Anthony J.C. Kerr "A Man of Letters"
Chapter Eight

His political beliefs were very much mirrored in his personal life. That is how I would sum up my father. Everything that he did followed hand in hand with what he sought for Scotland, namely that of independence. His vehicles, he said enabled him to control his destiny just as he sought the right for Scots to have full control over their own affairs.

As a self-employed, translator and author, he knew the risks involved. There could be times when work was sparse. But he never complained, he was always very philosophical about life in general. "Work attracts work" he always used to say when he was in the middle of a heavy load of translations and conferences.

He always used his experiences of travel to effect when he was writing on matters affecting the national question. He sought to bring his own experiences to bear in the quest for self-government. I would suggest that he was a man who sought to make the most of the talents available to him. Everything he did, he put in one hundred percent effort. In this, he lived a full and active life. These were the words that I chose for inscription on the tombstone. It is how he should be remembered. It is an example that others would do well to follow in pursuit of their goals in life.

On behalf of the family, I have chosen heavy emphasis on his political activity in summing up. This is because as I said at the beginning, his political beliefs mirrored his own personal life, and the way he chose to lead it. For him, the two went hand in hand. He saw life as a freedom of expression in thought, word and deed in order to make the most of the resources available to him.

ANDREW J.T. KERR
on behalf of the family.

Interview by: Colin Bell

of Anthony J.C. Kerr & John Wares

"Now in the letters column of the Glasgow Herald the other day, I came across the following ‘little gem’,

"Sir, As a small scale would-be investor, I should be glad of the following information:

a. Are Anthony J.C. Kerr a limited Company?;

b. Do they make a public issue of shares?"

That was signed by Crombie Saunders of Pilling.

Now anyone who habitually reads the letters' columns of the Herald or the Scotsman will immediately share Mr. Saunders's private joke, because of course, it's a rare week when Mr. Kerr's name, and his Jedburgh address are not appended to some letter or other. On anything from the Old Testament, Greek Mythology, Common Market to, really very often, every aspect of Scottish Nationalism.

Mr. Kerr is an absolutely indefatigable correspondent. So I thought we would ask him why? What good does he think all that epistolary effort does. And just to check his answers, I have also invited John Wares, the lucky man who actually chooses the letters that get printed in the Glasgow Herald."

"Anthony why do you write so many letters?"

"I enjoy writing them, and I feel I have something useful to contribute."

"But do you think it does any good?"

"Sometimes."

"Can I just refer that very quickly to John Wares, who after all sits in judgement on your letters.

"John do you think that reader's letters actually sway other reader's opinions?"

"Yes, I think they sometimes can. They often put forward a point of view that they hadn't realised, or an argument they may not have appreciated. I think that they can alter people's opinions."

"Well, presumably Anthony you must believe that you can sway people's opinions or you wouldn't do it?"

"Well I do think occasionally I convince a few people. Or at least I start them thinking, and they take things from there."

"Well how many letters do you write in an average year?"

"I would say I write something over 100, and I get between 70 and 100 published. It's hard to calculate. I don't actually count them as I send them off. "

"Is this mainly to the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman, or do other people enjoy the benefits of your correspondence?"

"Mainly the Glasgow Herald, the Scotsman and local papers in the Borders. Very seldom English papers, occasionally periodicals."

"Well one thing that does occur to me is that if you are going to be writing to papers, in order to check what the subjects that they are discussing are and whether anyone replies to your letters, you must take all the papers?"

"I take the Scotsman, the Herald and two or three papers in the Borders. I buy some of the others occasionally, or read them in the public library."

Back to you John. Anthony is obviously not a regular correspondent as he says, but possibly the most regular in Scotland. Do you like or dislike regular writers?"

"Well, I welcome letters of the calibre of Anthony J.C., because his letters are always good, they are always cogent, they are always saying something worthwhile. Whether it is always wise for us to publish them of course, is a different matter. Because they are so frequent that they do incur certain hostility in other readers who don't write so intelligently and yet think that they have just as much right of publication."

"Anthony, how do you afford to take all these papers and spend all this money on stamps?"

"Well. First of all, buying two papers a day is not unusual. There are plenty of other people who do that. And for instance I don't probably buy an evening paper. I only buy the two morning papers as a rule. Now secondly, I may spend a little less on other things. I don't have to pay a rent on my little flat. I bought it many years ago. I just manage to survive somehow."

