Alex Salmond may need to buy a bigger flag

By John McDermott john.mcdermott@ft.com July 8, 2013 12:58 pm

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/10556b1a-e7a8-11e2-9aad-00144feabdc0.html

Andy Murray’s acceptance of mixed identities may help the SNP’s opponents, writes John McDermott

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Iremember clearly the day of the Dunblane shooting. On March 13 1996, our school class, many miles southeast of Andy Murray’s home town, was sent home early by numb teachers to grateful parents. For some of us it was the first recognition of evil in childhood. Events like that just didn’t happen in Scotland. And if Dylan Thomas is right, after the first death there is no other.

Murray has kept largely quiet and always dignified about that day. If all he did yesterday on centre court was to show the value of effort and the downright importance of winning, that would be more than enough. But for a certain generation there was something profound in victory too. Now there is a role model.

Much will be expected of Murray as Scotland prepares for its referendum on independence in 2014. Since his comment that he supports the other side against England football teams, he has maintained a typically pithy approach to questions of national identity, describing himself as proud to be both Scottish and British.

In his televised post-match interview he talked of himself as the “first British winner” in 77 years. That made Alex Salmond’s bout of saltire-waving all the more silly. (Does he always carry a flag around with him?) The popularity of Scotland’s first minister is often exaggerated but it is vital to his Scottish National party’s cause. Murray’s humble acceptance of mixed identities may come to be symbolic for the other side.

If so, Salmond might need a bigger flag. It is often said that a shared belief in British institutions – empire, Protestantism, the welfare state – helped subdue a single Scottish identity. Yet one of the under-appreciated stories of the years since devolution is how the SNP has fostered the rise of distinctly Scottish institutions. It has been aided by rising euroscepticism and welfare reforms south of the border.

Murray, a sporadically grouchy England-based international tennis player, will probably run from any notion that he is set to become a political symbol. Presuming his registered address is somewhere near SW19, he won’t have a vote in 2014. No matter. He is already a symbol – a reminder that Scotland’s greatest exports are Scots themselves. What he says about his own identity will influence others’.

Yesterday Murray was asked if he had a message for Dunblane. His negative reply was taken by many as characteristic petulance. I’m tempted to think it is because he knows that it is more than just a town. He is no longer just any Scot. His particularly stereotypical reticence will be put to the test in the coming year.