ONE of the most unedifying remarks of the 2014 campaign must surely have been "a patriotic vote is a No vote". It hardly ought to need saying that thousands upon thousands of patriots voted: some for independence, others for the Union; all, it is probably fair to assume, out of a various notion of what was best for the country they loved. And yet Gordon Brown, with scant regard either for the integrity of close to half that electorate or for the cautionary wisdom of Samuel Johnson, managed in the space of a few words to take the last refuge of a scoundrel.
READ MORE: Gordon Brown claims indy debate could spark '50 years Scotland-England conflict'
Or so I thought at the time. It turns out this week that he was actually nowhere near the last refuge back then. His new low is on a par with William Hague’s supremely irresponsible moment in the Commons when, during the delicate infancy of the Good Friday Agreement, he chose to go for a cheap political point by accusing Tony Blair of betraying the people of Northern Ireland. Sometimes there comes a moment when you realise that an individual is, quite simply, not fit to hold public office. Gordon Brown’s "50 years of conflict" was just such a moment.
Michael Bell
Kirkwall, Orkney
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