Sir Alex refused to be face of No bid over backlash fear
SIR Alex Ferguson turned down an offer to be the public face of the No campaign in the Scottish independence referendum because he feared being targeted for abuse.
Tony Blair’s former spin chief Alastair Campbell has disclosed that he approached Sir Alex about helping out ahead of the September 2014 vote.
Mr Campbell was part of the Better Together campaign and said then Prime Minister David Cameron had been ‘badgering’ him to get former Manchester United and Aberdeen boss Sir Alex on board.
Mr Campbell writes in his diaries that the 79-year-old worried about a backlash after seeing the abuse towards Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who had donated £1million. The former Downing Street press secretary wrote: ‘No 10 and others had been badgering me for ages about getting Alex Ferguson involved.
‘I had really tried. He has seemed so chilly of late, though he had still been taking my calls, talking away, but definitely not as warm. He had been saying how desperate he was for No to win but when I said he could do something to help, he pulled back.
‘He said he didn’t want to get involved because the people putting their heads above the parapet were getting shot at.
‘He saw the abuse JK Rowling and others had been getting, and he was not up for it. It was lose-lose. Unsure that an intervention would help, but sure that he would get dog’s abuse.’
Mr Campbell said the Glaswegian’s dislike of Mr Cameron may also have played a part. And he said his partner Fiona Millar persuaded him to leave the ex-Scotland boss alone.
In extracts in The Courier, he said: ‘He could not stand Cameron. In fact that might be the other thing holding him back. He had a couple of times asked me why I was helping Cameron. I said I wasn’t; I was helping the campaign to stop Salmond breaking up the UK.
‘Not up for it. It was lose-lose’
When I discussed it with Fiona, she said just leave it, stop pushing him so hard.’
Mr Campbell also asked Celtic hero Neil Lennon but he said he ‘got enough s*** in Glasgow without adding to it’.
Sir Alex, a confirmed supporter of the Union was ineligible to vote in the referendum as he no longer lives here.
But he said: ‘Eight hundred thousand Scots, like me, live and work in other parts of the United Kingdom.
‘We don’t live in a foreign country; we’re just in another part of the family of the UK. Scots living outside Scotland but in the UK might not get a vote in the referendum, but we have a voice and we care deeply about our country.’