"You've done it again. Very beautifully evaded, you have told me all the ways in which you economise, and none of the ways in which the income arrives that you economise on."

"Ah, well the income arises from things like translations, a bit of interpreting here and there. Occasionally I write a book and earn royalties from it."

"When you say translations and interpreting, which languages do you speak?"

"French and English as native languages, and I have also got German, Italian and Spanish and then a few other languages that I don't use for my work."

"Heavens above. And how did you acquire all those?"

"I have always had French, I've always had English. I learnt German by the horizontal method many years ago, and I picked up some other languages."

"What is the horizontal method? Is the horizontal method something I shouldn't enquire into too closely?"

"I think most men know it and some women."

"I see we are in fact into Cora Pearl and 'La Grande Horizontale' are we?"

"That's right."

"I see, thanks very much."

"Very efficient method."

"I'm sure it is. Although perhaps the vocabulary is not as wide as you would need for technical interpretation."

"Well that depends on the other person concerned, doesn't it? If you chose your partner, teacher or whatever intelligently, it's a very effective method."

"I'm sure it is Anthony."

Sir,

Councilors Hamilton, Squair and Turnbull are providing some welcome and reasonable light relief from the grim earnest of "Realpolitick,’ but I am not sure it is doing much for their party.

If they can’t stand together on convivial occasions, and cover up for one another's alleged minor departures from true-blue discipline, how can they expect to be taken seriously when the chips are down and the polling places are open?

If I have correctly understood Councillor Squair, he took the view that the builders' reception was too lavish, and might perhaps be interpreted as an attempt to win further contracts (though he did not say so in as many words), but since it was taking place anyway, he might as well stay on and enjoy it.

Councillor Hamilton seems to have adopted a similar line, while Councillor Turnbull felt it was essential to uphold the honour of the local authority by demanding an investigation - though it is not clear into what, and he has not indicated what should happen once a report is available.

Had they belonged to different parties, I could have understood this as an attempt to gain some sort of electoral advantage.

Since, however, two of them are professed Tories, while the third has recently joined the Unionist Club, it shows a remarkable lack of solidarity. Could it have anything to do with earlier disagreements regarding the choice of a prospective candidate? If so, it bodes ill for their election campaign.

Or is it symptomatic of a general decline in Tory morale? As an ex-Tory - though I have long since given my allegiance to Scotland, and therefore also to the Scottish National party - I think this is indeed possible, not to say likely.

The Conservative party of Churchill, Eden and Macmillan was still a great party, and on the whole a responsible and cohesive one - and in particular I remember Lord Stockton's Premiership as a good time to be alive and a young man.

There were problems, but those who had money and power were generally less arrogant about it, and more compassionate towards those who did not, knowing that their good fortune was just that, and did not necessarily imply any special virtue or moral superiority.

There was also more awareness of being part of a team with a great tradition and a worthwhile purpose - the defence of a way of life.

While that spirit prevailed, I do not think Tory Councillors would have called for an investigation into one another's conduct at a private function. They would have maintained a sense of due proportion, and would have kept the whole thing 'in-house'.

ANTHONY J.C. KERR

Sir,

The closure of Hawick Co-Op is a great loss to the town and to the Borders, but I do not find Mr Luckhurst’s explanation "a direct result of unfettered free-market dogma" altogether convincing.

It would be more accurate to describe it as a consequence of the disastrous mergers between the Scottish and English Co-ops some years ago.

Until then, those who regularly shopped at the Co-Op felt it was their thing. They felt some commitment towards it as shareholders and as local people, and shareholders' meetings were well attended. The merger took decision-making further away and destroyed this sense of involvement: the Co-Op became in effect just another supermarket, which differed from the free enterprise chains only in giving some money to the Labour party (though not, I think, a great deal) and in refusing to sell South African produce.

It did not affect my own shopping habits since I have always preferred to buy groceries from a grocer, meat from a butcher, bread from a baker, etc., only going into a supermarket ("capitalist" or Co-Operative) for a few items which could not be obtained elsewhere: but I think many of the regular customers drifted away.

