Summit of Goatfell, Isle of Arran

Fáilte – And ‘tis a bonnie welcome indeed from all ay us up here in Bonnie Scotland, land of mountains!

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Tourism Minister Jim Mather said:

‘Homecoming Scotland is an exciting, compelling initiative designed to kindle pride in Scots at home and in the many millions of people overseas who are of Scottish descent or who simply love Scotland.  This is the first time that we as a nation have invited Scotland's global family to come home and it is a wonderful opportunity for us all to use our connections, to spread the message and invite our extended families home in 2009. 

  ‘This year-long celebration will benefit our country in terms of additional tourism, which will contribute to our economy. But it's also an outstanding opportunity to reconnect with the Scottish Diaspora around the world and provide impetus for them to visit their homeland.’
 Organisations can access grants of between £5,000 and £50,000 to enhance existing events or create new ones that reflect the Homecoming Scotland themes and objectives.’

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Homecoming Scotland, Scottish Government

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‘If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of  nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.’ 

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Charles Darwin (1809-1882)  

The Voyage of the Beagle

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‘OATS: A GRAIN, which in England   

is generally given to horses, but in

Scotland supports the people.’

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Samuel Johnson, journalist (1709-1784)

‘And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.’

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Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Woman’s Own interview,

published October 31, 1987

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‘The poet Edwin Muir (1887-1959), transported from an idyllic childhood in Orkney to a Glasgow tenement, found as he made his way to work as clerk in a  shipping office that his daily journeys filled him ‘with a deep sense of degradation: the crumbling houses, the twisted faces, the obscene words heard casually in passing, the ancient haunting stench of pollution and decay, the arrogant women, the mean men, the terrible children frightened me, and at last filled me with an immense, blind dejection.’’

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Allan Massie, The Thistle and The Rose

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‘Homecoming Scotland 2009 Pictures

We are pleased to be able to provide the media with a selection of Homecoming Scotland 2009 pictures. Scottish ViewPoint is a digital resource containing several thousand licensed Scotland images. Click below for some ideas of images which you can use regarding HS09. These images are free of charge to use, please see Terms & Conditions below.

  (Topics:) Great Minds and Innovations, Burns, Golf, Whisky, Ancestry’

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The Black Cuillins of Skye

An offer of free images for corporate use from the Homecoming Scotland website. 

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‘The consternation and confusion were extreme. Little or no time was given for the removal of persons or property; the people striving to remove the sick and the helpless before the fire should reach them; next, struggling to save the most valuable of their effects. The cries of the women and children, the roaring of the affrighted cattle, hunted at the same time by the yelling dogs of the shepherds amid the smoke and fire, altogether presented a scene that completely baffles description — it required to be seen to be believed.

  A dense cloud of smoke enveloped the whole country by day, and even extended far out to sea. At night an awfully grand but terrific scene presented itself — all the houses in an extensive district in flames at once. I myself ascended a height about eleven o'clock in the evening, and counted two hundred and fifty blazing houses, many of the owners of which I personally knew, but whose present condition — whether in or out of the flames — I could not tell. The conflagration lasted six days, till the whole of the dwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking ruins.’

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Ethnic-cleansing British-style long before the Yugoslav Army dreamt up the term.  Sutherland crofter Donald McLeod bares witness to the Scottish Clearances of the Eighteenth Century.

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‘To this day, the population in the the Scottish Highlands is sparse and the culture is diluted, and there are many more sheep than people.’

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Wikipedia entry, Highland Clearances

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Shopping in the Gorbals.

As the tourist dollars were converted into the twee delights of shortbread, tartan and entrance fees, I wonder if any of the descendents of the Scottish Diaspora will pause to reflect on the reasons their ancestors left. Will they ponder for a moment, as they board their luxury coaches and head back from picture-postcard Eilean Donan Castle, the extreme plight of their forbears? 

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Or will the smokescreen be so blinding as to erase the truth about Brand Scotland?  The clearances, the repression, the poverty?  A squalor and hopelessness  that exists to this day, in a parallel universe left hidden by the marketing machine...

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‘The spread of personal ownership is in harmony with the deepest instincts of the British people.  Few changes have done more to create one nation.’

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Nigel Lawson, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1983 - 1989, quoted from a January 1988 speech

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‘Something must be done.’

