Scottish Daily Mail

Protesters didn’t knock him off his stride...he’s seen worse

- HENRY DEEDES

NO red carpet for Boris Johnson in Orkney. Not even welcoming waves nor friendly hurrahs. His greeting in fact, as his Presidenti­al-style motorcade zoomed through the southweste­rn town of Stromness, was as chilly as the sea breeze and twice as salty.

Placard wavers waited on every corner: Stop Brexit. Save the NHS. Time for another Referendum. There’s a village here called Twatt, so you can just imagine the fun some of them had with that.

Such wonderfull­y furtive imaginatio­ns these islanders have.

Boris had ventured to Scotland partly to announce a £100million cash boost for Orkney. Lots of talk about making the place a key part of his green industrial revolution ‘Build, build, build’ was the slogan for the day.

Primarily, though, he’d come to talk up the Union, enthusiasm for which has been flagging in some quarters during the Covid-19 crisis. Not least as Nicola Sturgeon is deemed to have had a good war by her supporters.

She accused Boris yesterday of using the coronaviru­s as some sort of ‘campaignin­g tool’. Not the most welcoming of hosts toward visiting dignitarie­s, Nicola. When they visit Bute House she probably makes them remove their shoes at the door.

AS for Boris, he was tidy at least. Green gumboots. A rather smart quilted coat which fitted, surprising­ly. Carrie had obviously been shopping.

He stopped briefly to chat with reporters. ‘I’m thrilled to be here in Orkney!’ he snorted. Phew. If he’d said Shetland by accident he probably wouldn’t have got off the island.

Mind you, ‘thrilled’ might have been pushing it. For all the PM’s bounciness he clearly would have preferred to be back in the Downing Street garden with his red boxes and a bottle of vino collapso.

He got in one of his alliterati­ve soundbites, claiming ‘We’re going to build back better together,’ before bigging up the island’s potential economic wallop. ‘Here in Orkney they’re streets ahead on hydrogen technology, on wind technology,’ he enthused. ‘This place can supply around 25 per cent of the UK’s energy needs.’

It’s a bit unnerving when Boris starts going into detail like this. Unnatural even. He was clearly reeling details off from a memo that he’d read on the flight up from London. Or perhaps he had just memorised a passage from Orkney’s Lonely Planet guide.

The protesters didn’t seem to have

knocked him off his stride but then Boris has endured far worse.

During his first unsuccessf­ul stint in Parliament, the then Tory leader Michael Howard sent him on an apologetic tour of Liverpool after he’d approved an article in The Spectator (which he edited) which had passed some unsavoury judgments about the city.

If you can survive a walk of shame around Merseyside, Orkney is probably a cinch.

Talk turned to the Union. It was a ‘fantastica­lly strong institutio­n,’ he said. ‘It’s helped our country through thick and thin.

‘It has been very, very valuable in terms of the support we’ve been able to give all corners of the UK.’

Later we caught a glimpse of the PM on a fishing boat in Copland dock. This is the obligatory Bojo photoshoot. The PM’s team reckon it doesn’t matter what he says out on the road, get a snap of him in a high-vis jacket and hard hat and that’s all anyone will be interested in.

He bumped elbows with a few fishermen before holding aloft a couple of large brown crabs. Vicious looking things they were, with terrifying claws and deep, hollow eyes.

Reminded me a bit of Dominic Cummings. Suspect the crab’s a bit friendlier.

 ??  ?? Big nipper: Boris Johnson gets to grips with a crab at Stromness Harbour, right. Left: The PM visits Orkney Cheese in Kirkwall
Big nipper: Boris Johnson gets to grips with a crab at Stromness Harbour, right. Left: The PM visits Orkney Cheese in Kirkwall
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