Had Scottish and local control been retained, customer loyalty would also have been kept up: additionally, it would have been easier for the management to adapt to changing tastes, which have been given by the Hawick manager as one of the main reasons why the store was no longer viable. He did not incidentally specify just how these tastes had changed and why nothing could be done to meet the customers half-way. I cannot believe the mere fact of being in the High Street and therefore at some distance from convenient parking was the reason. Whenever I am in Hawick, I see large numbers of people walking in and out of the shops, and arriving in the central area or leaving it by bus - moreover there are car parks no more than three minutes' walk from the High Street. If they prefer to shop elsewhere they must have other motives.

ANTHONY J.C. KERR

Sir,

Dr Liam Fox cannot be allowed to get away with his attempts to make political capital out of the Wapping riots and recent security leaks.

In the first place, they are not relevant here because the overall issue of who governs Britain - for those who regard it as the major consideration - will be decided elsewhere, in the Tory-Labour and Labour-Tory marginals.

Secondly, and this is too often ignored, the present Government have brought these and similar problems upon themselves. Their strategy has been to write off a whole section of the community in order to spread maximum benefits among their own natural supporters. They have calculated that if they consistently have enough people on their side in the right places, they can retain power more or less indefinitely by democratic means.

Arithmetically, this calculation may well be correct, provided they know when to give way on issues that matter to some of their own voters, for instance student grants. It is however morally wrong and politically dangerous. The danger is that a proportion of those who have been written off will not be reconciled to their fate, and to their inability to obtain redress through the ballot box. They will then try other means, and this has been happening in England.

Furthermore, Government policies have to be implemented, and to some extent worked out, by Civil Servants who are supposed to be equally loyal to whoever holds office at any given time. In the past, this was not too difficult because the Tories were not very right-wing, Labour were not very left-wing, and there was extensive common ground between them. Today the common ground has been eroded away and the gulf has widened. The policies therefore have to be applied, and the secrets kept, by men and women who are increasingly disillusioned with the job they have to do, and sooner or later the ties of loyalty and contractual obligation will snap for some of them. Whether they are right or wrong is open to debate, but largely immaterial; what counts is that it happens, and it happens because the Government are pushing their luck too far. The problem is aggravated by the fact that the present Government apparently have more secrets to hide, or at least are more sensitive about any that escape.

The reason is not far to seek. If you pursue a policy of deliberately spreading the butter among your own people, you have to make some very finely-tuned adjustments. If you spread the butter among 40% of the population, there will be more for those who receive it than if you spread it among 50%, but less than if only 38% get the goodies. On the other hand, with 50% you should certainly win, if you make them happy enough and you don't get some cussed individuals voting on moral issues instead; with 40% you will probably win if the oppositions cancel out in your marginal seats; with 38% it's getting dodgy and with 35% you will probably lose. It follows that anything which causes political embarrassment can be a very serious matter, much more so that it would have been a generation ago.

What do you do if you are faced with such a situation? More or less what the Tories are doing now. First you decide on your target figure for recipients of the spread - in this particular case a little over 40%. Next you ensure that those who benefit from your policies don't turn against you for other reasons - so you try to stop them finding out anything they shouldn't know. Thirdly, since a few of them will perversely vote against their immediate material interests, no matter what is done to convince them or keep them in ignorance, you have to get some votes out of those who stand to lose by voting for you. This means trailing appropriate red herrings before their eyes - the "wider issues", the interests of "Britain-as-a-whole" (= England south of the M62), Liverpool and Lambeth councillors, or anything else that comes to hand. You also try and educate them to accept unemployment as a "fact of life" due to structural and unalterable causes.

But we don't have to fall for that - not in Scotland anyway. For us there is another option - to stand on our own feet as a nation and take our own decisions here, on our own soil, through our own authorities, for our own reasons and using our own resources, which are more than adequate once we regain control over them. It is because we have this Scottish alternative that social and political tensions in this country are not yet as severe as in the most deprived areas of England. This may not last very long, however - if we remain thirled to Westminster much longer, these tensions and their consequences will inevitably spillover into Scotland. We had better get off the Titanic before she sinks.

Dr Fox may think there are other issues more important than Scotland. I don't. This country and its future are our overriding priority.

ANTHONY J.C. KERR
Constituency Press Officer, Roxburgh & Berwickshire SNP.

Sir,

Mrs Ewing is, of course, entirely right. The Wilson-Gallaghan administration of 1974-79 never were serious about devolution, and this is proved by their manifest delaying tactics.

