Alex Salmond - The Dream Shall Never Die - 100 Days that Changed Scotland Forever

Day Seven: Wednesday 18 June

I was only here for the beer. Not drinking it but spreading the word about the exceptional entrepreneurship of a couple of lads from Fraserburgh, James Watt and Martin Dickie, who employ hundreds of people producing and selling great real beers with their firm BrewDog.

They’re giving a presentation at the Scottish Economic Forum and I find out that they have a bar in São Paulo, Brazil.

This is a great way to kick off the forum. Firstly I say it is nice to know that Scotland will be represented at the World Cup in some capacity, and secondly that it is reassuring to know that supporters of every nation – none in particular, mind – will be able to drown their sorrows in excellent beer now brewed in Ellon, Aberdeenshire!

I also raised a laugh by describing my recent visit to the Coca-Cola factory in East Kilbride which was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. One of that plant’s many achievements is to take charge of most of the commemorative bottles that Coca-Cola produce for the World Cup and the Olympic Games. Thanks to Coca-Cola executive Jim Fox they even produced one for Scotland’s Homecoming in 2009, when Robert Burns became the first person in world history to feature on the famous bottle.

In the presence of the company’s top executives I was taken around the impressive plant in a golf buggy by one of the workers, John McCafferty.

As we passed the World Cup bottle line, McCafferty said: ‘As you will know, we in East Kilbride produce the commemorative bottles. You will also know that Scotland, as a nation, decided NOT to participate in this year’s World Cup in Brazil. However, such is our generosity of spirit here in East Kilbride that we still produce the bottles for the rest of the planet.’

One of the Coca-Cola top guys turned to me and asked: ‘Is that right? You guys decided not to go? Was it a protest?’

‘Let’s call it East Kilbride irony,’ I replied.

Day Eight: Thursday 19 June

Everyone’s getting their knickers in a twist about the cost of setting up the governmental structures of an independent Scotland.

Professor Patrick Dunleavy, of the London School of Economics, has been at loggerheads with the Treasury over the past few days after they claimed that it would take £2.7 billion and attributed that figure to his research.

Patrick is not a man to be trifled with or to have his work traduced. He immediately blogged that their figures were ‘bizarrely inaccurate’ and ‘badly misrepresented’ his key data. He accused them of being out by a factor of twelve. The Treasury Permanent Secretary has even admitted to ‘misbriefing’.

Tory leader Ruth Davidson and the Lib Dems’ Willie Rennie pursue me at First Minister’s Questions on these set-up costs. Their joint attack badly misfires when I announce that I have already held a meeting with Professor Dunleavy to discuss his work in detail.

This shouldn’t really have been too much of a surprise to them, since I had mentioned the possibility two weeks previously – at First Minister’s Questions.

Seems like the best way to keep a secret around here is to mention it at FMQs!

Then to Edinburgh’s New Club at the behest of the hugely likeable and totally inveterate right-winger Peter de Vink, who has invited me to address the free-market dining group the Tuesday Club – on a Thursday. Peter is totally convinced that, with enough exposure, I can recruit other free-marketeers to support freedom for their country.

It is an occasion to remember, but not so much for my success in recruiting free-marketeers. Rather a young American singer called Morgan Carberry sings ‘Caledonia’ with Edinburgh Castle as a backdrop through the window of the New Club dining room. ‘Caledonia’ always makes me cry, but Morgan’s story would bring a tear to a glass eye.

She had come to Scotland on a Marshall Scholarship, part of the post-graduation study programme introduced by former First Minister Henry McLeish. She is a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire but now is to be flung out of the country because her personal relationship broke up within days of her qualifying for permanent residence. It is difficult to fathom how anyone could conceive that depriving the country of this intelligent and talented young woman could benefit anyone. It is, of course, exactly why we need our own immigration policy for our own country.

Day Nine: Friday 20 June

Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, is just about the only public official in London who is playing things with a straight bat.

I have a private phone conversation with him in the middle of a visit to an excellent youth diversionary behaviour project – before heading to the Youth Cabinet.

Mark is a straight down the line sort of guy. I suggest to him that the polls will tighten and that one way to prevent instability in the financial sector is for him to make a ‘Whatever happens, I’m in charge’ type of statement. That would just reflect reality. Whatever the result, the Bank will have that responsibility at least for the next two years. He promises to think about it and I believe he will.

The Youth Cabinet is in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow and my speech and presentation are starting to catch alight, reflecting the political fires which I think are beginning to burn.

A remark by the late Donnie Stewart, MP for the Western Isles, perhaps reflects best where we are now. He described the political heather as ‘not burning but smouldering’.

The golfers in Aberdeen, the families at Meadowbank, these youngsters in Glasgow. The heather is not yet burning but it is starting to smoulder.

Donnie Stewart once found himself, rather unexpectedly, the leader of a band of eleven MPs in a crucial position in the close-run parliament after the October 1974 election. A Times journalist was dispatched to interview this hick from the sticks and was clearly not pleased to have been given the lowly task.

In his most patronising tone he asked Donnie: ‘And so, Mr Stewart, your outfit seriously believes in independence for Scotland?’

‘Nope,’ says Donnie, puffing on his pipe.

‘Well, Mr Stewart, you do believe in some sort of parliament for Scotland?’

‘Nope,’ says Donnie, still puffing.

‘Ah well, Mr Stewart, you do believe in more SAY for Scotland?’

‘Nope,’ says Donnie, shaking his head.

‘Well,’ says the journalist, by now completely exasperated, ‘what on earth do you believe in, Mr Stewart?’

‘TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION,’ came the majestic put-down from the Isle of Lewis!

After the Youth Cabinet I go off to Nairn to join Moira, since we are snatching a couple of days at Castle Stuart near Inverness. I have made up my mind to try and get a minimum of three escapes to golf courses during the referendum campaign.

This is to keep myself reasonably sane and my weight under some control. I need to try and stick to my 5–2 diet.

Moira is a great sounding board for what’s really going on in the country. She has been telling me since the spring that the race is tightening. Before that she hadn’t said much at all, which I took as a cause for real anxiety.

Moira lunches with ladies in Turriff – at Celebrations, a big concern in the town, where you can buy anything. It’s like an old-fashioned emporium, although certainly not old-fashioned in style, and it acts like a magnet. People come into town for it, and that has knock-on benefits for the rest of the high street.

These ladies are a diverse group – farmers’ wives, nurses, young mums and the like – and they meet for charity fashion shows and so on. And Moira takes the temperature.

We chat about the latest soundings over dinner at the Classroom restaurant in Nairn.