How This Man is Turning Scotland into the Laughing Stock of the World

VISITORS ARRIVING IN Scotland at any of its major airports are greeted by some beautifully-photographed posters of lochs and mountains and stuff bearing the slogan: Scotland – the best [small] country in the world. If arriving at the busiest airport, Glasgow, they will then step on to a clapped-out, sawn-off Airport Link bus for the half-hour journey to the city centre. This will take them across the River Clyde via a crumbling concrete flyover which has been undergoing maintenance for the last six years. Assuming all the traffic lights are working(a rare occurrence) and no roads are closed because buildings are being propped up, they will soon arrive at George Square. This city centre hub is notable less for its neglected Victorian heritage than for the fact it was the scene of seven stabbings during last year’s Hogmanay “celebrations” and until recently was home to the largest billboard poster in Europe after the council chose to make money from the derelict post office building by covering it up with a giant advert for Mercedes instead of renovating it. Glasgow’s council, steeped in working-class tradition, now regularly rents out the square to assorted music or arts festivals and funfairs, pocketing a nice little earner on what is supposed to be a civic amenity, accessible to all. (Each Christmas it is taken over by an ice rink, and half of Glasgow’s largest public square is out of bounds unless you stump up for a ticket). Finally, the bus drops the visitor outside Queen Street Station, where they will likely have to step over several recumbent drunks or engage in “banter” with a pasty-faced, goggle-eyed jakey in need of “any loose change, big man?” before they can do what probably seems like a strikingly good idea: buy a train ticket out of there.
The journeys from Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness airports are only slightly less depressing(but always by bus, none of them have rail links), but the chances are the visitor will still be thinking about that slogan that greeted them before they’d even got to the luggage carousel: Scotland – the [best] small country in the world.

COMPLETE BOLLOCKS

I’m not a visitor. I live in Scotland. When I first saw the posters, I was slightly disturbed, and not just by the gratuitous use of parenthesis. . There are no other words on the posters, no clue as to the source of this accolade. Who had bestowed this title upon Scotland? And why? If no-one, then who was making this claim? And why? Had there been a dramatic reduction in hospital waiting lists, violent crime, motorway potholes, pioneering cuisine(my local chippy has this notice next to its refrigerated display of Kit Kats, Mars Bars, Twix and Maltesers: Confectionary of your choice in batter 75 pence) and all those other hallmarks of modern Scottish life while I’d been away? I couldn’t think of anything from my own day to day experience of living and working in Scotland that could possibly make the place better than other small countries like Austria, Switzerland, Andorra, Belgium, Luxemburg or Holland, for example. They’ve got cycle paths, modern hospitals and barely a trickle of violent crime in all those places.

So I contacted the Scottish Executive –which refers to both the devolved government and the civil service which supports it - and imagine my surprise at hearing that Scotland had been awarded this glowing tribute by, erm……… Scotland! What a brilliant marketing ploy – just invent the snazziest slogan you can think of about your own product and plaster it all over the walls of any place where there will be a captive audience of thousands on a daily basis. Even if it’s complete bollocks!