First they brought out a White Paper, wholly redundant as the Kilbrandon Report was itself an adequate basis for discussion. This was followed by a "dummy Bill," which was never intended to become legislation. These preliminaries took up nearly two years - roughly the time Labour still had a theoretical overall majority (though highly vulnerable to accidents, illness, and extreme dissatisfaction on the part of individual MPs). The combined Scotland and Wales Bill was then produced, with many inbuilt defects calculated to ensure its failure. It was allowed to fall through the defeat of the guillotine motion, which the Government did not choose to make an issue of confidence.

Only then did separate Bills for Scotland and Wales appear on the table - Bills which would have been brought out in 1975 if their authors had genuinely intended to set up Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. They were deliberately sabotaged by the Labour anti-devolutionists, notably through the Cunningham Amendment, whose defeat, like the success of the guillotine, was not made an issue of confidence by Callaghan. This shows he and his colleagues were not really committed - a further proof being the fact that none of the saboteurs were disciplined, and one of them is now the Labour leader.

The right time to bring down the Government would probably have been immediately after the Cunningham Clause was added to the Scotland Bill. The difficulty was - so far as I recall - that some Liberals either voted for it or abstained on it, and that a General Election did not suit them at the time, due to the Thorpe affair. Furthermore, they enjoyed occasional support from an Irish Independent, who abstained (though present in the House) on the night they were finally defeated.

His reason was, I think, a personal slight from a senior Labour MP. Had he voted with the Government on that occasion, as he originally intended, the division would have ended in a tie, and Callaghan could have soldiered on a few weeks or months longer.

ANTHONY J.C. KERR

Sir,

Robin Cook, for Labour, and Mrs Shirley Finlay-Maxwell, for the Tories, have made remarkably converging statements (Southern Reporter, January 22). Both assert, in effect, that their two parties are the only valid alternatives to each other and that only a single-party majority Government can work.

The political see-saw of Government and Opposition is an English concept, irrelevant to a small country such as Scotland. It is also years if not generations out of date, harking back to a time when people thought of politics - and of life itself - in terms of the eternal struggle between good and evil, with the angels' side, of course, as their own.

In fact politics is seldom a matter of straight choices between right and wrong. Decisions which involve such a choice are extremely rare: I can only think of three or four which have been taken by British Governments since 1938.

Normally one has to weigh up costs and benefits, practicalities and problems, and finally settle for something that will work after a fashion. Most of the smaller European countries - and Scotland is one of them, though not at present independent - are therefore governed, all or most of the time, by two or three compatible parties, possibly four, which fight each other when a General Election comes round, and then share out the Cabinet seats in rough proportion to their parliamentary strength. The system works very well in Switzerland, though less well in Belgium where parties may be able to co-operate on social and economic issues and then fallout on cultural issues (e.g. the official language in a small group of villages).

On the whole, however, this arrangement makes better use of the available political talent and skills than the English see-saw, which requires a large pool of ability on both sides, and a good deal of common ground between them, if it is to function at all.

This common ground no longer exists. On the one side we have the protagonists of take-over mania and those who use employment as a social discipline to keep the workers (what's left of them), under control, while on the other side are those who boast that the police "got a bloody good hiding" when a constable is cut to pieces with machetes and knives. But although computers can only answer "yes" or "no" (but can do so at dazzling speed) people are not so restricted, and we do not have to let ourselves be programmed by Thatcher and Kinnock and their respective underlings.

There is a better way, which starts by telling the whole lot to get lost because we are going to run our own show here in Scotland. We can then take stock of the situation and work out our own priorities and our own answers.

At this stage we will also have the use of our own resources to finance those answers. Instead of paying for Trident and carrying all of England’s unemployed on our backs with the £10, 000,000 or more of oil revenues which are stolen from us every day.

ANTHONY J.C. KERR

Sir,

I was in Singapore last week and was most shocked to receive on my return news of the death of Anthony Kerr, a long-time comrade and friend in the nationalist movement. It was only a few weeks ago at my New Year's party that we were deep in conversation on the prospects for a revival of the Scottish dimension in the next Parliament.

Anthony's immense commitment never allowed him to slide into bigotry, nor did he treat with anything but respect anybody with whom he conversed or, indeed, debated with in your columns over the years. That he could irritate some of those who regarded themselves as more suited (destined?) for the glittering prizes of office than he aspired to, was evidenced on many occasions by myself in the lengths they went to avoid listening to or reading what he had to say. They would have gained from being less pompous.