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The Duke of Windsor, on visiting an unemployment-blighted area in the 1930s

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‘On the Clyde’s Southside, immediately facing the city centre, are the notoriously deprived districts of the Gorbals and Govan – sprinkled with new developments but still obviously derelict and tatty in many parts.  There’s little reason to venture here…’

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The Rough Guide to Scotland

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…unless you’re a pusher, a drug addict, a refugee, a police officer or a paramedic.  In  March 2008, Gordon Brown hired former US investment banker Jennifer Moses to advise on social mobility.

Gorbals Unemployed and Community
Resource Centre

  She and her husband, hedge fund manager Ron Beller, have a personal fortune in the tens of millions.  Indeed, the couple are so rich they didn’t notice when a Goldman Sachs secretary fleeced their private bank account of £1 million over a 14-month period.  Such are the finances of the golden elite, such the staffing choices of the astute genius that is Gordon Brown. 

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‘Progress, far from consisting in change, depends upon retentiveness.  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

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George Santayana, US philosopher
(1863 - 1952)

The Life of Reason

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‘There was a thrill in sharing, in the shower room group, the mood of the time - unfocused discontent, resentment at having been cozened into believing in the solidity of a world that consisted of facades, stage sets sustained by, and sustaining, make-believe.  People said the Great War had destroyed them, but they still stood.  The make-believe was weaker, that was all.

  We hungered for a world whose values were true and dependable, though how we would know it when we found it we had no idea…

  We longed to reject the world view that the preceding generation seemed to be passing on to us, attitudes of submission, of ‘make do’… in survival one day at a time…

  Faith and trust and honour and integrity were the corner stones of society.  Hard work, and pride in work, were worthy ends in themselves.  Respectful and courteous behaviour would always be reciprocated.  Life conducted on those principles acquired a fulfilling grace.  As a world view it certainly had its charm.  But it had been pounded into the mud at Passchendaele and the Somme.’

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Ralph Glasser, Growing up in the Gorbals

Born 1912



‘Mother Superior wis Johny Swan; also kent as the White Swan, a dealer whae wis based in Tollcross and covered the Sighthill and Wester Hailes schemes.  Ah preferred tae score fi Swanney…

  Bad cramps wir beginning tae hit us as we mounted the stairs tae Johny’s gaff.  Ah wis dripping like a saturated sponge, every step bringing another gush fae ma pores.  Sick Boy wis probably even worse, but the c*** was beginning no tae exist fir us. Ah wis only aware ay him blocking ma route tae Johny’s and the skag.  He wis struggling fir breath, haudin grimly oantay the railing, looking as if he wis gaunnae spew intae the stairwell…

  Johny wis bombed ootay his box whin we finally made it up the stairs.  A shooting gallery wis set up.

  -Ah’ve goat one Sick Boy, and a Rent Boy that’s sick n aw!

 He laughed, as high as a f***ing kite.  Johny often snorted

some coke wi his fix or mixed up a speedball concoction ay

smack and cocaine.  He reckoned that
it kept um high, stoaped

um fae sitting around starin at waws aw day.’

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Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting  

Born 1958

Giving way - housing, current and former,
in the Gorbals of Glasgow

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‘Politics is just show business

 for ugly people.’

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American television host Jay Leno.

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Rubbing shoulders with the super-rich, Renfrewshire-born Gordon Brown travelled far and enjoyed a heady, perfumed air.   But despite his journey from the mean streets, ugliness still surrounded him in the Looking Glass world of politics.

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The luxurious lifestyles of the political class – red or blue - is a million miles from that of the laid off, repossessed private sector workers they are supposed to represent.  Many now live in squalor.  Mr Brown’s fellow Glaswegian, former Speaker of the House of Commons Lord Michael Martin, represents the impoverished  Glasgow North East constituency.  He created widespread anger when he tried to silence criticism and stop public awareness of the May 2009 expenses scandal.

 A former shipyard sheet-metal worker, Mr Martin is now noted for his opulent lifestyle.  But even Lord Martin’s opulence pales into insignificance when compared to the blue blood of another politician, who’s lineage stretches back to Inverness clan chiefs on one side, and Royalty on the other.

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‘I understand that you are to see David Cameron.  I’ve tried everything I can to dissuade him from wasting his time on politics, but I have failed.  I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man.’

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A helpful insider telephones the Conservative Research Department from Buckingham Palace prior to the interview by which the Prime Minister entered politics.

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‘This is David Cameron.  I’m on Life FM (purged from YouTube).  This is a great project, this is a great community.  Keep backing it, keep it real.  Yeah.’

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Yeah man - easy now bro - piss off, rich boy.  An awkward Conservative leader working on Brand David – or is that Brand Ali G? -  on a London community radio station.

