Dear Royal Baby George,
I first saw your crumpled little face on the large public TV screen in Festival Square as I cycled home on Tuesday evening through the centre of Edinburgh. Others had stopped to stare. And, of course, our hearts went out to you, simply as a new human being. But, unfortunately for you, you are also a “celebrity”, famous for being famous, whether you like it or not.
In Scotland the celebrations of your birth have been a little more restrained than in London. In this part of your united kingdoms, there were no jolly crowds, cannon-gun salutes, or church bells
St Andrews where William met Kate
tolling; but the baker in St Andrews made special cakes and biscuits. Politicians and church leaders and the media sang in praise of the event. And the republicans kept quiet.
Actually, be assured there are not that many republicans in Scotland, around a quarter of those responding to opinion polls, compared with a fifth across the whole of Britain. But even republicans have to recognise the power of celebrity and our need to have virtual role models though which we can see our own lives writ large. There is a curious balancing act here, between democracy – which has us all equal – and the need for some of us, for whatever reason, to be outstanding.
One of the cruel aspects of the monarchy is that children like you have to grow up in the public gaze. You will be rich and pampered but your every move will be watched and criticised. That screen appearance in Festival Square is just the beginning. You also have to fit into that chain of history which stretches back to Saxon times and includes so many bad monarchs, as well as the occasional good one, usually called Elizabeth.
In your little face, as in my own grandchild’s, I see history turning into the future and, as Burns said to his mouse- “forward though I canna see, I guess and fear.” By the time you become king, what will our weather be like? You were born on the hottest day of this year, with temperatures reaching 32 degrees. And the rest of the week has seen your kingdoms deluged by sudden thunder storms.
How many people will there be living on this planet when you are king? Will the Middle East still be a powder-keg? Will the scientists have found cures for cancer or diabetes or tamed the power of nuclear fusion? Will the oil and the shale oil have run out? Will Scotland be an independent country, with you still, of course, our king?
This week, there’s been a lot of talk how much oil there is left in the North Sea.
Alex Salmond MSP
First Minister
Alex Salmond, our first minister, was in Aberdeen saying we are less than half way through our oil bonanza. There is still £1.5 trillian pounds worth of tax revenue lying beneath the sea, according to the Scottish government. This is more than 25 times the Westminster government’s estimate of £56 billion. A sign that Mr Salmond was a little cautious about his estimate came when he was reluctant to say when an independent Scotland would start putting some of that bonanza into a long-term oil fund, as Norway has done, rather than use it to plug the public spending gap.
From Aberdeen, Mr Salmond went on to chair a cabinet meeting in Shetland where ministers heard demands from the islanders for more “home rule”. They don’t quite want independence but they want more share of the oil money and more freedom to live their Nordic way of life. I noticed a photograph in the papers of the first minister trying his hand at Fair Isle knitting and getting into a bit of a tangle. Politics is not an easy profession.
We have a new prince of the church in this week of your birth. While the Pope has been on his tour of Brazil, he’s found time to appoint Monsignor Leo Cushley as the new Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. You don’t want to know what happened to the last one.
Mgr Leo Cushley
The new Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh
The new man comes with an impressive CV. He was born in Airdrie and served as a priest in Motherwell for nearly 30 years before joining the Vatican’s diplomatic service. Since then he’s toured the world becoming fluent in four or five languages. He now faces much wickedness at home.
We had an extreme example this week. Two drug gangsters were jailed for 30 years for a dreadful fire attack on a family in Helensburgh. Their victim, who’d annoyed them in some way, died in the fire but his two children, aged 21 and 8, also perished. His wife was seriously burned. The police took a long time to track down the killers because people were frightened to come forward with information for fear they would be the pair’s next target. Evil breeds terror.
But your northern kingdom has also had cause for celebration, and not just of your birth. Edinburgh Zoo is 100 years old this year. Its thousand animals have been jumping up and down on the deck of this Noah’s Ark – the famous pandas, the school of penguins, the painted hunting dogs, the blue-crowned laughing thrust and the royal python. And their happy faces have been asking us difficult questions, like you birth does, about the long term future of our planet.