Diary – Alexander Chancellor

What is the opposite of a riot? It must be the serenity of the Isle of Bute. This island, close to Glasgow in the firth of Clyde, is not merely riot-free, it is almost spookily calm. When I visited it last week for the first time, I heard vague talk of a drug problem in Rothesay, its principal town, but that was the only hint of possible criminality. If all of Scotland were like Bute, Alex Salmond would have been justified in stating that Scotland had ‘a different society’ to that of England, one in which riots did not occur. So little seems to occur on Bute that the local newspaper, the Buteman, finds only matters of almost comic inconsequence to report. I saw two editions of the paper. The first led its front page with the news that Chinese lanterns were putting livestock at risk. A farmer near Port Bannatyne had found the remains of two Chinese lanterns near his herd of cattle and told the Buteman: ‘The lanterns could easily be eaten by cows, and the wire frames could puncture their stomachs and kill them.’ That sounded alarming until it was revealed later in the article that no such occurrence had ever taken place. While English cities were in flames, the fear that cows might start chewing wire from burnt-out Chinese lanterns was the greatest excitement that Bute had to offer.

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The next edition of the Buteman had the touching headline ‘Simple steps to a busier Bute’. Since the appeal of Bute relies to a great extent on its lack of activity, I approached the story with unease. But the island, which has lost a quarter of its population and most of its tourist industry over the past 50 years, is in no imminent danger of becoming busy.