May we one day see the return of bonnie 'Prince' Charles?
“HERE – what did you do on Charles?!”
I spluttered and protested. And then was mightily relieved to discover that the question was aimed at me in jest – and in deadly earnest at some further south.
This was the 2007 Scottish general election, and this was me knocking on a door in Kinlochbervie.
For the NT’s sister paper, the John O’Groat Journal, I recently penned a column about the best of times and the worst of times during my 12 years as an MSP.
What I didn’t mention in it, but will now, was a bad time that only comes to mind as I reflect on last week’s Scottish general election.
Ever since I first met him properly, face-to-face, I have always had a huge amount of time for Charles Kennedy. Indeed within two hours of having met him, I made my way to Dingwall and joined the party. That was just how big an impression he made on me.
He is the boy from next door, but with common sense and people skills that are quite extraordinary: “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch” – Rudyard Kipling’s famous line perfectly summed up Charles for me.
He was the crofter’s son with ability which would take him to the very top.
And so they did – and he took my party with him; to successes and pinnacles that we could only dream of during the dog days, like the June 1989 Euro election result when my party came fourth with six per cent of the vote.
Winning 62 seats in the 2005 general election was a personal triumph for Charles.
Not since the 1920s had the party such a number of MPs in the House of Commons – and it was to prove to be a number that the party fell back from last year when 57 MPs were elected.
And yet by December 2005, less than seven months later, there were murmurings of discontent about Charles’ leadership.
“He likes a drink, don’t you know...”
Sitting in my Holyrood office I was incensed – so much so that I sought out Brian Taylor, the political editor of BBC Scotland, and told him that if any news broke about Charles being asked to go, then I would be more than happy to go on camera and defend him.
“I might just hold you to that”, was Brain’s reply.
Christmas and the New Year came and went – and then during the first days of January things started to happen and the BBC called me. I remember feeling almost physically sick as I drove to Inverness to give the interview.
But it was too late; and despite my impassioned pleas, it was clear that the party’s big battalions had lined up against him.
I had a call from Charles’ press secretary and she told me that things were looking really bad.
Shortly after that he resigned.
That, for me, was the worst of times as an MSP. I was just so depressed that such talent, someone people genuinely engaged with, almost the anti-politician with his dram, fags and chuckle, could be cast from the chariot of MPs’ ambitions. It annoys me still.
But, going back to Kinlochbervie, I take great comfort from two things.
The question that I was asked was absolutely indicative of a Highland-wide disgust at what had been done to Charles.
People didn’t like it one little bit. Charles had then, and has today, a following in the Highlands – and indeed right across the UK – that is special. I hope that he takes comfort in that knowledge.
He will always be much loved.
The second warming thought is this – as we see a dramatically different political set-up in Scotland, with all three opposition leaders feeling that they had to resign as a result of last week’s results, might there be a chance of the day for Charles returning? I wonder.
Of course there is a wonderful parallel with Prince Charles Edward Stewart. When everything went wrong for him in 1746, when he had a price on his head that would have made any betrayer rich, not one person in the Highlands betrayed him.
After Culloden they drank to the return of the prince. So do I today.