He had an intellect and unashamedly used it. This alone distinguished him from that breed of political aspirant who breathes slogans and shouts down opposition. Some otherwise brilliant political minds affect to hide their intelligence in case they awe what they dismissively call "the punters" (though their ideology proclaims them to be the inheritors of the earth). Anthony was incapable of making a point that was not based on the use of rational argument.

He did not use his many gifts to cut, trim or pose in the conventional sense, and he had a closer understanding of what was practical and what was fanciful than many of our "smarter" politicians (of all parties). In our last conversation (as in our first, and most of those in between) he always spoke of "when" rather than "if" Scotland became independent. He always spoke without malice to those who disregarded with him, and with a great patience for those who affected (none too discreetly) not to take him seriously.

Anthony took his life's work seriously. We often disagreed. I often teased him (privately and in print), but I can truly say that, until Scottish politics across the entire party spectrum has more men and women with Anthony's many virtues, his courtesy to others of like mind and opposed, and his clarity of composition in word or in print, we are destined to be in the "if" rather than "when" dimension of his aspirations.

GAVIN KENNEDY

Juist afore his untymelie daith Anthony J .C. Kerr skrievit til me anent Galgach's byordnar spik afore the Battle o the Grampians in August 84 A.D. he thocht that it wad luik fair braw in Scots, an sae ettled at me for ti owreset it, an howpfully hae it prentit i the Scots Independent.

As a linguist Anthony had a gryt interest in Scots an at monie a Nationalist tryst we wad hae a crack anent the leid. He aye spiert at me gin thair wisna a buik that the non-spiker cuid coft ti leir the tung, - efteranawas he pyntit out, ye cuid fin teach yersel buiks oan maist leids.

Sae I wis at the darg o owresettin Galgach's spik whan I read, wi mukkil dule, o his daith, an I can think o nae better tribute ti a Nationalist sic as Anthony J .C. Kerr bit ti cairry out his wiss, an owreset intil Scots the cry for a free Scotland frae nineteen hunner yeir syne. For lyke Galgach his-lane, Anthony J.C. Kerr pit our beloued kintra o Scotland furst an abune aw.

The site o the battle is unkent, bit I share Anthony J.C. Kerr's view-pynt that it maun hae bin near haun Aiberdeen, an that the spik colleckit bi Roman officiars frae prisoners efter the battle gies a fair pictur o whit Galgach said. The Romans wan the battle bit Galgach achievit his aim - thai didna win forrit onie faurer.

PETER WRIGHT

1. "I am a Nationalist because I am a Conservative, and feel that Scotland is worth conserving above all else."

From an article in "The Scotland We Seek", edited by David Rollo.

ON THE NEED FOR REALPOLITIK

2. "Finally I think one enemy is enough. Why give America a vested interest in keeping Scotland British?"

From "The Scotland We Seek", (commenting on SNP Defence policy altered in 1981)

ADDRESSING THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE

3. "You say you are a Scot*, what are you doing about it?" *This remark was first attributed to Donald Stuart-Hamilton a contemporary of my father at Harrow

From "The Scotland We Seek".

ON HIS TRANSLATIONS

4. "You’d be surprised at the number of Scottish women who marry Frenchmen or Germans and come to regret it, but all this provides me with work."

From J.R. Scott’s "Spotlight on Jedburgh’s Man of Letters"

December, 1984. The Southern Reporter.
ON HIS LETTERS

5. "I feel I have got something useful to say. It is, in a sense, my art form. Just as others write poems or short stories, I write letters to the papers". The Southern Reporter, December 1984.

Mr Chairman, friends and fellow-Scots,

I have come as much to listen and to speak, but it is right to start with some kind of explanation of why I am here, hoping to stand as the party's candidate in this Constituency.

I am a Nationalist because I am a Scotsman. No other reason is required. Scotland is a country and therefore ought to be free.

Freedom brings self-respect - it "makes man to have liking" as John Barbour says in the greatest of our poems. It means the right to take our own decisions and if necessary to make our own mistakes, learn from them and do better next time, instead of girning about what somebody else is or should be doing.

