Former MSP Andrew is as witty and engaging a political figure as we have in the country, but this format simply will not do. It is not BBC bias this time, just incompetence. It sounds like they have given two minutes’ thought to the format and no training at all to the NO lady. I find myself thinking that it is not fair to her.
Back onto the links where I am playing even better, round in 84 (42–42) with a comprehensive 4 and 3 win. I am now within 25 strokes of shooting my age!
But well as I am playing, the Dunleavy report is playing even better. Back to Strichen on a glorious summer evening.
Day Twelve: Monday 23 June
I’m determined to get the huge tourism potential of the Borders railway line on track.
Staying at the Dryburgh Abbey Hotel because it is near the new Tweedbank Station, the terminus of the Borders railway and the focus of tomorrow’s visit.
It has been difficult to get our officials to fully understand the economic potential of tourist rail.
Given that the economics of the line are challenging, Transport Scotland have been giving themselves a mighty and, to be fair, well-merited pat on the back for keeping it on schedule for opening this coming year. Of course the main line will be crucial for economic development and in commuting terms will be a great success.
The more I study this, the more convinced I am that the new ‘Waverley Line to the Borders’ can become one of the great tourist lines in Europe. The reasoning is clear. There are already highly successful tourist lines in Scotland, such as the West Coast Line, but for most people it takes a day to get there, a day to have a wonderful experience and a day to get back.
What we need is to offer the magic of steam and to offer it, not once every third Sunday, but three times a day in the high season. John Cameron, the ‘silver fox’ – once the greatest sheep farmer in Europe, and now a steam engine enthusiast – has indicated that he could make available The Union of South Africa, one of the great and iconic engines of the age. John has told me, however, that any big steam engine will need a turning circle at the terminus.
In contrast to the West Coast Line, the journey up and down the line to the Borders will take half a day from the busiest railway station in the capital of Scotland. Five million people visit Edinburgh each year. Over 1 million go to Edinburgh Castle. Why shouldn’t at least half of that number head off to the Borders to sample the magic of that beautiful undiscovered part of our country? If the average tourist spends £200 on the retail and cultural offerings down the line then we will generate a visitor boom of £100 million for the Borders.
But I want to see Tweedbank Station for myself to establish if we can have that turning circle. I phone Councillor David Parker, leader of Borders Council, who has the rather good idea of making a permanent home for the Great Tapestry of Scotland – at Tweedbank. It could be a great boost to the Borders Railway.
The Great Tapestry – an all-Scotland community project of weaving – has been wowing the masses as it has toured around Scotland over the last year. One Thursday I arrived at Parliament where the queues were out the door and around the block. I thought they were in a line for First Minister’s Questions. In fact they were there to see the Great Tapestry.
Day Thirteen: Tuesday 24 June
Today is the day I decide to take a stronger hand in the direction of the campaign.
Kick off at the crack of dawn at Tweedbank station with David Parker. We will make his tapestry idea happen in time for an announcement before the purdah* period in August.
We have agreed to abide by purdah in the run-up to the referendum, and so has the UK government, whose record in self-denying ordinances is not a happy one. I am aware that purdah is unenforceable and that they will likely not keep to it. However, Nicola and I have judged that we are better prepared and focused than the UK government and therefore to embrace a purdah period will be more of a nuisance to them than to us.
A mixed-tenure housing development just outside Galashiels is next on the agenda. I’m pleased to see it because I think that the new railway will open up all sorts of possibilities for the Borders – and it’s really important that all of the new housing isn’t just aimed at high-salaried Edinburgh commuters but at ordinary Borders folk.
The Cabinet is held in Selkirk’s lovely Victoria Halls. If you can’t speak there then you can’t speak. The event goes well. The Borders will be the toughest area of Scotland for the YES campaign and I am determined that our dedicated band of Borders campaigners, including my wee sister Gail and my nieces Karen and Christina, will have the maximum support possible.
Then a quick visit to Spark, a challenger electricity company headquartered in Selkirk with 200 people in their facilities centre. They specialise in providing services for tenants, and the fact that they are still running into regulatory trouble for offering tenants lower bills sums up everything that is wrong with the muddle-headed regulation of the electricity markets, which presumably should be aimed at bringing bills down.
On my way through to Kilmarnock, where I am cutting the first turf at the new college, I stop off in Edinburgh to chair the campaign meeting.
The atmosphere is still downbeat, which is pretty infuriating, given that in my best estimation we are doing pretty well. Indeed we could even be doing very well. I decide to take a much stronger hand in the direction of the campaign.
The cross-party YES campaign has had a number of issues in its organisation. In 2012 I chose Blair Jenkins as Chief Executive. He in turn appointed a range of people to lead directorates. Blair, a former head of news at BBC Scotland, had fulfilled an outstanding role in heading up the Scottish government’s broadcasting commission. As lead spokesperson for YES he is performing impressively.
However, getting the disparate organisation to reflect the cohesion of a political party is proving much more problematic. Some things have worked really well, such as the launch of grassroots groups, the public meetings around the country, our social media offerings and the celebrity endorsements arranged by my former Special Adviser Jennifer Dempsie. But inevitably a cross-party YES board has found it difficult, even with great goodwill, to provide coherent strategic direction.
It is that strategic direction – the ability to take decisions on the focus of the campaign and to see them implemented – which wins elections and referendums.
I have therefore moved the decision-making to mimic SNP election organisation. Round the table, apart from Blair and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh from YES, will be Nicola, SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, my long-standing press adviser Kevin Pringle, Geoff Aberdein, Stuart Nicolson, the political strategist Stephen Noon, and SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson. These are the battle-hardened group who planned and executed the resounding SNP success in 2011.
I have decided to move the meetings to Thursdays, which make a lot more sense for the campaigning rhythm of the week, and I have asked for proper information on our intelligence from the doorstep and also online, so that the meetings can take strategic decisions based on up-to-date information.
Staying at the Racecourse hotel in Ayr. Over dinner with prominent YES campaigners Marie and Drew Macklin, I recieve the very sad news that David Taylor of UEFA has passed away.
On Saturday I intervened to help David’s family get him into the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, transferred from Turkey, where he had taken ill on holiday.
David was one of the finest administrators that Scotland has ever produced. I had dinner with him in Bute House a couple of months back and he was ready to come out for YES. A great, great loss to the campaign and to Scotland.
Day Fourteen: Wednesday 25 June
Beginning to think this is the campaign I’ve been waiting to fight all of my life. And it’s down to the public I meet around the country – including the lovely crowd today at the ground-breaking of the new Kilmarnock College.
I had agreed