By Diane Maclean
Aides of the First Minister were last night distancing themselves from a leaked document that appears to be notes for today’s First Minister’s Questions. The chicken korma-stained briefing paper was found on the 44 bus earlier this week. The Caledonian Mercury would like to thank the anonymous, public-minded passenger who put it through our letter box along with a quantity of doner meat. Making no claims to authenticity, we reproduce the text here in full.
“Esteemed colleagues … and members of other political parties, it falls to me today to address some of the incorrect, misguided and frankly pure stupit issues that have been raised recently by Messrs Gove, Osborne and Cameron. I say to them, firstly, that they might threaten all they want, but we can still rise now and be a nation again.
And I tell them further that when we have our referendum on the anniversary of Bannockburn, we, the People of Scotland, will not be indulging in cod patriotism and over-reliance on our historic achievement to appeal to jingoistic nationalism. No, I say instead to them that it is with our eyes firmly in the 21st century that I stand here today in defiance of tyranny to tell you that you may take our lives but you will never take our freedom.
Mr Gove baits us to explain our “plans … for the currency of Scotland” and whether we “want to have the pound, the euro or an alternative currency?” It must surely strike us as ironic that the Secretary of State for Education has such a slippery grip on his history that he appears to have forgotten William Paterson. Before he threatens to snatch our pound away, he should remember, as we the Scottish People do, that it was Paterson, a Dumfriesshire lad, who founded the Bank of England in 1694 and can truly therefore be said to have begun modern banking.
May I also inform the Secretary of State for Uneducation that Paterson is not the only Scot responsible for the formation of monetary policies and remind him of a speech he made in June this year, where he said, and I quote: “The truth, as I suspect everyone in this room knows, is that history is driven, above all, by mathematics and the power it gives us to understand, predict and control the world.” And that in this same speech, whilst asking for approval for his Education policies he said of them: “I’m sure Adam Smith would approve.”
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Adam Smith, the father of Economics, a Scot who did more to dictate the way the world is run financially than anyone before or since.
So, to Mr Gove I say firmly, the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is just a visitor in your country and come the revolution (this word has been struck out and replaced by Independence) we shall have her back and her pounds Sterling with her.
The Tories have also asked us what we the People of Scotland will do about the British Broadcasting Company. My response to this it that the British Broadcasting Company is there because of two Scots. John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer who invented the television, and John Reith, the man who really could be said to have made the BBC. And don’t forget John Grierson, the father of documentaries, without whom we wouldn’t have My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding or The Only Way is Essex.
I move now to David Cameron and some of the nonsense he has spouted lately. What, he asks, of the British Army, the British Navy. To him I have three words. John. Paul. Jones. A boy from Kirkcudbright, who birthed the United States Navy around 1775. I remind him too of Sir Colin Campbell, who, along with the Southern Highlanders, routed the Russians with their “Thin Red Line” at the Battle of Balaclava and not forgetting David Stirling, founder of the SAS. I don’t believe the People of Scotland ought to worry about the defence of their Realm just yet.
And so finally to the pandas. Whither Tian Tian and Yang Guang should the Nations split, cry the boys from Westminster, for surely they are responsible for bringing them here, they demand. Again, I respond by cautioning them to look to our glorious past, to the 17th century and the setting up by Royal Charter of the Royal Society of London – possibly the oldest establishment in the world for the promotion of travel and learning and without which China would never have been discovered (there is an annotation suggesting this be fact checked). It was, my fellow Scots, set up by Charles II, a Stewart King, whose blood was pumped by a Scottish heart.
To end, I say again that it is not to the past that I look to build our modern Scottish future. The southerners can threaten all they like to take away our pandas and our money, but we, the People of Scotland, are united, and will never be divided.
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