21 Aug 2013 04:10:49
It was a frail figure who gingerly made his way on to the stage at the Edinburgh international book festival, dragging his left leg as he supported himself on a stick, his left arm hanging stiffly beside him. But there could be no doubts about Andrew Marr's agility of mind. During his first public appearance since the stroke he suffered in January, he enthralled his audience with a razor-sharp, often hugely funny analysis of Scotland and the UK's recent history – and its possible future.
The broadcaster and historian said he was very worried by the tone of the Scottish independence debate. "It's getting very aggressive. I would posit that, whatever your view, there is no one here who is a traitor. There is nobody who is an idiot – well there are plenty of idiots but there is nobody who deserves to be denounced, cast out and told they are not really Scottish on the basis of their view. Whatever happens, you are all going to have to live together."
Marr said that if Scotland became independent he would carry a Scottish passport. "I am a Scot," he said.
He acknowledged there was anglophobia in Scotland, saying it could be toxic at times. "There is very strong anti-English feeling and everybody knows it, there always has been. If you go back to the origins of the SNP and the origins of the debate about home rule, anglophobia was as well-entrenched then as it is now. It can become serious, it can become toxic."
Marr said he was amazed at how little attention the Scottish referendum on independence was receiving in England. "It is almost funny that the Scottish case is not discussed down south at all. People believe the opinion polls that it is going to be overwhelmingly 'no'. I doubt that very much. I think it's going to be much closer than the polls and [the psephologist] Nate Silver suggest."
Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP, was bound to have a masterplan for the 12 months leading up to the referendum on 18 September next year, Marr said: "He is some kind of political genius," he said, adding that the notion that Salmond might fade away politically after an overwhelming no vote was "beyond ordinary physics".
The ramifications for the whole of the UK if a yes vote was carried could be vast, he said. "[The vote] is going to be closer than we think but people in England haven't really come to terms with what it would mean," he said. "It would mean the loss of Trident … and because of the loss of population and of Trident, the rest of the UK would lose its permanent seat on the security council in the UN and its voting power inside the EU would be radically slashed."
He warned that there had been too little discussion about Scotland's future after the referendum, whatever the outcome. His prescription for the future health of Scotland involved a radical approach to its ancient universities, bringing up standards to those they enjoyed in the 1830s and 40s, when they were "far better than Oxford or Cambridge and tougher than anyone else's".
"I'd like to see Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen universities being radically different from universities down south, offering tougher courses, starting with philosophy. If it worked [in the 1830s], it might work again," he said.
On the texture of Scottish nationalism, he said he had been struck by what happened when Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence party, "got such a rough time" on a recent visit, "particularly since it was hardcore nationalists who were accusing him of raging nationalist sentiment".
"Now, as I understand it, whatever you think of him, Nigel Farage is trying to get independence for Britain from Brussels, which is not necessarily totally different from trying to get independence for Scotland from London. But your neighbour's nationalism is always toxic and xenophobic and your nationalism is always good."
Speaking about the new introduction to his book The Battle of Scotland, he noted one rather extraordinary typo arising from his use of "crap" voice-recognition software, since he can no longer type after his stroke. At one point, he uses the expression "waving the sole tyre". He meant "waving the Saltire".
Nor was Marr above poking gentle fun at his old employer, the Scotsman newspaper. Speaking of reading a recent edition, he said that it "seems to have been taken over by surrealists". He noted two especially enjoyable headlines: "Scottish councils save the planet – England lags behind", and "Shackleton's ship not eaten by molluscs, scientists claim".
