Remember

Having just marked another Remembrance weekend, I would like to take the opportunity to offer a few thoughts on the importance of honouring this festival.

Remember

Every year in last October, the Royal British Legion launches its annual poppy campaign in order to raise funds to assist its excellent work with our retiree soldiers from campaigns of times past to those who have been injured in current theatres of war. Their work also extends to helping relatives who have lost a loved one in war. The work is brought into sharp focus for about 2 weeks of the yar although  their work is ongoing every day of the year.

In 2009, I visited some of the 1^st world war battle sites of the Somme in northern France. It was sobering to see row after row of gravestones where many gallant young men fell, many of whom were between their late teens and mid-20’s. There were many poignant sites in the area including the Beaumont Hamel, where there is an imposing monument of a lone Caribou calling out to the fallen sons of Newfoundland who perished in that brutal conflict thousands of miles from home. Further into the battle site revealed the monument to the 51^st Highland Division. This included the Gordon Highlanders, Seaforth and Camerons Brigade and the Argyll and Southerland Highlanders. There was also a Lancashire division drafted in to the regiment for a time and the fields around Beaumont Hamel also have the graves of many valliant soldiers from the Red Rose county.  The Black Watch took the place of the Lancashire soldiers and earned the respect of their German foes for their fighting spirit. Some of these storied regiment names may have disappeared at the stroke of a politician’s pen back in 2006 but their blood sacrifice in the cause of freedom will be remembered by the people of our nation.

We may have said goodbye to the last WW1 veteran in the last couple of years but we still have a reasonable number of WW2 veterans in our midst today. It is incredible to imagine what it must have been like in those times such as the Battle of Britain and the battles on the beaches of northern France. There were also many town and cities that paid a terrible price in the German Blitzkreig such as Clydebank, Coventry and Portsmouth. All of these places would rise again although the memory of those ordinary citizens who perished will never be forgotten.  It amazes me how the nation came together as one to join the fight against evil. In my own family, my grandfather was a gunner in the RAF, mainly based in the Middle East campaigns in WW2. Below is a picture of him just after he signed up, this was taken at Blackpool before all the boys went into service (he is in the second row from the bottom, second left). Like many of that generation, he did not speak much of the war and it was only late in his life that we learned of the extent of his war efforts. The reason that our nation overcame the threat to our freedom was due to millions of such men who put themselves on the line when their country needed them.

The UK has undergone some economic difficulties in the last few years and we all have to acknowledge that spending cuts have been needed across all areas of public service. I am not convinced that the best way to reduce our deficit was to very publicly decommission our Aircraft Carrier, Ark Royal, and the fleet of Harrier jump jets back in 2010. What sort of message does this send out to the world? This decision looks somewhat absurd when the new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers are not due until 2016 and 2018. There were also concerns that we may not have the aircraft needed until 2020, meaning that our state of the art ships would look like giant, maritime ironing boards. France has also suffered economic problems but they haven’t decided to sell off their imposing Charles de Gaulle nuclear powered aircraft carrier. The UK must have its own carrier as we may have to protect the people of the Falkland Islands once more, as Argentinian sabre rattling increases.

All areas of our forces also play a key role in peacetime. The Royal Navy Fisheries Protection Squadron patrols 80000 square miles of UK waters and also get involves in Anti-drugs surveillance. Want to play Blackjack Mr Putin? No problem, a couple of our boys will be there at Mach 2 to intercept and gently guide you round the perimeter of our airspace whenever you come calling. As an island nation, we rely on those at the sharp end of national security to be provided with the relevant resources to deter our enemies.

 

On the morning of 11/11, I went to the Cenotaph in my home town of Dalry along with many people from the local community to witness a dignified ceremony. The local Church of Scotland minister read a passage of scripture entitled The Mountain of The Lord and this seemed very appropriate as we stood at the highest point of the public park, everyone recognising that they were on consecrated ground.

Through the ages, our armed forces have been there to defend our nation. I have been encouraged by the way that everyone comes together at this time to honour those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the call of duty. Our armed forces look after all of our interests worldwide in peace time and in war. Above all, they are the people who put the Great into Britain.

State of Independence?

