JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: Consequences? When you're a millionaire old ham with homes on two continents, they just don't matter
If I had to choose a Scot who represented my polar opposite it would be hard to see past the actor Alan Cumming.
If I had to choose a Scot who represented my polar opposite it would be hard to see past the actor Alan Cumming.
I am afraid the American version of The Traitors, which he hosts, is a no-go for me because we are so different that he is unwatchable.
But I discovered this week that we do have something in common: we are both frightened men.
The 60-year-old revealed it was ‘scary’ to live in Donald Trump’s America which is why he plans to spend more time in Scotland.
I have long felt it is scary to live in the SNP’s Scotland.
Indeed, as the Scottish parliamentary election approaches with no sign of power changing hands, I am filled with dread and foreboding.
If I had Mr Cumming’s money, spending more time away from Scotland would do wonders for my nerves.
The actor may wonder, as I do, just how crazy and craven the US President has to become before people finally get his number – why, in his case, the normal rules of politics seem not to apply.
Scots actor Alan Cumming hosts the US version of Traitors
Tartan-clad Cumming claims living in the United States under Donald Trump's Presidency is 'scary'
I wonder exactly the same thing about his beloved SNP.
But here is the key difference. Trump has only three years left to wreak his chaos. The clock is ticking on his Presidency and, with cool heads and fingers crossed, there’s a reasonable chance we’ll ride it out.
In the SNP’s Scotland there is no clock. Time becomes abstract. They have presided over unremitting national decline for a generation and still, come May, will more than likely be rewarded with the call of ‘More, please!’ from voters.
Who is to say that one generation of rule won’t become two or more? Who can confidently predict the threshold at which even supporters of Scottish independence might twig to the appalling damage that has been wreaked on their country?
Mr Cumming told Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast: ‘I wanted to be in a country where I feel my values are more aligned with the actual values of the government and the people.’
He said of the US: ‘It’s scary to live there right now, especially being well known and outspoken.’
This is the same chap who, on being sworn in as a US citizen in 2008, declared: ‘I love New York. My life is here.’
The same one, too, who on being named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2009, stated that he was ‘very proud to be British’.
US President Donald Trump