, perhaps they thought people could be persuaded by artistic endeavour, if not by political argument.
But the momentum they hoped to generate and the separatist surge they prayed they’d unleash have not materialised.
Bemused visitors bombarded by the local politics may go home entertained, but the natives do not seem to have been affected. In fact, during the course of the festival there has been a marked swing to the No camp and opinion polls suggest that the Unionists’ lead is now all but unassailable.
Politicians are to blame, of course, not artists, with the leaders of the Nationalist campaign, from Alex Salmond down, tying themselves up in increasingly silly knots in the past weeks, mainly over the currency and the fate of the NHS.
If writers and musicians and comedians and actors have done anything at all to influence the referendum, it is those on the No side who have made the greatest impression. The 200 household names who signed a letter recently, urging Scots to keep Britain together, gave Unionists a welcome thumbs up from a cool constituency and made a group like the National Collective look rather B list.
The Fringe still has a couple of weeks to run and the volume from the whole Yes circus may become deafening. The comfort for us Unionists is that they will be shouting largely at themselves.
Graceless Apology (12 August 20140
I was pleased to see that Jenny Hjul offered something of an apology, however graceless, for the nasty little opinion piece which she penned for The Telegraph the other day.
I was also pleased to note that Jenny finally 'outed' herself as none other than the wife of The Telegraph's Scottish editor, Alan Cochrane, which I pointed out a long time ago, so she has 'form' in this area which is what I said on the blog site back in August 2013, as Jenny and Alan performed a kind of 'tag team' attack on Alex Salmond albeit in separate newspapers.
But the real problem facing Jenny, as a journalist at least, is that she seems to think her original attack on David Hayman was funny which it wasn't and I have a really good, if slightly childish, sense of humour.
Now that Alan Cochrane, Jenny's husband, he's a funny chap who can also be serious and argumentative at times, but he can laugh at himself as well and that's what good humour is all about, if you ask me - a sense of the ridiculous as opposed to picking on one person or just one group of people.
Which reminds me, what was that old joke about jumped-up, snidey, Edinburgh Tories and Unionist eggshells?
No pleasing the neighbours on eve of the Scottish vote
By Jenny Hjul - The Telegraph
As the referendum draws near, Nationalists are having a sense of humour failure
If you live in Edinburgh’s New Town, things always go a bit crazy during the Festival. For one thing, you never know who is going to end up living next to you. Most sane families choose to move out for the month to avoid the flyer-wielding drama students and roar of the crowds. But we don’t. We like the annual invasion.
This year, we have some nationalist-leaning actors in the house next door, where they will stay for the duration of the festival, and I decided to write about them on a blog for this newspaper. Perhaps I was foolish to think people would see the funny side when I wrote about my “horror” at living so close to “the enemy”. But, then, I assumed everyone would know I was joking when I mentioned the Union Jack duvet on the washing line, and the flags in the flowerpots.
For a while after the new neighbours moved in, things went well. My eldest daughter went over to babysit for one of the troupe’s children and encountered no hostility (perhaps they didn’t notice her Better Together wristband). When their hot-water pump broke, we offered them our shower. My husband (The Telegraph’s Scottish editor, Alan Cochrane) put out their overflowing bins and even cut their hedge. We all watched them rehearsing in the garden before the previews and thought artistes on one’s doorstep were a good deal more fun than, say, accountants or civil servants (no offence to our regular neighbours).
But this is Scotland on the eve of its independence referendum and, as I wrote in that fateful blog, politics has become deeply personal. Friendships across the divide are strained and so, it seems, are those across the fence.
I detected a certain frisson last week when I received a text from one neighbour saying she was enjoying my blogs and wondered what position my cat took. (I said he liked Salmond, of course.) Then a journalist from a Scottish newspaper asked if I’d like to be interviewed about the blog that has “had the luvvies of the Edinburgh Festival gossiping all week”. Has it really? I consider myself something of an Edinburgh Festival luvvie and no one had mentioned it, or even asked me to reveal the name of the famous actor living next door who was “on a mission to convert the masses” in his show.
But then he outed himself in the Sunday Herald, and he does not sound happy. David Hayman, for it is he, said he was “astounded” by my anger and bile and could not imagine where my hate came from. “I’ve said hello to what seemed to be the perfectly charming couple next door,” he said. “And their daughters have been absolutely lovely, but then all of a sudden this worryingly angry attack appeared online.”
