THE revelation that Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancée Carrie Symonds and their baby son Wildred are to take a fortnight’s holiday in Scotland from next weekend has got the Jouker wondering just exactly where they could be going.
Purely in the spirit of welcome and absolutely without the help of VisitScotland we’ve come up with some locations that might suit the PM’s taste for adventure. They will obviously want to get away from it all and go somewhere the paparazzi will not dare to follow, so that rules out 99% of the country.
He’s just been to Orkney and to Moray – to see his chum Dougie Ross, of course – so we can rule them out, too. And somehow we can’t see them in a single end in Glasgow city centre so we have had to look elsewhere.
He could do a bit of an adventure playground research holiday in Greenock Town Centre in Inverclyde; Carntyne West and Hagill in Glasgow; Ferguslie Park in Paisley; Alloa South and East in Clackmannanshire; Buckhaven, Denbeath and Muiredge in Fife; and Cliftonville in North Lanarkshire. The alert among you will have spotted that according to the Scottish Government, these are the half-dozen most deprived areas in Scotland – it would be a "see how the other half live" jaunt, and we don’t think Old Etonian Boris would be up for that, somehow, especially now that the price of Buckfast has risen.
No, he would be much better off going for a bit of isolation. Rockall springs most readily to mind as it’s the furthest bit of Scotland from anywhere, but the accommodation is pretty poor – non-existent, actually – and those pesky Irish might just use the PM’s presence to invade and claim the territory they consider to be theirs.
Far better to avoid a possible international incident and camp out on St Kilda. It’s a World Heritage site, after all, and there are some military types resident there so the PM could always borrow their toilets as the National Trust for Scotland has closed down their bogs due to the coronavirus pandemic. But a captive audience of a million would surely be attractive, even if puffins and other seabirds don’t have the vote yet.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson to ‘head to Scotland’ for two-week family holiday
We strongly recommend Gruinard, the so-called anthrax island situated between Gairloch and Ullapool. In a biological weapons experiment it was deliberately contaminated with anthrax during World War II, and 80 sheep died even though they had not declared war on the UK. After decontamination it was declared safe in 1990. Wouldn’t it be a lovely gesture by the PM to pitch his tent there and show that the whole of the Precious Union is perfectly safe?
There’s a few other islands we could suggest. Why not Inchconnachan in Loch Lomond, currently on the market and a snip at £500k. There used to be wallabies on the uninhabited island, but they emigrated during the Government’s ‘hostile environment’ phase, allegedly. The good people of the nearby Vale of Leven, which used to be known as Little Moscow, might possibly object to the ultimate Tory in their proximity, but that’s a small price to pay for enjoying the beauties of the Loch.
Inch Kenneth off Mull is an ideal holiday home but may be haunted by the ghost of Unity Mitford, the aristocratic Nazi-lover who shot herself in the head at the start of World War II but survived. She took ill on the island which was owned by her family and died in Oban aged 33 from meningitis caused by the bullet still inside her skull. Wouldn’t want all that right-wing history being raked up, so probably not ideal for Boris.
Scarba is our last recommendation. It’s a lovely wee island just north of Jura, with its very own spectacular whirlpool, Corryvreckan, that’s well worth a visit. Just don’t take the wife and bairn… One thing to remember, PM, is that we are doing lockdown things differently here in Scotland, and that dreadful woman in Bute House might just close the Border and trap you here for an extended holiday. And don’t count on her for a few nights at her wee but n’ ben.
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