Let it go? Not likely as Alex returns again and again to old slights
SITTING in Glasgow’s Central Station yesterday morning, awaiting the train that would take me to the SNP’s campaign conference, I was distracted by a little girl, breaking into song.
‘Let it go, let it go,’ she sang. ‘Can’t hold it back any more. Let it go, let it go. Turn away and slam the door.’
Then, because lyrics are hard to learn when you’re wee, she returned to the main refrain of the song from Disney’s Frozen.
The train arrived and she and her family boarded beside me. All the way to the exhibition centre on the banks of the River Clyde she repeated ‘Let it go, Let it go, la la la la, Let it go. Let it go, Let it go, la la la la. Let it go…’
Fortunately, we had to travel only a few minutes before disembarking and her performance remained charming, rather than becoming infuriating.
When we got off, we went our separate ways: she and her family to the Disney on Ice show at the Hydro and I to the SECC, where former First Minister Alex Salmond was punting his referendum memoirs, The Dream Shall Never Die, in which he describes, in unintentionally comical detail, the many and varied ways in which he is brilliant and anyone who disagrees with him is an imbecile.
A small set had been built to the side of the main stage. Here, Mike Russell MSP would briefly interview Mr Salmond before questions from the audience.
But the crowd – which gave the former leader a minute-long standing ovation before he had uttered a single word – was having none of that.
‘Get on the stage!’ came a shout as the applause died down and Mr Salmond happily obliged.
The way he walked those few yards was so deeply impressive to the gathered faithful that the thunderous applause r eturned. In f act, so enthused were delegates by the presence of the great man that his every move was cheered and clapped.
WHEN Mr Russell announced that The Dream Shall Never Die had r eached number one on the bestseller list, the roof of the exhibition centre damned near tore off and ended up in the river.
Mr Russell revealed that he had read the book on Saturday and enjoyed it very much. This bombshell was, of course, greeted with shrieks of hysterical joy.
Mr Salmond asked: ‘How long did it take you to read?’ His old chum replied: ‘Three hours.’
‘Slow reader,’ quipped the former First Minister. ‘It took a little less time to read than it took you to write,’ replied Mr Russell, none of whose books has ever troubled the bestseller
lists. Banter over, Mr Salmond was able to move on to the real meat of his message to the 2,000-strong audience, which was that both the BBC and the Treasury were irredeemably awful.
The ‘metropolitan media’ had been determined to be players in the referendum campaign and Mr Salmond was surprised at the extent to which the BBC had allowed itself to be influenced by the biased Press.
Attacks by a hostile media, however, should be worn as a ‘tartan badge of pride’ because they showed that the newspapers are frightened of the SNP’s success.
A young party member told Mr Salmond that he had cancelled his television licence but, apart from this act of rebellion, he asked what could the SNP do about the terrible BBC?
The experience of the referendum had, said Mr Salmond, ‘scarred’ the Beeb and the only way that the problem of its bias would be properly addressed would be for broadcasting standards to come under the remit of the Scottish parliament which, given the SNP’s majority, might suggest the party’s ex-leader simply favours a different flavour of ‘bias’.
But if the BBC was worthy of contempt, it had nothing on Her Majes- ty’s Treasury, which had shockingly breached Civil Service rules on impartiality throughout the referendum campaign.
Permanent Secretary to the Treasury Sir Nicholas Macpherson is the villain of Mr Salmond’s book and so he was yesterday.
IN particular, the extent of the ‘perfidity’ (I assume he meant perfidy) of the Treasury under Sir Nicholas has been shocking to our great champion of fair play and decency (and anyone who suggests otherwise is bluffing).
Sir Nicholas had headed a Civil Service department out of control, said Mr Salmond, and the members present loudly agreed.
The rest of us? Perhaps the relentless whining about the BBC and the Treasury is getting a little tired. Mr Salmond might insist that these twin institutions conspired to defeat his dream of breaking up the UK – and SNP members might happily encourage him in this belief – but surely, some six months after Scotland voted to remain part of the UK, it’s time for him to let it go?