During our annual odyssey around the Scottish Highlands, I read Tears of the Rajas, Ferdinand Mount’s eloquent indictment of imperial expansionism in India. One of Ferdy’s themes is that the British lived in the country without ever attempting to make themselves of it. How far is that true of sporting visitors to Scotland? The SNP’s persecution of landowners gains traction from the fact that guests in shooting and fishing lodges encounter only keepers, gillies, stalkers. We disport ourselves within a social archipelago utterly remote from the mainland of the society in which it lies. In our defence, however, that is what tourists do everywhere in the world, much to the advantage of host nations. We must wait to discover whether Ms Sturgeon and her comrades hate tweedy foreigners so much that they will forgo our cash — and that of proprietors who spend tens of millions employing people and doing things that would otherwise become charges on the public purse.
Yet the sums paid to landowners who host windmills or build hydroelectric plants make one stutter. David Cameron has never had a credible energy policy. Billions are squandered on green nonsense, while our lights are likely to flicker in the 2020s because a cynical prime minister is heedless of the fact that only old technologies can fulfil the nation’s longer-term power needs.
This is a diary mostly about friends, because the holiday season has been spent happily among them. On Sunday I spoke at the 70th birthday party of my oldest, Nigel McNair-Scott. I not only love him and his wife Anna, but also admire them boundlessly. She has served forever on Hampshire County Council. Nigel has done many things well outside his business career, as a promoter of good causes including the Conservative party.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in