Letter from Scotland

We’ve just had our “Royal Week” in Scotland when the King and the royal household spend a special time with the people of their northern kingdom.

It involved the 16^th century tradition of the Rt Hon Lord Provost of Edinburgh handing over the keys to Holyrood Palace. There was also the opening of the new session at The Scottish Parliament and the garden party, when smartly dressed people are thanked for their contribution to Scottish society. There was the inspection of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and then the King, Queen and Prince William joined the 16 Knights of the Thistle for their annual service in St Giles’ Cathedral.

But it wasn’t all about ancient pomp and ceremony.  Prince William helped carry furniture into a new flat for the homeless in Aberdeen. We saw Kate, his wife, pictured on the top of Ben Nevis at the start of her Three Peaks Challenge in aid of cancer charities.  And The Duke of Edinburgh was in Glasgow meeting organisers of the Commonwealth Games, due to begin in three weeks’ time.

Support for the monarchy is not as high in Scotland as it is in the rest of Britain (around 45 per cent compared to 55 per cent) but interestingly, the latest UK poll by Ipsos found that satisfaction with the way King Charles is performing stands at 60 per cent and for Prince William it’s at 71 per cent. And when asked if the monarchy had an important role in the future of the country, 60 per cent said “Yes”. 

King Charles is not the only king to make the news this week. The “King of the North” Andy Burnham has been staking a claim to be Charles’ next prime minister.  “The North” is what the English media call Manchester and there has been a great deal of debate here about what Andy Burnham’s “Manchesterism” would mean for Scotland.  

He talks about more devolution from Holyrood to local councils and of more powers for city regions. But as with much of his manifesto, it’s not clear where the money is coming from to build more council houses, invest in public transport, revive town centres, re-industrialise Britain and “improve life in every postcode.”

Then there’s this talk of a “Number 10 of the North” in Manchester, of course.  Will this mean more funding for Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Preston, at the expense of London, Brighton and Plymouth, and Scotland?   It also smacks of presidential or monarchical rule in which Number 10, wherever it is situated, makes all the decisions. I prefer a parliamentary system and cabinet government.

As for the departing king in Number 10, Sir Keir Starmer, he has finally published his plan to spend £80 billion a year on Britain’s defence over the next four years, 2.7 per cent of our national income. Sir Keir has been struggling to hold the figure down to that “moderate” level against alarmist warnings about war with Russia.

In Scotland we are waiting to see what cuts in other budgets will have to be made to pay for all this military spending. Will it be in welfare, housing, transport? All of which will mean cuts to The Scottish government’s block grant.  Shipbuilders on the Clyde are waiting to see what the scrapping of plans for new frigates and their replacement with smaller, drone-launching, boats will mean for them. The SNP don’t like the plan to up-grade the nuclear deterrent and the submarine base at Faslane.  But at least there should be a welcome for the up-grading of homes for the families of military personnel.   

Sir Keir says it’s the biggest increase in Britain’s defence spending for 30 years and it will end the “hollowing out” of the armed forces under the Conservatives.  It also ends the “peace dividend” enjoyed in Europe after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The extra defence spending may well create 60,000 jobs, as the government says, but how many jobs will be lost in the cuts to other departments?  And investment in military hardware does not contribute to economic growth to the same extent as new railways or new training colleges.  

Or even new tunnels. In Shetland, councillors have voted to investigate the building of four tunnels to replace ferries between the islands of Yell, Unst, Whalsay and Bressay. They say the tunnels, costing £1.5 billion, would be cheaper than new ferries and will boost economic growth. And they point to the experience of the Faroe Islands where there are 20 tunnels linking its 18 islands.

The British Isles have 188 inhabited islands. Of these, 125 are in King Charles’s United Kingdom, 97 of them in Scotland. In a way, Britain is made of up “islands” – four nations, a patchwork of regions and districts, cities and towns, communities and post-codes.  

It’s the job of the king and his prime minister to link us all together and make us feel we all belong.