When I was 11 years old, Pope John Paul II visited Glasgow. I remember it being a big deal at the time, and massive crowds came to hear him preach, but the thing that sticks in my mind was the question people were asking: will he kiss the ground when he gets off the plane?
Kissing sovereign ground
This felt like more than just a question of diplomatic nicety. He always kissed the tarmac when he landed in a new country and had done so recently when he landed in London. If he did the same in Glasgow, he’d be recognising Scotland as a nation, not a region. In an age when Scotland had no parliament, at a time when Thatcher ruled and the prospect of independence was fanciful at best, it felt important that the spiritual leader of millions of Scots recognised our sovereignty. When he climbed out of the plane and kissed the runway, you could have heard the cheers from the rafters of the Vatican.
Never underestimate the power of symbolism. I think about this wee incident whenever a prime minister or a prince visits the England football squad ahead of a major championship; but never the Scottish or Welsh ones who have qualified for the same tournament. The snub probably isn’t deliberate, and frankly I think that Keir Starmer is to motivation what Gerald Ratner was to self-promotion, but it does betray a common belief amongst the establishment that England and Britain are one and the same.
This week’s visitor and his past reception
As this week brings another notable visitor to our shores, it’s worth reminding ourselves that Scots aren’t always so respectful of the powerful. Indeed, the visit of that notable son of Lewis, Donald John Trump, recalls the gloriously parochial and dismissive headline in a local Ayrshire paper after the US Supreme Court found the (then) former POTUS guilty on thirty counts of perjury. “Local hotelier loses court battle” it proclaimed. I “kent” his faither, as they probably don’t say in Washington.
The ‘orange one’ was also heckled by protestors at his Turnberry Golf Club during his 2018 visit and his short game would hardly have been helped by the sight of a placard stating, “Trump Is A C***!”. It may be significant, by the way, that golf’s governing bodies have softened their position on the Open Championship returning to Turnberry in the future. Until recently they were dead against the idea, now it’s very much back on the agenda. You can’t help but surmise that the pressure is coming from a UK government that knows that DJT is golf daft and that pandering his ego in this way increases the chances of securing slightly more favourable terms in any sort of a post-Brexit trade deal. Not that anyone in Scotland got asked about it, mind.
Talking of golf, one of the more bizarre stories of the weekend was the news that the R&A (Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St.Andrews) had brought the Saturday Open Championship tee times forward so that they didn’t clash with a massive Orange parade happening that evening in Portrush. It’s mad to think that Scottie Scheffler had to have his breakfast an hour earlier because wee Billy from the Cookstown Flute Band wanted to play ‘The Sash’.
Logistical challenges
In all seriousness though, the event would have put enormous strain on a police force already trying to cope with an estimated two hundred and seventy thousand golf fans descending on the Antrim coast for the week. It all seemed to pass off peacefully, however.
Trump’s visit to Scotland brings its own logistical problems, not least around security. It’s estimated that around 5000 police officers – representing around 30% of Police Scotland – will be required to police the visit at a time of staff shortages, high levels of cop burnout and stretched budgets. Firearms officers will be seconded from other parts of the UK, leading to the same sort of funding arguments that happened in 2018.
How should John Swinney react?
David Kennedy, General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, considers all of this a recipe for disaster. There are to be protests, and not just in Aberdeen where Trump will be visiting with Keir Starmer. A group called the ‘Stop Trump Coalition’ states: “John Swinney should stand with the people of Scotland and say no to a photo opportunity with the leader of the international far right”.
To be fair to the First Minister, he’s damned if he does and he’s damned if he doesn’t. For better or worse, DJT is the US President. As golfers like to say, you play the ball as it lies (unless, like Trump, you’re an unapologetic cheat on the links). I’m not sure he can avoid a POTUS photo without being accused by his opponents as petty and of harming Scotland’s interests, so I can just about live with the inevitable confected ‘stooshie’. The dogs bark and the caravan moves on.
Trump’s Scotland visit symptomatic of so much more
But what ‘gars me greet’ is that we can add the Trump visit to a very long list of things that we never wanted: Crossrail. An HS2 that will barely reach Birmingham, never mind Glasgow. Brexit. Nuclear weapons on the outskirts of our largest city. Every Westminster Government since 1955. Illegal wars. An unelected and unaccountable head of state and the unpopular institution it leads. A statue to a billionaire late monarch whose heirs pay not a penny of inheritance taxes while public service crumble and houses remain unbuilt.
And yet we pay our share for all of this and more. Which is why Scotland must finally be afforded the opportunities under self-governance to decide what its, and not somebody else’s, spending priorities are.
A popular slogan during the American War of Independence was “No Taxation Without Representation”. I’m not sure how strong the 45th POTUS is on his history, but that’s maybe one sentiment that we can make a ‘deal’ on.
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