Can we have a bit of laugh down in the churning engine-rooms that forge the indepedent Scottish nation of the future? But of course we can! An arch-though-empirical piece for the Guardian's G2 special on Scottish independence, focussing on the celebrity/grandee politics of the last Scottish election (and the next Scottish referendum). I'm pantomiming for the Londoners occasionally, so apologies for that in advance. Original here, and here's the Guardian's cut.
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Given a clear choice, you might prefer to see as many degrees of separation as possible between Angelina Jolie and Alex Salmond. But as they say up here, nae luck.
One of the most notable celebrity endorsements (out of many) for the Scottish National Party in this last victorious election was Mark Millar, Scottish comix supremo and originator of her superhero movie vehicle Wanted. So steel yourself for a thumbs-up, three-headed picture from a tartan-fringed red carpet sometime soon, featuring the expansive politician the Tweeters call Maximum Eck.
Alongside the postcode-by-postcode battle for votes in Scotland's general election on May 5, there was an equally vigorous campaign - speed-dial by speed-dial - to secure the Scotterati (they're like the glitterati, only grumpier). And just like the democratic vote, the SNP managed a veritable celebrity landslide.
One by one, the stars crashed down on the side of independence - or at least, of Alex Salmond. The Proclaimers and Sean Connery as usual, of course, but joined this time by the equally Munro-like cragginess of Brian Cox, who (like Mark Miller) told a plausible conversion tale about his shift from old Labour loyalties to new Nationalist futurism. One real coup was Midge Ure, famously indifferent about Vienna but Geldof's under-heralded partner in Live Aid, who expressed his support for Salmond: "Anyone who can give Jeremy Paxman a good run for his money is OK in my books".
Alan Cumming (see graphic above) did possibly the flounciest political endorsement ever on the SNP's YouTube channel, at the very least securing the Edinburgh Festival Fringe vote. (Incidentally, every clip was introduced by a sting which suggested a vote for the Nationalists was like riding on the back of Fireball XL5. There are many irrepressible young uber-geeks at Party HQ). Jack Vettriano, the super-successful but faintly seedy painter of 50's types in suspenders, also climbed on board.
And as for Scottish literateurs, with those at the mountaintop (novelist Alasdair Gray or national poets Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead) all long-term, left-wing independence supporters, it's difficult to look down the slopes of the field and see too many who would dissent from that position (crime novelist Ian Rankin plumped for the Scottish Greens, but they want a free Scotland anyway).
For Scottish Labour, Man Utd manager Alex Ferguson was again dragged out to beat the drum for the People's Party - but was effectively countered by ex-Rangers supremo David Murray proclaiming his support for the First Minister, along with hundreds of other notables in the business and entrepreneurial community.
Many analysts identify Labour's credibility collapse in this election to be the moment when their leader, the eponymous Iain Gray, fled from street protestors and hid in a Subway sandwich shop. But just as semiotically gormless were the images of Gray flanked by Eddie Izzard and Ed Miliband, all of them babbling on about the "Tory threat" to Scotland (when you could fit all the Tories MSPs in Scotland into a small Greggs bread van, with treacle scones to spare). Nice London boys, to be sure, but hardly resonant in Sauchiehall Street.
Why did corralling large herds of the Scotterati matter for the SNP? Cultural hegemony, as old Gramscians in the rival party might mutter. For Salmond's fiendishly-together strategists, it wasn't so much about detoxifying the Nationalist brand, as turning it into what the Saatchis call a "lovemark" - a vote for them becoming an expression of confidence in, and optimism about, Scotland's prospects. Capturing a broad swathe of the McFirmament was crucial to this legitimising project - and if they could have gotten more, they would have.
Interesting, then, to note those who were either chucking stones at the Nationalist bus, or staying silent behind their mirror-shaded publicists. Writer Andrew O'Hagan called the SNP a "parcel of rogues" on their first victory in 2007, though kept his counsel this time round. Billy Connolly too has chucked abuse at the Scottish Parliament as raising "anti-English" sentiment in the past - again, he was invisible at this election.
Ewan McGregor is on record as actively embracing his British identity, Gerard Butler as actively embracing everything else with a pulse, and LA Scot Craig Ferguson (currently contending with David Letterman as the king of late-night) plays up his Caledonian roots for absurdist laughs.
Edinburgh-based JK Rowling is a known friend of Sarah and Gordon Brown, and made a £1 million donation to the UK Labour party in 2008, but again kept her head down in 2011. Annie Lennox is doing such sterling work saving the entire world from HIV/Aids, dictatorships and war, you'd hardly want her to be bothered with anybody's cheap nylon rosette.
And as for the hipper Scottish musicians like Glasvegas, Franz Ferdinand, Paulo Nutini... well, a cloud of intoxicants and industrial-strength narcissism-stroke-irony are not the strongest drivers of political commitment, one way or another. As they once didn't quite say about Mick Jagger: who would break a midgie on the wheel?
Now that the SNP has its majority, and its aspirations towards independence, they'll be working "as if in the early days of a better nation" (to polish up the Alasdair Gray quote once more). It's all committee work and tough, sandwich-filled meetings with Whitehall civil servants now, and not about pointing your steadicam at gushing, late-comer luvvies.
And of course, nat-lib enthusiasm can be catching. When Alicia Keys played Glasgow in May 2010, invoking her Scottish mum, she urged the audience to "never stop fighting for your freedom, Scotland!"
But also remember that glamour is an old Scots word, meaning "magic, enchantment, spell". The politics of hope and aspiration that the Nationalist victory has unleashed still needs its exemplars and articulators, from happy actor bunnies to morose and brooding Booker prize contenders. Expect to see a new recruitment drive when the date settles for the independence referendum, towards the end of the current Holyrood parliament.
Alicia, Angelina, Jay-Z, Mark Miller and god knows who else on the steps of the UN in New York on 2015, as Maximum Eck secures his seat at the ultimate top-table event? As the man might say himself: bliss it is in this very dawn to be eating pies. All of them.
Loving: Tim Flannery's Here On Earth (visionary), Kurt Elling's perfect version of Norwegian Wood (bastard), Bookforum.com's ideas-blog Omnivore, iPlayer (an inexhaustible stash for this political junkie), Blytheswood Hotel (perfect hang-out for Glasvegans. Different from other vegans).