Gerry Hassan: Note to Salmond: power of speech needs work

Here’s a few valuable tips for the First Minister on the eve of his address to the SNP annual conference, writes Gerry Hassan

DEAR Alex, next week you will address the SNP annual conference, closer than ever to what you have strived all your political life for: Scottish independence. You need to give a speech like you have never done before. Here are some suggestions.

1. Stop using the same template to shape your speech. Some of us have noticed that you have a habit of giving a rather similar speech year-in, year-out.

There is a reference to a cultural figure, usually the former makar, Edwin Morgan. Then there is always tribute paid to a prominent left-winger who passed away in the previous year. A year or two ago it was Jimmy Reid, this year it will be Campbell Christie.

Then there is the evoking of “the community of the realm” to showcase our different values and traditions. And finally, just to show you mean business and are radical not conservative, you mention that moral blot on our landscape, Trident.

2. Here’s a thought. Have a look at Donald Dewar’s speech on the opening day of the Scottish Parliament in July 1999. In this powerful oration, Dewar said: “In the quiet moments today, we might hear echoes from the past: the shout of the welder in the din of the great Clyde shipyards; the speak of the Mearns, with its soul in the land.”

This was lyrical and poetic, but also, in its acknowledgement of Wallace and Bruce, the Enlightenment and more, it was the voice of cultural nationalism. It was also, dare I say it, a rather old-fashioned, sentimental nationalism looking to the past.

3. Your nationalism needs to be lyrical at points, have soul and imagination and respectability, but it could be daring. You could reflect back on Donald Dewar’s nationalism and compare it to the nationalism of the mainstream SNP – forward looking, internationalist and of the future. To do this you could address what a self-governing Scotland would be like. Give us a couple of indicative examples: an Oil Fund for the Mind on creativity; a commitment to prioritising the child poverty which blights “forgotten Scotland”. Some parts of our society need to hear you talk more explicitly about injustice, inequality and the fairness you believe in.