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‘There’s a certain approach… which says that however painful this may be, large-scale unemployment is an unavoidable consequence of recession, that because it’s the natural movement of the markets, all that government can do is stand by and pick up the pieces.  I am not one of those people, I wholly disagree with that view… it is in no-one’s interests to allow long-term unemployment to take root… we cannot allow Gordon Brown’s broken economy to deepen problems in our broken society.’

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David Cameron, conference speech to the Conservative Women’s Organisation, November 10, 2008.

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‘Rising unemployment and the recession have been the price that we have had to pay to get inflation down. That price is well worth paying .’

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The Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer (between 1990 and 1993), Norman Lamont: Hansard, May 16, 1991.  A 25-year-old David Cameron was his Special Advisor at the time.  Despite his youth, it wasn’t the first time he’d been seated at the top table, though…

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‘At lunchtime on 21 July 1978, two days after the end of term, Getty (grandson of oil billionaire John Paul Getty), Cameron, Simon Andreae… Peter Romilly and Fergus Wylie, accompanied by their eighteen-year-old minder Rhidian Llewellyn, boarded… Concorde… at Heathrow to fly to Washington DC.  As the excited boys tucked into their caviar, salmon and beef bordelaise, Llewellyn turned round to check that all was well and that his charges were more or less behaving themselves.  He was met with the sight, a few rows behind, of David Cameron, eleven years old, cheerily raising a glass of Dom Pérignon ’69 and exclaiming ‘Good health, Sir!’

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Cameron, The Rise of the New Conservative

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Francis Elliott and James Hanning

An airplane for the super-rich funded by
taxpayers cash.

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‘I had a normal university experience.’

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David Cameron at a fringe meeting of the Blackpool 2005 party conference.  He was responding to questions as to whether he had taken drugs during his time at Oxford.

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‘The Bullingdon represents the acme of exclusiveness at Oxford; it is the club of the sons of nobility, the sons of great wealth; it membership represents the 'young bloods' of the university.’

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New York Times, June 1, 1913

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For some time during his Oxford University years, Old Etonian David Cameron was a member of the Bullingdon Club, established 1780, a socially exclusive student dining club drawn predominantly from the aristocracy. His father and grandfather were both stockbrokers, and his Scottish great grand-father Ewen was knighted.

  The Mayor of London, the Prime minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are all former Bullingdon members.  That is to say, of an already privileged elite of 11,000 Oxford students, those three were all members of a select group of just ten students per year.

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‘Think about it this way,’ he (Piers Morgan) says. ‘You've got an Eton-educated, rich, posh guy at the head of the party. What better way to counter that impression than to employ an ex-News of the World editor who's still very young, very smart, very cunning, who works incredibly hard, and totally understands the working class?' 
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  Sacked Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan explains the process of turning David Cameron into a populist man of the people to John Harris, The Guardian, November 3, 2007.  The former News of the World editor in question was Andy Coulson.  Both he and Morgan ran The Sun’s ‘Bizarre’ desk, which gives readers the ‘latest showbiz, celebrity and entertainment news and gossip from The Sun.’

  Hence, he ‘totally understands the working class’

‘I stood for the leadership because I'm fed up with hearing that this party is out of touch, backward-looking and lacks compassion. That's not the Conservative

Party I'm leading.’

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David Cameron, speech in London on February 28, 2006

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‘I am a working mum. We have to pay for childcare. I don't have huge amounts of spare cash to spend on designer clothing.  I think all working mums are a bit like that. You feel poorer than you've ever been.’

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David Cameron’s wife Samantha, interviewed by Harper’s Bazaar, September 1, 2007

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As Special Advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Cameron was at the centre of events during ‘Black Wednesday’, when Conservative economic mishandling cost the nation an estimated £3.4 billion on September 16, 1992.  Shrugging off the national financial disaster, Mr Cameron then spent three years out of politics to build up his private sector experience, as is required of a rising star.  He became a spin doctor.  He stepped straight into Carlton Communications as its public relations chief (fortunately, his wife’s mother, Lady Annabel Astor, is a friend of Carlton boss Michael Green).  At the 2005 party conference, Mrs Cameron claimed that she grew up outside Scunthorpe.  It was a misleading attempt at projecting the common touch.  

  Specifically, she grew up on father Sir Reginald Sheffield's 300-acre Normanby Hall estate. 

It has been in the Old Etonian’s family since 1590 

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‘Definition

nepotism

noun [U] DISAPPROVING
using your power or influence to obtain good jobs or unfair advantages for members of your own family:
He was guilty of nepotism and corruption.
.nepotistic
adjective DISAPPROVING’.