From speaking to Ewan Buchanan in the Executive’s marketing unit I learned that the slogan came from a speech given by First Minister Jack McConnell. It seems that a Saltire-waving team of spin doctors then followed this up by consulting various focus groups, putting Braveheart in the DVD player and dusting off the biographies of Alexander Graham Bell, John Logie Baird, Kenny Dalglish and all the other usual suspects from the folder marked How Scots Shaped Global History. If there’s one thing Scottish politicians and media folk love doing, it’s scratching at the chip on their shoulders and spending hours getting all misty-eyed over how the origin of just about every modern contraption or great human accomplishment can be directly linked to a Scot. (Roy Hattersley witnessed this when he attended a speech given by Scottish Parliament presiding officer George Reid last week, during which he outlined the Scottish ancestry of various US Presidents and secretaries of state and claimed the American Revolution was a direct result of the Scottish Enlightenment. “I expected him to conclude by explaining that, contrary to popular belief, Scotland put the first man on the moon, split the atom and won the race to the south pole,” wrote Hattersley in The Guardian).
Now I have no problem with my neighbours wallowing in their nostalgia. It’s just that sometimes it can come across as patriotic verging on the xenophobic, the symptom of a massive inferiority complex. In the case of this poster, the Executive appeared to be getting so defensive it was resorting to falsehoods and playground boasts to “big up” Scotland. The simple reality is that Scotland isn’t better than any of those other small countries I mentioned earlier. Compared with them:
Life expectancy in Scotland is LOWER .
Incidence of violent crime in Scotland is HIGHER
Public transport in Scotland is MORE EXPENSIVE AND LESS EFFICIENT
The healthcare system in Scotland is INFERIOR(as borne out by those waiting lists and high-than-norm rates of heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes)
The tourism experience in Scotland is POORER(thanks to poor levels of service and courtesy as exposed in a report by the AA last year)
The cost of living in Scotland is MORE EXPENSIVE(it’s cheaper to eat out at a quality restaurant in Zurich than it is to eat out in an equivalent restaurant in Edinburgh or Glasgow)
Sadly, Scotland can’t even claim a monopoly on natural physical splendour. At least three of those other countries have stunning mountain landscapes, are blessed with better weather and don’t have the midge to contend with.

MORE BOLLOCKS

So I put all this in a letter to First Minister McConnell. The Scottish elections take place next May. A liar like him shouldn’t be re-elected. The last First Minister was hounded out of office for fiddling his expenses. Surely making Scotland into an international laughing stock with such ludicrous lies and claims is a worse offence?
My four-page letter contained all of the above points and concluded:
“Now I know what kind of reply is already taking shape in your mind – ‘but Scotland has given so much to the world in terms of achievement and invention, blah blah blah.’ Jack, have you ever thought that Scots possibly spend too much time celebrating what has gone on in the past when they should be concentrating on the future? And don’t give me any of that bollocks about how without the scientific and cultural triumphs of Bell, Watt, Burns, Baird, Fleming et al there wouldn’t be a future to concentrate on. Closer inspection reveals that it was often their willingness to embrace ideas and theories from outwith Scotland that led them to their discoveries. Plus, what do you think inspired them in their achievements? That’s right, looking to the future.
“And anyway, do you seriously think that a cancer patient stuck on the end of a nine-week hospital waiting list in Dundee takes consolation in the fact that it was a Scot who invented the telephone? Or that the male residents of Calton in Glasgow laugh off the fact that their life expectancy is a mere 53.9 years(NHS Scotland statistics, The Guardian, 21 January 2006) by reminding each other of James Watt’s improvements to the steam engine? Or that Scotland’s title as “the most violent country in the developed world”(United Nations crime research unit, September 2005) is made more palatable by the fact it was a Scotsman who invented the box in the corner?
“Like my five million co-inhabitants in Scotland – an increasing number of whom are not Scottish by the way, but from countries with even greater claims to fame for their mark on history and civilisation, such as the Arab nations – I put up with the awful weather, the broken roads, the Third World hospitals, the drunken violence, the bigotry and racism, the appalling local TV programmes, the exorbitant prices and Ewan McGregor because I know, in my heart of hearts, these aren’t Scotland, not really.
“Modern day Scotland was hewn from the courage and conviction of a few great men. They were judged by their actions, not meretricious advertising slogans. While a sense of history is important, a view to the future is what will ensure my children have a better life than mine.
“Forget the slogans Jack, let’s see some actions.”
I don’t have a problem with Scotland trying to promote itself. But I do have a problem with its elected leader resorting to deception. Why couldn’t the poster have said something a bit more inspiring and a lot less misleading, such as Scotland – Building the Best Small Country in the World(which is actually the title of one of the Executive’s own publications)?
Anyway, despite an acknowledgement from his office, after two months I still hadn’t had any answers, though to be fair McConnell had been busy. The newspapers were full of photographs of him with Sean Connery or Donald Trump, no doubt discussing just how little new private investment Scotland had managed to attract since it was given its own parliament eight years ago. Or maybe they were talking about how that didn’t really matter so much now, as the amount of subsidy Scotland was receiving from Westminster – courtesy of a Scottish chancellor – was £1,500 more per head of population than England was getting. (So what, you might think – Scotland needs it more than its richer neighbour. Yeah, that’s probably true, except that the Scottish parliament has already blown a whopping £418 million on a new building for itself. At the public inquiry into this scandal – the original estimate had been £40 million – a succession of politicians blamed Scotland’s original First Minister Donald Dewar and the architect for the overspend. Very conveniently, neither of these scapegoats could defend themselves - they were dead.)
Nine weeks after I wrote to McConnell, the Executive published the results of something called The Futures Project, designed to compare Scotland’s performance in various fields with 24 other developed nations. Scotland came in the poorest-performing 25 per cent in the fields of health, crime and environment. It’s highest placing – in education – was “Q2”, i.e. “better than average but not amongst the top performers”. It’s overall rating was “Q3” – “worse than average but not amongst the very worst performers.”.

