We are a nation in mourning for the three Scottish soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan. Corporal William Savage, Private Robert Hetherington and Fusilier Samuel Flint, all serving with the Royal Regiment of Scotland, were travelling in a heavily armoured car when it was blown up by a roadside bomb. Six other soldiers were injured. It’s the worse loss of life in a single attack suffered by a Scottish regiment since the beginning of the campaign in Afghanistan in 2001. It brings the total British military losses to 444.
The three soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Tributes were paid to the soldiers by their regiment and by the leaders of all political parties at question time in the Scottish Parliament. The first minister Alex Salmond said: “In this chamber, different views are, rightly, often expressed on the wisdom of military interventions in a variety of places in the world but there is not, and never has been, any division whatever, in any party in this parliament, about the respect in which we hold our armed forces for the sacrifice they make.”
Personally, I don’t think these men died in vain. They were fighting to free the ordinary people of Afghanistan from the terror and medieval cruelty of the Taleban. And they died in the brave attempt to hand over that fight to a well-prepared Afghan army next year.
Against the background of these bloody struggles our political battles here in Scotland seem like parlour games. And as if to illustrate the point, first minister’s question time soon tuned into the same old row from last week about the currency in an independent Scotland.
Wind Turbine
Outside in the fresh spring air, though, the environmental group the John Muir Trust was welcoming the Scottish government’s new planning guidelines which forbid wind farms being built on “wild land.” These are areas, amounting to 20 per cent of the country, which are designated “wild” on a map drawn up Scottish Natural Heritage. On a further 10 per cent of the countryside, wind farms will only be allowed if they are suitably scaled down and well hidden.
Anti-wind farm groups are less certain all this is a good thing. They fear that the other 70 per cent of the country will be even more crowded with turbines. And they want to government to end its “obsession” with wind power.
There were further signs of our changing economy this week with a task force being set up to find new jobs for the 600 workers in our largest coal mining company Scottish Coal which has gone into administration. Its open cast operations in Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and Fife have been undercut by cheaper coal from abroad. But at the other end of the country, in Inverness, the French IT company Capgemini announced it is to double its workforce in the Highlands and create 500 skilled jobs.
V&A Dundee
There are signs too of our changing culture with a magnificent new Sikh temple opening on the banks of the Clyde in Glasgow. And Aberdeen and Dundee have been revealing their bids to be the UK city of culture in 2017. Dundee is parading its waterfront developments and its cultural stars – Brian Cox, Sheena Wellington and Lorraine Kelly. Aberdeen’s bid meanwhile is supported by an unlikely Aberdeenshire laird and two Aberdeenshire ladies, namely Billy Connolly, Dame Evelyn Glennie and Emeli Sande. Ms Sande has now had an album in the Top 10 for longer than the Beatles. Nae bad for a lass frae Alford.
The First of May brought out the usual crowd of Beltane revellers on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. But there were no proper May Day demonstrations here in Scotland against austerity or world capitalism or even council cuts. No longer does Red Clydeside rival the revolutionary cities of London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Athens, Moscow, Istanbul and Dhaka. We barely marked the arrival of spring, perhaps because it has remained so cold.
Finally, the Scottish government is asking us to vote – no, not on independence, but on a name for the new Forth bridge. It has selected five options from over 7,500 suggestions sent in by helpful citizens. The five choices are pretty unexceptionable, except that most of them involve the word “crossing”, thus favouring the first option Caledonia Bridge, which of course this newspaper is likely to favour. The other options are : Firth of Forth Crossing, Queensferry Crossing, Saltire Crossing and St Margaret’s Crossing. Names which did not make the final list include: Haggis Highway, Bagpipe Bridge, Water Way to Go and the Rab C Nes-bridge. Vote early and vote often.