It means the power to rebuild our own economy and stop the steady drain of jobs and of young people. It means above all the ability to stand up for ourselves and look the world in the face instead of running away from all the problems and all the choices that have to be made.

We are entitled to this because we are a nation.

But I need say no more about it because it is the faith we all share.

If you select me as your candidate I will make Scotland's freedom the centre-piece of my appeal to the voters of this Constituency. However, I think they will also expect us, as a party, to have something to say about other issues, if only to show that we are relevant in today's world as well as tomorrow's.

I think our message will come across more convincingly if we concentrate on a small number of really important points than if we try to sell a political encyclopedia. I will take your advice and the advice of all the key people I hope to visit in the precampaign period: as of now I think these issues could be:

1) Jobs for our young people. Our country and our communities have no future if our young people have no future.

(i) agriculture, and how it is to be combined with forestry;

(ii) industry - in particular our traditional industries, but also those which have come in recently and those we might hope to attract, as well as service activities such as tourism;

(iii) education and training.

2) Transport and communications with the outside world. This of course has a direct impact on jobs, but it also affects the quality of life for everybody in the Borders.

3) Local government, and how to make it more local.

This again has an impact on jobs - I need only remind you that Starrett's was brought to Jedburgh by the Town Council, which no longer exists. Under the present system of local government, nobody would have been motivated enough or have had the resources to do anything about it.

In each case I will try, in the election campaign itself, to show how these issues relate to independence, and how much more we could do with a Government and a Parliament of our own, working full-time for Scotland instead of treating this country as an afterthought, but I will also try to put across a few ideas which are valid here and now. I won't attempt it tonight, however - time is too short.

Now I will say a little about how I see our campaign in this Constituency.

In realistic terms - unless there is a massive national surge of support - it has to be spread over two General Elections, one to sweep Labour and the Tories aside and establish ourselves as the main opposition, and a second election to take the seat. But it may well be these two elections will not be very far apart.

This campaign will itself also be a two-stage operation - the pre-campaign from tonight until a General Election is actually called, and the formal campaign itself, lasting three or four weeks.

Given the size and shape of this Constituency, most of the work will have to be done in the pre-campaign, and most of the votes we win as a Constituency Association will have to be won during that period: what happens in the last three weeks will be determined very largely by the Party's national effort and by the mood of the people at the time. Our job now is to try and get them into the right mood, as far as we can. This means we have to make ourselves known, make ourselves visible, and make ourselves relevant.

There is no time to go into all the details, but I would see it as my task during this period, if I am selected as your prospective candidate, to do three things mainly:

1) Meet as many as possible of the key people in every community, both in order to win their goodwill and because there is always something to be learnt from them.

2) Cover as much as possible of the landward areas, bearing in mind that we will have to concentrate on the towns and the larger villages during the General Election itself.

3) Attend as many as possible of the social gatherings of all kinds that take place in the Constituency.

Our activities during the election campaign itself will have to be planned nearer the time. They very much depend on the sort of impact we make in the pre-campaign, on the size of workforce we have recruited and of course on the finance available. It will be largely a matter of going where the support is and where the votes are, and of motivating the existing support and bringing it out on the day. The first thing is to run an effective pre-campaign and take things from there.

All this of course is equally relevant whoever is the candidate. What do I specifically have to contribute?

The main consideration, I would suggest, is that I am already here. I have already covered quite a lot of the ground, including most of Roxburgh District, in the course of past campaigns and constituency activities, and a lot of people can recognise me even if I can't recognize them all.

This of course may be an advantage or a disadvantage - some people prefer the candidate to be a remote and slightly exalted person who descends on the constituency like a sort of Greek god out of a machine, but on the whole it helps, given the size of area we have to cover.

Secondly, I have a flexible time-table. I am not tied to a particular workplace or to office hours, and am therefore free to get around and see people during the day.

Thirdly, I have considerable and varied experience, stretching over 40 years, the last 26 being in or alongside this party. There is something to be said for youth and something to be said for experience, but in this particular context, starting from the worst result in Scotland last time, and with a difficult area to cover, I think it helps to have somebody who knows the ropes, or at least most of the ropes.

It goes without saying that I will give my full support and loyalty to either of the other candidates, if he is selected here. That is the way this party works, because we all work for Scotland. I hope nevertheless that you will decide on me as the Party's standard-bearer in this particular field.