Britain | Bagehot

Claiming Andy

Scottish sportsmen are not playing ball with Scottish nationalists

AS ANDY MURRAY won yet another agonising, interminable rally to break serve in the Wimbledon final on July 7th, a strangled cry rang out across Centre Court—“Freedom!” It echoed the blood-curdling roar of that revered Scottish nationalist Mel Gibson, shortly before he was hanged, drawn and quartered in the Hollywood blockbuster “Braveheart”.

Three hours later, Mr Murray became the first British man to win Wimbledon for almost eight decades. Oddly, this meant his view of Scottish independence suddenly mattered. He is a Scot, who now sits at the pinnacle of British sporting celebrity. And with a referendum on Scottish independence due to be held in Scotland next year, nationalists and unionists are hunting for celebrity endorsements. Even as the 26-year-old lifted his arms in victory, a political fight for his allegiance broke out. Watching in the Royal Box, David Cameron, the tennis-loving prime minister (and leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party), applauded with ruddy-faced gusto. Behind him, Alex Salmond, the independence-seeking first minister of the Scottish government, pulled a Scottish Saltire from his wife’s handbag and flapped it madly over the prime minister’s head.

The tennis star’s view of the matter is unclear. As a teenage prodigy, Mr Murray, who hails from Dunblane—near the site of a great medieval Scottish military victory, at Bannockburn—suggested he would support any team in the 2006 football World Cup except England’s. South of Gretna Green, this did not go down well. Many English thought Mr Murray, a dour fellow, a typically resentful Scot. His perfect balance on the tennis court, to adapt an old joke, suggested he had chips on both shoulders.

But Mr Murray has since done much to assuage his critics. After winning a gold medal last year at the Olympic games—in which, unlike football tournaments, Britain fields a single team—he draped himself in the Union flag. He has said nothing to indicate he wants Scottish independence. “I don’t think you should judge the thing on emotion but on what is best economically for Scotland,” he said earlier this year. “I am proud to be Scottish but I am also proud to be British.”

That must have reassured Mr Cameron, who says Mr Murray should now be knighted. And, because almost everyone loves a winner, his formerly begrudging English fans are now legion. By the end of his victory on Centre Court against Novak Djokovic, a Serbian, the crowd was chanting “We ALL love you Andy!” Polling by YouGov also points to this shift. Early on in the tournament, 52% of English respondents viewed Mr Murray primarily as Scottish and only 36% saw him as British. After he won it, 48% saw him as a true Briton and only 41% mainly as Scottish. But their hero could forsake them yet. On July 8th Mr Murray said he had not made up his mind on the referendum question and would pronounce on it when he had. “I’m going to get asked about it all the time,” he said. “I will think about it, speak to some people and try to see what is best for the country.”

Why should any politician care what Mr Murray decides? True, he is a very popular Scot. “There would not have been many Scottish television sets not tuned to the tennis on Sunday,” said Alistair Darling, the Scottish Labour MP leading the Unionist campaign, longingly. Presumably, they included a set belonging to a priest in the western Highlands who, while saying mass on the morning of the game, instructed Bagehot’s parents-in-law to pray that a “tiny but debilitating accident” might befall Mr Djokovic. Even so, Mr Murray’s views will not affect the result of the Scottish poll, because celebrity endorsements never do, even when they are much closer than this one will be.

Even in big countries, like India and America, where the increased difficulty of building name recognition can make the power of celebrity politically potent, its effect tends to be exaggerated. India’s film and cricket star candidates only rarely win seats that their parties would otherwise lose. And there is, in fact, almost no danger of the Unionists losing the referendum. Over a year of polling suggests two-thirds of Scotland’s residents—the only people eligible to vote—will choose to maintain the 300-year-old status quo. Mr Salmond’s stunt with the Saltire, in a bastion of the British establishment, was not so much threatening as a sign of desperation. Mr Salmond has correctly identified a need to improve his roster of celebrity endorsers. The most famous are the actors Sir Sean Connery and Brian Cox, neither of whom has lived in Scotland for years. Perhaps it is easier to accept Mr Salmond’s claims about the fiscal policies of an independent Scotland at face value if you are rich and elsewhere.

The nationalism racket

The arguments over Scottish independence have long pitted emotion, which wants freedom, against economics, which suggests keeping the status quo. Scottish sports stars change this calculation, by giving a subtler repudiation of nationalism. Mr Murray is a Scottish sports star who lives in England and has taken particular delight in winning a revered British tournament that is hosted by the All England Club.

That is an appropriate metaphor for the ambiguous blend of dual nationalities that is British identity. Scotland’s 12 Olympic medal-winners provide others. Despite Mr Salmond’s hapless effort to rebrand them as “Scolympians”, they were as committed to the British team as any of its other members. So, it was apparent, in rousing Scottish support for Greg Rutherford, Jessica Ennis and other English athletes, were most Scots. Almost all the Scolympians, moreover, turned out to be based in England, for its superior access to sports facilities and expertise. One of them, Sir Chris Hoy, Britain’s greatest Olympian, suggested they would find it harder to succeed in an independent Scotland.

That Mr Salmond should try to co-opt sporting heroes to his cause is understandable. But it is doing him no favours.

Economist.com/blogs/bagehot

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Claiming Andy"

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