Subscribe In fact he is in a helicopter clattering high above the traffic jams
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In fact, he is in a helicopter clattering high above the traffic jams. We both come down to earth at Stansted airport to take a chartered jet to Edinburgh. Destination: Stirling, where Michael Forsyth, Secretary of State for Scotland, is defending a notional majority of 236 votes in a redrawn constituency where Labour needs a swing of only 0.3 per cent.The Great Leader's walkabout in Stirling was amiable but brief, lasting little over 15 minutes. He was running an hour behind schedule, and the shops in Port Street were closing by the time he began shaking hands A keen wind scythed through the crowd, around 300 strong. One woman with a small boy on her shoul-der instructed the infant: "Shout 'boo!'" A Conservative? "No! I'm a nationalist," was the shocked reply.On the fringes of the swirl around the leader, Chicken Tony jumped up and down brandishing a placard with the legend: "Answer the West Lothian Question." The chicken's face was split, the victim of a young woman who tore off his mask and ran away.
Police retrieved it, but muttered: "We have a public order issue here. Move on."It might be thought this was the stuff of fantasy politics, but it got better. An excitable young Tory activist, Alastair Orr, insisted: "We are not going down. Michael Forsyth will be back with a four-figure majority." This was too good to miss. Your correspondent placed a pounds 10 bet with him right there in the street. Payment due on 2 May, Mr Orr.But there was no hostility to TGL Hands were pressed into his as hail began to fall Mrs Wilma Hunter, 46, was ecstatic "It's fantastic," she enthused.
What is? "What's fantastic is his politics, what he's going to do for this country: a fair distribution of wealth, employment particularly for young people."But Mrs Hunter also turns out to be a local government officer, prompting the question: "Are all town hall staff given the day off when there's a whisper that TGL may be in town?" Blair stopped Gail Miller, a mother with twins asleep in a pushchair How old are they? Eight months, she replied And Blair comes over all fatherly Mrs Miller might not vote Labour, however Her husband, Ronald, a business manager, will certainly not "We're Thatcher's children," he grinned. Quite so.Labour's caravan swept on to Glasgow, where the leader stayed in the penthouse Blair Suite of the Marriott Hotel, naturally. Next morning, he took on the notoriously awkward Scottish media. In the Scotsman that morning, Blair had made the striking comparison between a devolved Scottish parliament and the smallest English parish council, and that really got them going.This press corps gave him a much harder time than the grandees of the political lobby of the day before.
On a previous visit north of the border Blair had angrily put down the Scots press pack as "unreconstructed wankers" On this day, he had to explain the inexplicable. Why is it that Labour wants the Scots to have their own parliament, with income tax-raising powers, but promises to veto any attempt to make use of these powers before the year 2002?"Simple," says TGL as if he were talking to simpletons "Having a power is not the same as using a power. There is a power at Westminster for the Chancellor to raise taxes. The fact that we are not going to use that power to raise the basic rate or the top rate of income tax doesn't mean to say that power should not exist.