SNP celebrity cheerleaders are living in fantasy land

Brian Cox thinks he knows more about Scotland since he doesn’t live there. Spare us from this arrogant drivel

How is it that, when he turns his attention to politics, my favourite actor talks so much drivel? He couldn’t be anything other than my favourite; after all, Brian Cox and I have a great deal in common: we’re both from Dundee – me from a council house in the east end of the city, him from a just as down-at-heel bit of the west end. We’re roughly the same age, although to my certain knowledge we’ve never met.

With a host of awards to his name, not forgetting a CBE, and having played Winston Churchill, King Lear and Hannibal Lecter, to name but three, he is right up there with the rest of the A-list acting fraternity.

But when he lays into his countrymen for failing to agree with him over Scottish independence, he spouts the purest brand of arrogant drivel imaginable.

Furthermore, in an oh-so cosy interview session with Nicola Sturgeon this week, Mr Cox let us into the secret of why he knows so much better than other Scots when it comes to the future of his native land. It’s because he doesn’t live there.

He agreed with Ms Sturgeon that he has managed to get a much clearer picture of Scotland from either of his homes in New York or London than he would get from living in the country.

Really? Did Mr Cox not notice the mountains of rubbish piled up in Edinburgh’s ancient streets thanks to a strike of binmen, which unions and opposition politicians both say was Ms Sturgeon’s fault.

She has spent the past couple of weeks being driven past these public middens in her official limousine to burble away at talk show after talk show.

The Cox one this week was her fifth such “gig”. And I’d bet that she thought she was every bit as great a star as the bloke she was interviewing.

Like most Dundonians, I’ve followed Mr Cox’s progress on stage, film and television with something approaching awe – the latest being that I’m completely hooked on his fabulously menacing portrayal of Logan Roy in Succession.

But his professed expertise on Scotland is nonsense – and of a piece with the views of that other massive star, the late Sir Sean Connery, who was easily the best known supporter of Scottish independence, and who was a regular donor to the SNP. However, while he didn’t live in Scotland, he did set up a very well endowed educational trust.

In Mr Cox’s case, his words suggest that he reckons Scots are little short of cowards for failing to support independence. But his supposed intimate knowledge of life in Scotland – because he doesn’t live there – appears to have let him down in several areas.

He not only chose to ignore the rubbish that has piled up in the streets, he also doesn’t pay the increased taxes that Ms Sturgeon imposes on even the moderately better-off. His children weren’t educated in Scotland, so he presumably won’t know that Ms Sturgeon has consistently failed to honour her pledge to close the attainment gap between rich and poor kids. Nor that NHS waiting lists continue to grow on her watch.

Or that Scotland’s island communities are suffering from a lack of decent ferries. But then you’d have to live in Scotland to know any of those things.

Just as you’d need to be aware that most Scots are not in favour of independence, while Mr Cox insists that the country is ripe for it now. So why doesn’t it happen? Ah, says Mr Cox, that’s because the voters are conditioned, before adding – with Ms Sturgeon vigorously nodding her head in agreement – that he thought Scotland was currently “ripe” for independence.

“I just wish the people of Scotland would have a bit more confidence,” he said.

Could it not be that, with a deficit amounting to some £24billion, which would have to be filled with punitive tax rises and draconian spending cuts after independence, most Scots already have a fair bit of confidence about staying within the UK.

“My country has to be free…” Mr Cox declares while promising that he will return and live in Scotland one day. Free from what, pray? Freedom from movie stars who try to tell us what we should want would be a start.