Luvvie’s snide and prejudice
IN A tartan suit lacking only a volume control, Alan Cumming was at the Scottish Baftas explaining how he crafted his cameo as James VI in Doctor Who.
It was a masterclass in snide as channelling his ‘loathing’ for two Tories was key. ‘I decided to do his voice like Malcolm Rifkind and Michael Forsyth. They’re from Scotland but trying to pretend they’re from England with this strange hybrid accent.’ Being vehemently opposed to the politics of the former Secretaries of State for Scotland I can respect. Hating a man for his accent? Dangerous territory indeed, far removed from the ‘civic nationalism’ so many in the Yes movement affect. This ‘othering’, an assumed superiority based on ethnic or political lines, is a hallmark of the divisive Yes grouping.
In similar vein, did you catch the sickening exchange between Maree Todd, SNP Childcare and Early Years Minister, and Kate Higgins, special adviser to Nicola Sturgeon? The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum chose ‘boak’ as the Scots word of the week and Miss Higgins showed her mastery of the dialect (it’s not a language) by tweeting: ‘Tories give me the boak.’
Miss Todd, taxpayer-funded salary £91,407, tribalistically agreed the Tories made her vomit too.
Miss Higgins’ salary is – bafflingly, given we pay it – a state secret but falls between £39,445 and £104,462.
Meanwhile, the star-struck First Minister was posing for selfies with Cumming and calling him ‘one of Scotland’s greatest exports’.
He’s a US-based ham actor whose political nous extends to buying an Edinburgh flat in a failed bid to vote in the 2014 referendum and who has now revealed these abhorrent views.
If Miss Sturgeon is truly wedded to the civic nationalism she espouses, perhaps she ought to watch the company she keeps. I’LL tell you what I want, what I really, really want… the music industry to invest in fresh new talent and stop reheating nostalgia pap-pop acts such as the Spice Girls. Take Greta Van Fleet, an American four-piece I’m hoping to catch in Glasgow in March. Their music may be vintage-tinged rock, but their average age is barely 20.