When making a coffee at work, I had somebody question me about why Scotland wants to break away from the UK. The question did not surprise me following all of the publicity surrounding the announcement of the independence referendum paper that the First Minister, Alex Salmond, with typical self-agrandisement, Christened as the “Edinburgh Agreement”. I don’t normally want to talk about politics in this forum but as I have lived in England for much of the last 8 years and likely to face more questions, it is probably a good time to address the issue.

State of Independence?

Many people are baffled by the sudden promotion of the independence cause north of the border and could be forgiven for wondering if the seeds of a revolution are being sown in our towns and cities. Can it be that the United Kingdom’s mountainous, northern outpost is about to say goodbye to its neighbours and bring an end to over 300 years of union?

In the 1990’s, many people in Scotland wanted more of a say in their own affairs and were happy to vote for devolved powers. It could be argued that the politicians mis-managed the process as all that happened was that a new division was put in place and an absurd situation where MP’s representing Scottish constituencies are potentially able to vote on matters representing England whereas English MP’s couldn’t vote on certain Scottish matters. Arguably, this was brought about by politicians not rolling out a devolution plan for each individual country in the Union. Perhaps one lesson of devolution is that we should be aware of politicians peddling more politicians. The SNP  have emerged as a force mainly due to the Labour Party implode due to sleaze and losing touch with the people and the other unionist parties being largely irrelevant up north.

I visited our great capital city of Edinburgh in late September, a city that was nicknamed “the Athens of the north” due to its contribution to intellectual enlightenment. There is always a feeling of pride when I visit our capital city, New York has the skyscrapers of Manhatten, Kuala Lumpar has the Petronas Towers and Paris has the Eiffel Tower, but none of these has a hulking, great fortress sitting atop a dormant volcano. At any time of year, there is always a great sense of occasion to walk on the Royal Mile and hear the skirl of the pipes.

There was something that did make the visit a bit less pleasant in that many streets looked as if they had been hit by a bomb due to being dug up to make way for tram tracks. The Edinburgh trams project has been one of the Scottish Government’s vanity projects where costs have gone out of control and completion dates have been moved back. There is the farcical situation where rolling stock worth £40 million can be seen sitting in the sidings at the Gogar depot. It is amazing to think that the people who have overseen this botched, modestly sized infrastructure project somehow think they can represent our nation in the international context.

One key component of the independence movement is to make Scotland a nuclear free state. This includes closing down our nuclear power station at Hunterston and placing more emphasis on renewable energy sources. There have been many wind turbine developments in Scotland in the last 10 years, turning our nation into an overgrown Tellytubby land. Our nuclear submarine base at Faslane would also close and this could have potentially dangerous national security implications. It would appear that the SNP have listened to the John Lennon song, “Imagine” and taken it to be a political manifesto.

Scotland is a country that has punched above its weight in the world and could have the ability to survive as an independent state, however, there would have to be clear policies for tax and trade. It is clear the SNP would be seeking to take an independent Scotland into the EU. Part of the ascension criteria for any new EU state is the acceptance of the Euro, a currency that has come close to the brink in the last few years. It surely can’t be lost on the Scottish Government that Ireland, the Celtic Tiger, needed financial assistance. There have also been the other nations such as Greece and Portugal needing to be bailed out by the EU, with France and Germany setting stringent conditions. Ah yes, France and Germany – the two dominant forces in the EU who dominate policy and are not afraid to push around the smaller nations. The EU is striving to achieve closer political union and an independent Scotland joining this club would arguably only swapping London government for Brussels government.

I will always consider myself to be Scottish, first and foremost. If Scotland plays England at anything from tiddlywinks upwards, I will be there draped in tartan to roar on my home team. This is how it should be, each of our nations has its own character and sense of identity. Equally, I am also proud to call myself British and take pride the amazing achievements of the United Kingdom in the last three centuries, who couldn’t have been amazed by the showing of Team GB at London 2012? We will always have our squabbles and rivalries but this is true of any family and the ties that bind us are stronger than a few peripheral disagreements here and there.

Having considered all of these issues, the only conclusion that I can reach is that we are better as interdependent in the UK rather than just a small subsidiary state in the EU, otherwise Edinburgh could be known as the Athens of the North for all the wrong reasons.