Our daughters are indeed lovely (for teenagers) and we are charming, David – well, one of us is, as you would discover if only you got to know us. But I suppose that’s not likely to happen now.
How is it that so intelligent a thespian can genuinely be so indignant over so little. How easy it is to take umbrage in the fervid atmosphere that pervades Scotland at present. As those who recently declared their support for the No campaign – J K Rowling, Eddie Izzard, David Bowie, Mick Jagger – have also discovered, the nationalists have extremely thin skins.
Some of us have known this for a long time. But, if cybernat activity is anything to go by, their prickliness has risen in inverse proportion to their popularity. Following Alex Salmond’s pitiful performance against Alistair Darling in the first televised debate last week, we unionists are having to walk on eggshells.
Which brings me back to my neighbours. We have two more weeks to go, side by side, and I hope it doesn’t end on this sour note. How, though, to retrieve the situation? I could hang a Saltire out to dry, or put a white flag in the flowerpot…or maybe just give David’s play (The Pitiless Storm, Assembly Rooms) some free publicity.
Nasty and Rude (3 August 2014)
Here's a rather rude and nasty little comment piece by Jenny Hjul which appeared in The Telegraph the other day, Jenny being the partner/wife of the newspaper's Scottish editor, Alan Cochrane.
Now I like Alan, he's a 'hail and well met' kind of chap, good company and a great laugh, but I've no idea what his better half is on about because I know lots of people with different views on Scottish independence, yet they all seem able to debate the issues, passionately on occasion, while remaining on perfectly good terms.
So where all this nastiness comes from is a mystery to me although if you believed everything the 'No' campaign has to say, you'd come away thinking Scotland couldn't run a whelk stall never mind an international event like the Commonwealth Games.
It's a referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country for goodness sake - not a rerun of the American Civil War.
What to do when Scottish Nationalists move in next door
By Jenny Hjul - The Telegraph
Photo: Getty
When our neighbours told us they were moving out for most of August to make way for an acting troupe we weren’t particularly surprised, or bothered. This is Edinburgh and "festival lets" are commonplace for those whose properties are close enough to the town centre to make them coveted by visiting artistes and impresarios.
We did it ourselves once, but managed only a week. To turn your home into a rentable prospect you have to remove every trace of your family, from bagging up and hiding the clothes to taking the framed photographs off the mantelpiece. It’s far too much effort for too little return and things can go wrong. We came back to find our "guests" – a Radio 1 DJ and his crew – still in residence and there were words. Later, we listened to his version of events on national radio, an episode our teenage daughters have still not forgotten, or forgiven.
Anyway, back to our neighbours. Their tenant is a famous actor appearing in the Fringe, they told us, and for a moment we were excited. Imagine the parties, the glamour, the gossip. Imagine the pressure. No more watering the plants in my dressing gown. No cursing at the kids when the windows are open.
Then they dropped the bombshell: his name. Oh no, not that, my husband and I said in horrible unison, anything but that. But the deal is done and there is no escape. For the next month we will be living next door to a Scottish Nationalist. It gets worse.
His show is about Scottish independence; he is on a mission to convert the masses. He is a vocal supporter of the other side; he is the enemy.
In Scotland, with just seven weeks until the referendum, politics has become deeply personal. We might have friends who are nationalists but they aren’t speaking to us at the moment. There was a time in Edinburgh when political persuasion was rather like religious denomination, a talking point maybe but not all defining and not divisive.
We used to entertain politicians of every leaning, and I can recall election-night gatherings where SNP spin doctors perched on sofas with Tory MSPs and Labour stalwarts. The coming referendum has rendered such cross-party comaraderie inconceivable and it’s hard to see the day when things will return to normal.
The two camps have dug in for the final countdown and what has long been a bitter campaign has entered its last, nasty phase. Civility is reserved for the ‘don’t knows’. We don’t belong to that group, and nor do the new folk over the fence.
So how do we play it? Pretend we are impartial, peel off the Better Together stickers from the eldest’s bedroom window and take the Union flags out of the flower pots (I said this has got serious)?
