Salmond's airs and graces

John

He was always a greasy, pretentious little prat.

Martin

What is pompous about it? Martin

Silent Hunter

And there was I thinking that you don't get pointless articles in the Spectator Blog.

(sigh)

Sorry.....is there a 'point' to this?

Ian

I think you'll find it's

'Yours, for Scotland'

Which is extremely common in Scotland. It's a shame most in Westminster don't have a clue about Scotland's traditions.

TrevorH

Common? Maybe amongst nationalists.

But maybe Salmond has decided to invent his own grand valediction.

Thomas

I think Ian is correct, he probably did write "Yours for Scotland". But I can't imagine where the idea that it's a common Scottish tradition came from.

Salmond first used it in his resignation letter, the first time he resigned as leader of the SNP. Happily it did not catch on. It seems to have been resurrected a few months ago and it's still not catching on.

Amusingly, almost every Google result (all 47 of them) seems to have been written by Salmond.

Ian

My grandfather would often use the valediction 'Yours for Scotland' or 'Yours aye' in his letters.

Tankus

next its ...

"freeedddoooommmm
yours
Salmond the brave"

John MacLeod

What a fuss over nothing. "Yours for Scotland" has been used among Nationalists for as long as I can remember (and I joined the SNP in 1985) and, while I have never used it myself, it's a "thing indifferent" - what psychologists call, I think, "phatic" communication; the sort of cosy, meaningless things we say more than we think, like "How do you do?" While he has never been backward in coming forward, Alex has vested the office of First Minister with a zest and standing that quite eluded his dull, bumbling predecessors, and made our wee country walk tall. I guess the Kevin Maguires of this world find that hard to handle.

Charlie T

Why sould any right minded person give stuff what the boorish Maguire thinks about anything?
He isnt any sort of objective journalist.Just a shill and a huckster for the Labour party.

Craig Strachan

John Macleod:

"What a fuss over nothing. "Yours for Scotland" has been used among Nationalists for as long as I can remember"

Yes, it is a traditional Scottish valediction with a long history, dating all the way back to the U.K. release of Braveheart in 1995, and is still most popular amongst the type of folk who fair loved that fillum.

Silent Hunter

Perhaps James Forsyth will be more careful in future when he uses the word 'pompous'.......it might rebound on him. LOL

OK....Can we please get back to more important matters like the Glasgow East by-election and why no one seems to be investigating the £500,000 of taxpayers money wasted on a crooked Labour MP?

Not to mention ELEVEN crooked Labour Councillors in Glasgow.

Someone

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