Tailcoat and top hat helped me to a glorious last place

IN 1970, the late Jack Paterson, English teacher at Tain Academy, asked me to be the Tory candidate in the school’s mock general election. I was the youngest candidate and came bottom of the poll with 18 votes.

"Not surprising", some of my school friends wryly commented; and the result may have also had something to with the fact that I mobbed the whole thing up by wearing a tailcoat and top hat, little realising that the same toff pose would come to dog two former Oxford University Bullingdon Club members — namely the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London, David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

Anyway, I lost — but what I want to touch on here is what happened to the other candidates. As a snapshot in time it is instructive.

That June afternoon the SNP won, Labour came second, the Liberals were third and yours truly brought up the rear. All very interesting, you might say, only a mock election in a school, but then we come to what happened in the real general election several days later, importantly the very first election in UK history where 18-year-olds had the vote.

In the Ross and Cromarty constituency, as with the Tain mock election, the SNP surged. Not by enough to win the seat, but enough to establish a permanent presence and reduce the Liberal vote – an overall reduction that enabled the Conservatives to overtake and win the seat. Liberal MP Alasdair Mackenzie, who had a majority of over 2000 in the previous 1966 election, was out and by the next Christmas, poor man, he was dead.

I believe that the connection was there, that the school result portended what was to be a crucial factor in the general election result, the SNP surge.

In addition, there probably was a clear link between pupils voting in Tain Academy and some of their slightly older brethren casting their 18-year-old votes for the very first time. I can’t absolutely prove it, I do admit, but I most strongly suspect it.

During the following years (despite the mid-1970s SNP juggernaut "It’s Scotland’s Oil" nearly shaking the Conservative MP Hamish Grey’s grip of the Ross and Cromarty seat), the future seemed secure.

Following the result of the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, the SNP vote fell back sharply in that year’s general election and Grey was re-elected comfortably ahead of all his rivals.

Then we had the 1983 general election; an election when the Conservatives swept to a huge victory across the UK – and in Ross and Cromarty (and now Skye too) Hamish Grey was unexpectedly voted out; the Tories were beaten, the SNP came bottom of the poll, and with the support of the Liberals a young red-haired fellow made his first appearance, Charles Kennedy.

My second point is that the Highland voters have always had the potential to deliver a surprise – and the Ross, Cromarty and Skye result certainly was one. The joke goes that the following day Hamish Grey rang Maggie Thatcher to tell her the bad news.

"Prime Minister, I am afraid that I have lost my seat…"

"Oh Lord, Hamish!" said Maggie.

"Thank you, Prime Minister, that will do nicely" — for a few days later Maggie Thatcher did indeed make him a lord.

It was on a par with the famous (infamous?) 1945 result in Caithness and Sutherland when the Conservatives lost the rest of the UK, but won those two northern counties.

This time Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberal Party, was out. He had been the MP for the constituency since 1922. No-one saw that result coming, least of all the great Sir Archibald himself.

It is fascinating to speculate what the independently-minded Highland voter will do in the voting booth; it ain’t necessarily the same as one in the Central Belt.

I mean, look at the way Bob Maclennan held onto his Far North seat, election after election, almost regardless of changes of government and what was happening elsewhere in the country. Bob Mac’s grip was sure.

In less than three months, another group of young people will be given the vote, this time 16 and 17-year-olds in the Scottish independence referendum. This is what set me thinking about the 1970 general election when the 18-year-olds first voted.

Will the results of the mock independence referendums being held in many schools in Scotland prove to be similar straws in the wind, as was the mock election in 1970 when I crashed to defeat? We shall see. If nothing else, we live in most interesting times.

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