Or do we go the other way, declare war, refuse to lend them a cup of sugar, put our rubbish in their bin, hang the Union Jack duvet on the washing line and keep it there for four weeks?
I can envisage the actor’s friends, for he surely has many, trooping in and out for soirees on the terrace (do Scottish Nationalists have soirees?). Famous faces and famous Yes sympathisers, herding together in Scotland’s capital to make their desperate assault on audiences before September 18, could headquarter in our street.
There will be politicians among them. Good lord! A horrible thought: there could be the politician himself. Never one to pass up an opportunity for promotion, the Nationalists’ leader would relish an invitation from his luvvie loyalists and may appear in person, just beyond the party wall.
As I sit at my computer I can already hear our regular neighbours taking their leave. By tonight, the actor will be installed and life in these parts may never be the same again. Wish us luck.
Great Double Acts (15 August 2013)
I came across these two opinion pieces in recent days - the first is by Alan Cochrane in The Telegraph and the second by Jenny Hjul in The Sunday Times (Scotland).
Now I was struck at first by the fact that two such well known papers were having a 'go' at Alex Salmond - nothing unusual in that, you might think, because the First Minister is fair game and it's always good copy to give him a bit of a bashing.
But then I thought 'hang on a minute' - 'isn't there a close connection between Alan Cochrane and Jenny Hjul?'
Now the last time I saw Alan and Jenny together they were partners - man and wife for all I know now, at that time or now - attending a dinner hosted by the then First Minister, Jack McConnell.
So, isn't it a great coincidence that Alan and Jenny should both come up with a similar line of argument - in separate and independent Scottish newspapers?
But that's separation and independence for you - an area of great public debate, but completely jam-packed with curiosities and contradictions.
First Minister picks a fight that should be beneath him
Alex Salmond has demeaned his office by getting involved in a banal dispute with a local council about his visit to a school before an important by-election
By Alan Cochrane, Scottish Editor - 7 August 2013
Even for someone with Alex Salmond's poor judgment when dealing with critics, his astonishing behaviour in relation to Aberdeen city council really does take the breath away.
He has chosen to take part in a running battle with the Labour/Tory-run council but in a stupid escalation yesterday, the First Minister demeaned his office yet further in a letter that suggests that the strains of political life may be getting too much for him.
The details of this row are banal in the extreme and should certainly not tax someone, like Mr Salmond, who prides himself on being a "big beast" in our national life.
They concern what Mr Salmond did or didn't do during the successful SNP by-election campaign in the city's Donside constituency. He has allowed what he should have regarded as no more than a minor irritant, and something that was well beneath him and better handled by some of his many minions, to provoke him in an extraordinary manner.
What he did was to write a letter to the chief executive of Aberdeen city council in which he sought to defend a visit he made during the by-election campaign to a school that was threatened with closure.
There had been criticism of this visit from Labour councillors, the allegation being that the First Minister's visit was of a purely party political nature and was intended to boost the chances of the SNP candidate in that Scottish Parliament by-election.
That criticism was contained in a letter, written nearly two months ago, by Valerie Watts, the chief executive of the city council.
In his reply, released to the press yesterday, Mr Salmond stretched our credulity to the utmost by saying that his visit was not "pre-planned".
He insisted it had been arranged at the invitation of a member of the school's parent council and that he had been "delighted" to talk to pupils "about their project on democracy". But the First Minister then went on: "The visit was totally private. There was no press, media or party or Government officials and I was accompanied at all times by the class teacher and the parent council member."
And it's this assertion that is causing him trouble because of the simple fact that on the very day of the school visit, the SNP issued a clear and unambiguous invitation to all newspapers and broadcasting organisations to meet Mr Salmond at the school and, significantly to my mind, also telling them that the trip was indeed part of the by-election campaign.
But, challenged about this obvious discrepancy, the Nats compounded their nonsense by saying, in effect, that while Mr Salmond was outside the school gates his visit was public but once he went inside it became private.
They really are asking us to believe this wholly outrageous and unbelievable claim.
But the row wasn't just over that school trip. Labour in Aberdeen had also accused Mr Salmond of trying to influence the by-election result with a £100,000 Scottish Government donation to a memorial to the victims of the Piper Alpha tragedy.
But Mr Salmond said there was no ban on such donations during by-election campaigns and that all his government had done was to acknowledge the 25th anniversary of the disaster with its donation.
