Courtiers abhor publicity and rarely brief journalists. Sir Alan Reid, the keeper of the Privy Purse, would not have said what he did about Scottish funding for the Monarchy unless he had been unhappy. Nicola Sturgeon has now insisted that there are no grounds for concern. But if Sir Alan had not intervened, would she have been so conciliatory?
It would be absurdly complacent to believe that there are no remaining issues between the SNP and the Monarchy. Even without David Cameron’s indiscretion about purring, we would have known what the Queen thought of Scottish independence. Just before polling day for the referendum last September, she advised the people of Scotland to think very carefully about their vote. That was the clearest of signals. Alex Salmond had said that her Majesty would be happy to be the Queen of Scots. In part, this was an attempt to inflame Nationalist emotion. Salmond’s supporters would remember the last Queen of Scots’ fate, at English hands.
As an account of the Queen’s feelings, however, the Salmond version is as reliable as his recent claim that Charles Kennedy was a closet Nat. The Queen has reigned over the United Kingdom for more than 60 years. She has no desire to alter her titles. But she is now confronted by the most unashamed republican who has ever led a major political party.
Nicola Sturgeon would like to see a Scottish socialist republic. So would the great majority of her MPs at Westminster. Perhaps we should call them national socialists. It seems that the Scottish government has now backed down over the threat to stop paying Scotland’s share of the Royal Household’s expenses. There could even be some embarrassment; there certainly ought to be. Under the new devolution arrangements, the Scottish government will gain control of the Crown estates’ assets in Scotland, estimated to be worth around £216 million (Dh1.25 billion).
Currently, the Sovereign receives only just over one per cent of that every year, so there is a huge subsidy from the Crown estate to the public purse. Even an insensate Scot Nat might hesitate to insult those who offer such a generous bargain. So the courtiers may have won the first skirmish, with the help of the press. The Nats might have calculated that Scottish public opinion is not ready for a breach with the monarchy.
There is a crucial election next year for the Holyrood Parliament, and Nicola Sturgeon would be wise to prevent the Queen from becoming an issue. The Nats have the republican vote locked up, along with the cyber bullies and the other unloveliest specimens who have ever infested Scottish public life.
But some decent people have voted Nat. She would not wish to deter them. The rest of us can only hope that they come to their senses. There is so much that is wrong about Scotland these days, but in the long litany of reasons for sadness, we should not forget the Nats’ attempts to spurn the Royal family’s affections.
No one is more devoted to Scotland than the Queen and her family. When they cross the border, they become Scots. Princess Anne goes furthest of all. Not only is she the patron of Scottish rugby, she is prepared to sing Flower of Scotland. The dreichest dirge that ever masqueraded as a national anthem, it sounds like a distressed cow mooing because the milkmaid is late. Yet the Princess Royal sings away. The royal love affair with Scotland is almost two centuries old. It started with George IV, who in effect paid a state visit choreographed by Sir Walter Scott, who virtually invented modern Highland dress. Twenty years later there was a further instalment of royal romance. Prince Albert fell in love with the Highlands: hence Balmoral. He also more or less devised the modern version of deer-stalking. But the Highlands he adored are now in danger. Those mountains and moors may look like the greatest flowering of God in nature, but man played a crucial part, as did money. Since the Prince Consort introduced the southern aristocracy to the Highlands, there has been a steady cash-flow northwards as rich men spend considerable sums on maintaining Highland estates. This is an expenditure of love.
As many landowners have discovered, it is easy to make a small fortune in the Highlands. You just have to start with a large one. All this is now under threat. It has been proposed that anyone who can claim that a landowner is preventing sustainable development will be able to force the said landowner to sell up. On the face of it, that seems harmless. The Scottish landowners I know would be agog to hear ideas for sustainable development, as long as it did not wreck the place. But the Nats are not interested in rational development. They want to wreck the place. They cannot bear the thought that a few hundred rich families own a large percentage of the Highlands.
Put it to a Nat that the current arrangements create jobs, support communities, prevent great houses from falling down — and your protests will be brushed aside. Point out that safeguarding the Highlands and Islands is not just about natural beauty. It is about defending a way of life. The response is implacable: that way of life has no place in the Scotland which we will build.
Scotland has already suffered because of the nationalist upsurge and the threats are multiplying, to the economy and to the landscape. Whatever the Queen’s private feelings, anyone who wishes Scotland well should be gravely worried.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2015
