RADICALISM is in; socialism red and terrible is out. Even here at the
SNP Conference. Last night, giving a talk to student Nationalists,
taking questions, I had to keep pinching myself. Where the stonewashed
denims, the hammer and shovel badges, the anorak-of-fire brigade I
remembered of yore?
These students wore suits, ties, and neat white shirts.
Revolutionaries? They resembled a Bible class in Alabama. Marxists? I
said things to them which, at an SDP gathering 10 years ago, would have
had me lynched.
They are young, pragmatic, clever and charming but they made a happy
man feel very old. Later, in the restaurant, I lapsed into anecdotal
mode. I was regaling them with scandalous tales of the seventies and the
''First Eleven''. I must have spoken too loudly for an old hairy
Nationalist crossed the floor to rebuke us -- and exhorted my friends to
''beware the magic of a golden tongue''.
Perhaps, as Socrates in Athens, SNP zealots will one day arraign me on
charges of ''blasphemy and corrupting the young''.
After lunch today -- and the nosh at the Eden Court is excellent -- I
was briefly kidnapped by Winnie Ewing. I was standing in the corridor,
minding my own fag when Madame Ecosse materialised before me. ''So,''
she said beaming, ''lets get on with it.''
''Er,'' I said. Was she not fragrant? Was she not radiant? She wore a
silky blouse in shocking pink; her hair was a nubilous gold; in her hand
was a glass of sweet white wine and her spectacles were as manic as
ever.
''Come,'' said La Ewing and I found myself being escorted up the
stairs, I opened my mouth to question and a steely hand at the small of
my back hauled me on. We reach the gallery. ''Now, a quiet place to
sit'' said Mrs Ewing. She frowned, she looked at a cosy corner and then
at a stack of chairs behind some lobbyist's stall. ''Take two chairs!''
''Well, let's begin,'' said Mrs Ewing. She gulped some wine, and we
stared at each other with mounting incredulity.
''Oh my God!'' she said ''You're John Macleod!''
With this I reluctantly agreed.
''But there's this Welsh journalist,'' she gabbled, ''who's been
pestering me all morning for an interview, and you were standing right
where I had agreed to meet him and you're his virtual double!''.
She said, in parting, ''I don't know what you must have been thinking
of me.''
Alec Salmond gave his Big Speech. It was long, witty, and entirely
calculated to tickle the party's tummy. We in the press box were within
stabbing distance of the great man. At his close there was a rapturous
standing ovation.
I looked not at him, but at them: hundreds and hundreds of clapping
hands, adoring eyes, mesmerised smiles, the great roar of the multitude
and their intoxicating applause.
I wondered, suddenly, how it felt to engineer such emotion. How it
felt when it dawns in your mind what you could make people do.
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