This spat led the First Minister to accuse the Labour councillors in the city of behaving in an "extreme manner", adding that they were "in danger of bringing the council into total disrepute".
It is highly likely that most of those witnessing these exchanges will agree that someone is bringing something into "total disrepute".
I'm happy to leave it to you, dear readers, to decide who's the guilty party.
Aberdeen fiasco may herald Salmond's exit
By Jenny Hjul Published: 11 August 2013
Aberdeen has, until the past week, been in the news for all the right reasons. It may be Scotland’s third-largest city, but in terms of prosperity it is at the top. With the highest average earnings in the UK outside London and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, it is a boom town.
Investment in the oil and gas industry has helped create a job density of 1.2 full-time posts for every person of working age living in the city, which has led to a growth in population, with the knock-on effect of opportunities in other sectors such as housing and the NHS.
It is not surprising that Aberdeen was recently voted one of Britain’s happiest cities — and not surprising either that it is coveted by politicians.
Aberdeen city council was one of the SNP’s main targets, after Glasgow, in last year’s local elections and one of its greatest disappointments when it went to a Labour-led coalition. But that alone does not explain the animosity shown by Alex Salmond to the city fathers, and nor does it excuse his antics this summer, which even his supporters must find bizarre.
The trouble started in June when Scotland’s first minister dropped in on a local school during the Holyrood by-election campaign for the safe SNP seat of Aberdeen Donside. Since the Dunblane massacre of 1996, access to school premises is tightly regulated, yet Salmond, who believes rules are for other people, is said to have snuck into Bramble Brae, without the head’s consent, through a fire exit. An investigation was ordered and the council’s chief executive wrote to the first minister raising concerns.
At this point, his aides might have advised him to take a conciliatory tone, considering that he looks to be in the wrong. But Salmond does not take advice; not from his political appointees and not from his civil servants.
He said his visit was private and unplanned, but it quickly came to light that the press had been invited, so Salmond now faces accusations of lying. To compound things, he rounded on the official who wrote the letter.
“No other council behaves in the extreme manner of Aberdeen city council over a range of issues,” he complained.
“I would suggest that the majority group are now in danger of bringing the council into total disrepute.”
The intemperate language and combative stance are worrying enough, but most incredible is that the first minister decided to pick a fight at all with the local authority, instead of leaving it to his own SNP councillors, and over a by-election that his party eventually won, albeit with a much reduced vote.
Barney Crockett, the Labour leader of Aberdeen, described Salmond as “wild” and “out of control”, “smearing” and attacking those who disagree with him.
“We know he will bully anyone, whether it’s the BBC, journalists, newspapers, foreign politicians and now local councillors if they dare to speak out against him.”
There is something about this spat, petty though it is, that should ring loud alarm bells within the nationalist camp. It’s not just the rearranging of the facts to suit Salmond’s version of events, or the wriggling of his spin doctors to get him off the hook. It is the exposure of the way he operates, with disdain for the democratic process and disregard for the checks and balances of his office.
No one doubted that the permanent secretary to the Scottish government, Sir Peter Housden, would clear Salmond of any wrongdoing in Aberdeen. Sir Peter is said to be cowed by the first minister and incapable of holding him to account. Imagine if Scotland were independent; that would be the end of the matter and our political leader would have proved himself to be beyond his critics’ reach.
But we still have higher authorities and one of them, Sir Robert Kerslake, the head of the civil service, has now been dragged in, asked by Crockett to investigate Salmond’s alleged breach of security at Bramble Brae primary.
Investment in the oil and gas industry has helped create a job density of 1.2 full-time posts for every person of working age living in the city, which has led to a growth in population, with the knock-on effect of opportunities in other sectors such as housing and the NHS.
It is not surprising that Aberdeen was recently voted one of Britain’s happiest cities — and not surprising either that it is coveted by politicians.
Aberdeen city council was one of the SNP’s main targets, after Glasgow, in last year’s local elections and one of its greatest disappointments when it went to a Labour-led coalition. But that alone does not explain the animosity shown by Alex Salmond to the city fathers, and nor does it excuse his antics this summer, which even his supporters must find bizarre.