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

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‘David was elected Leader of the Conservative Party in December 2005, on a mandate to change the Party and change the country.  Since then he has set out plans to rebuild our battered economy, revive our beleaguered NHS and above all repair our broken society.’

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Official website

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‘I believe that poverty is an economic waste, a moral disgrace... In the past we used to think of poverty in absolute terms - meaning straightforward material deprivation. 

  That's not enough. We need to think of poverty in relative terms - the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted…  Because for most people, material poverty is a consequence of other factors: family breakdown; drug and alcohol addiction; unemployment; poor education.’  

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David Cameron, November 24, 2006 speech marking the 25th anniversary of the Scarman report into the Brixton riots

  David Cameron’s birthright – beyond the immediate line of merchant bankers he has royal ancestors - ensures doors open for him. Opportunities in life barred to the rest of us.  Yet he also expects us to believe his statements on inclusion.  He hugs to his breast populist issues, issues the Tories fought hard against in the past…

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‘I can (explain my priorities) in three letters – NHS.’

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David Cameron, 2006 keynote speech at the Conservative Party’s Bournemouth Conference.

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For those feeling swayed by Mr Cameron’s earnestness as he explains his ‘Broken Society’ concept, think on this: just a year before, whilst Michael Howard was at the helm, Mr Cameron wrote into the 2005 manifesto  the ‘passport out of the NHS’ idea, intending to subsidise patients to drop out of NHS treatment and go private.

  The proposal, which would have undermined free state healthcare, was quietly dropped when he took charge.  By which time it had itself undermined Howard.  Smart boy ;)

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‘Another (Eton) school contemporary who finds the Cameron charm resistible says he has always had a calculating talent for impressing those who matter (‘if you weren’t socially interesting, one of the in-crowd, he would be very dismissive’.’

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Cameron – The Rise of the New Conservative

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Wester Hailes, Edinburgh

Francis Elliott and James Hanning

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‘He was a smarmy bully… a poisonous, slippery individual.’

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Ian King, The Times deputy business editor

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‘The spirit of corruption is so inseparably interwoven with British politics that their ministry suppose all mankind to be governed by the same motive.  They have no idea of a people submitting to even temporary inconvenience from an attachment to rights and privileges.  Their plans and business are calculated by the hour for the hour, and are uniform in nothing but the corruption which gives them birth.’

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Thomas Paine, The Crisis, 1776

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Next photo: ‘a calculating talent for impressing those who matter’.

 A young family’s home in Easterhouse, Glasgow.
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 People who need all the help we can give,
and (insert earnest, caring quote here,
berate Labour, then get back to me
before you run it, Andy.) 

What’s next?  Crime?  Hmm, they’ve been doing well on crime.  A shame, really.  Have a fish about in the ONS figures, find something that bucks the trend.  How about knife crime?  That’s always a good one.  Yes, see if we can find a spike in knifings or firearms.

   People not safe in their own homes, that sort of thing.  That always gets them worried; that’s why
we tolerate the underclass after all,
to drive fear into the idiots…

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Shadow Chancellor George Osborne (son of a Baronet), in his days at the Bullingdon Club was reportedly nicknamed ‘The Oik’ as his family’s seemingly paltry £50 million was sneered at.  

  On May 11, 2010, David Cameron assumed the office of Prime Minister, heading a shaky Conservative/Liberal alliance.  A month later he was visiting the USA, easing possible worries that Britain could impertinently enjoy any sense of self-esteem, past or present…

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‘I think it is important in life to speak as it is and the fact is that we are a very effective partner of the US but we are the junior partner.

   ‘We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis.’

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It wasn’t received well by veterans groups.  The US officially declared war on Germany on 11 December 1941; by which time Britain had suffered The Blitz and fought the Battle of Britain, cracked the Enigma Code and, with their Commonwealth allies, were engaged in fighting across the globe.

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‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’

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Another Prime Minister on August 21, 1940, on the RAF fighter aces.

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For soapy politicians who have never borne arms for their country, it seems - like the elderly residents of the run-down tenements and council estates - that history is easy to forget. 

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‘We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people.’

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President Obama

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So much for all that blood spilt overseas, then.  It would seem that as it is for our poor, from the WWII veterans to the SureStart kids, so it is for the British and Commonwealth lives sacrificed overseas since 9/11.  It's all just smoke and mirrors, PR and branding.  Always follow the money...

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