So, definitely not the best small country in the world then.
In the same week, The Sunday Times revealed how aid volunteers from Indonesia had been drafted in to work for three months in various Glasgow housing estates with “shocking” levels of violence, drunkenness and other social ills.
Finally, after ten weeks, I got my reply from Jack. Well, not from Jack personally, but from someone in the impressive-sounding International and Communication Group. Here it is, reprinted in full:
“Your comments on the recent campaign to promote Scotland’s International Image(sic) have been noted.
“The Scottish Executive is committed to promoting Scotland and competing on a global stage by presenting a modern, dynamic image of Scotland and positioning Scotland as a great country in which to live, learn, work, study, do business with and invest. Destination marketing has become a necessity in an increasingly competitive world market. The marketing of Scotland, along with policy development, is part of a concerted effort to deliver our proposition of Scotland being a modern, dynamic country in which to live, learn, work, study, do business with and invest.
“Yours sincerely,
Suzanne Melrose
International Projects.”
I know, it reads like it was cut and pasted from a government hand-out, doesn’t it? No admission of deceit, no acknowledgement even of The Futures Project.
Fortunately, I can register my disapproval at the elections next May. Hopefully millions of other voters will do the same. It’s just a pity that potential foreign investors might show their own disapproval of McConnell’s tactics by taking their money elsewhere.
And God knows, if this place is ever going to drag itself up from its true position as one of the worst small countries in the world(as concluded by the Scottish Executive’s own Futures Project), it needs as much money as it can get.

VOLUNTEERS AND VISITORS

If you'd like to help the obese, alcoholic, unemployed and smackheads of some of Glasgow's choice housing estates, Christian Aid is recruiting gap year volunteers now. To send an email to them, click here .

If you want to come to Scotland for your holidays, click here for lots of lovely pictures and information.

This week, Jack Havana recommends....

DRIVING through some of the most spectactular scenery in Europe. Take the A82 from Glasgow to Invergarry(via Glen Coe and Fort William), then the A87 down Glen Shiel, along Lochs Duich and Alsh and onto the Isle of Skye. Stay at the Stein Inn on the Waternish peninsula, and eat at the Lochbay Seafood Restaurant next door. Walk the Quirrang(easy) or tackle the Cuillens(difficult) for dramatic views, even when it's raining. Finish with a dram of Skye's local single malt, Talisker. Next day, take the ferry from Uig to the Isle of Harris. Here, stay and eat at Scarista House, then drive to Stornaway for the ferry to Ullapool. Take the A835 from the west coast to the east and stay at Braelangwell B&B on the Black Isle. Eat at the Plough Inn in nearby Rosemarkie. Watch dolphins off Chanonry Point. Take the A9, skirting the Cairngorm Mountains, to return to Glasgow. For links to all accommodation and restaurants, see opposite.