The Lorettonian Curse

Now that I think about it, Simon Heffer’s broadside against Caledonia-dire-and-rotten, missed one obvious target. Sure, Alastair Darling is a much-ridiculed, much-villified Chancellor of the Exchequer but so too was the last-but-one Scottish Chancellor. Remember Norman Lamont? He may have represented an English constituency but that only emphasised how far he’d travelled from his Shetland roots. Just as Darling is presiding – if that’s the applicable term – over the current financial apocalypse, so “Peerie Norrie” was the bluffer in charge during the last economic debacle: Black Wednesday.

I think it unfair, however, to blame Scotland writ large for this sorry duo. Not when there’s a smaller, handier target. Both Darling* and Lamont are products of Loretto  – Musselburgh’s finest private educational establishment penitentiary. The lesson is obvious: just as Mrs Worthington was advised not put her daughter on the stage, so future Prime Ministers ought to be wary of appointing Lorettonians to any financially-sensitive cabinet post.