The trouble started in June when Scotland’s first minister dropped in on a local school during the Holyrood by-election campaign for the safe SNP seat of Aberdeen Donside. Since the Dunblane massacre of 1996, access to school premises is tightly regulated, yet Salmond, who believes rules are for other people, is said to have snuck into Bramble Brae, without the head’s consent, through a fire exit. An investigation was ordered and the council’s chief executive wrote to the first minister raising concerns.
At this point, his aides might have advised him to take a conciliatory tone, considering that he looks to be in the wrong. But Salmond does not take advice; not from his political appointees and not from his civil servants.
He said his visit was private and unplanned, but it quickly came to light that the press had been invited, so Salmond now faces accusations of lying. To compound things, he rounded on the official who wrote the letter.
“No other council behaves in the extreme manner of Aberdeen city council over a range of issues,” he complained.
“I would suggest that the majority group are now in danger of bringing the council into total disrepute.”
The intemperate language and combative stance are worrying enough, but most incredible is that the first minister decided to pick a fight at all with the local authority, instead of leaving it to his own SNP councillors, and over a by-election that his party eventually won, albeit with a much reduced vote.
Barney Crockett, the Labour leader of Aberdeen, described Salmond as “wild” and “out of control”, “smearing” and attacking those who disagree with him.
“We know he will bully anyone, whether it’s the BBC, journalists, newspapers, foreign politicians and now local councillors if they dare to speak out against him.”
There is something about this spat, petty though it is, that should ring loud alarm bells within the nationalist camp. It’s not just the rearranging of the facts to suit Salmond’s version of events, or the wriggling of his spin doctors to get him off the hook. It is the exposure of the way he operates, with disdain for the democratic process and disregard for the checks and balances of his office.
No one doubted that the permanent secretary to the Scottish government, Sir Peter Housden, would clear Salmond of any wrongdoing in Aberdeen. Sir Peter is said to be cowed by the first minister and incapable of holding him to account. Imagine if Scotland were independent; that would be the end of the matter and our political leader would have proved himself to be beyond his critics’ reach.
But we still have higher authorities and one of them, Sir Robert Kerslake, the head of the civil service, has now been dragged in, asked by Crockett to investigate Salmond’s alleged breach of security at Bramble Brae primary.
How demeaning this is, not only for the Scottish government but also for Scotland. Just when we’re told we should be contemplating weighty constitutional affairs such as national identity and fiscal responsibility, a mandarin in Whitehall has questions in his in-tray about our first minister’s use of fire escapes.
The nationalists are obviously anxious because they have sent in Nicola Sturgeon, Salmond’s deputy and the minister deployed to calm things down whenever her boss has apparently lost the plot.
Sturgeon met Crockett on Thursday and they discussed the need for the Scottish government and the city council to work together for the good of Aberdeen. But even she cannot keep her reckless leader in order. His judgment has appeared to falter in relation to the nationalists’ fortunes and one wonders whether he has the resilience he was once famed for.
The only SNP big-hitter on the national stage, he has always been his party’s greatest asset (in his opinion at least), afraid of no one as he fought Scotland’s corner. But a series of bad calls — over Europe, his involvement in BBC debates, lobbying on behalf of Rupert Murdoch — are a sign of his desperation as his life’s goal slips from his grasp.
With just over a year until the independence referendum, the separatists remain outnumbered by nearly two to one, according to an Ipsos Mori poll last month, which found 28% in favour of breaking up Britain and 57% against. The Yes campaign has failed to make any progress in converting Scots to its cause, as voters — including many who put the SNP in power in 2011 — no longer trust Salmond to defend their interests.
On top of the poor polls, high-profile departures and rumours of infighting at Yes Scotland’s Glasgow headquarters hint at a campaign in disarray.
Salmond, who until fairly recently had maintained legendary party loyalty, is facing dissent in the ranks, with separatist fundamentalists at odds with him over Nato membership, keeping sterling and the monarchy, and capping welfare benefits. No one would have thought the SNP leader would ever be a liability to his party, but in the wake of the Aberdeen saga that is indeed what he has become, almost an embarrassment in his misreading of the national mood.Scotland will grit its teeth and go through the process of the referendum, but there is a sense that people want to move on, preoccupied as they are with the serious business of earning a living and paying their bills. They can see the future but, for the first time, not Salmond’s place in it.
