AT THE CRUCIBLE SCOTLAND: A POLITICAL ROADMAP

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Apr 8, 2007 | by Torcuil Crichton

'SOME disagree, but I think it's part of an politician's job to facilitate community campaigns like that, " says Salmond.

"People know and acknowledge these things." We've all seen and heard Salmond bluffing and huffing over the years, but this time he seems to be genuinely happy. "Remember, it's got to be enjoyable too, " he says. "Fighting a marginal again, it fair gets the blood flowing." The bucolic image of the constituency is changing quickly. Oil-soaked Aberdeen long ago created a huge and wealthy commuter belt out to rural Aberdeenshire. You see them, morning and evening, snaking their way in and out, one occupant per car, to Furryboots City. It's not all boom time you can buy the Big Issue outside Boots in Inverurie, but at Thainstone mart on Friday morning the money changes hands in the blink of an eye.

The mart is the biggest indoor livestock auction in Europe, and the auctioneer rattles through lots at the speed of light.

It's so quick, all nods and winks, that it's hard to tell who's buying what.

Discerning the politics is just as difficult.

Although the gamble on Gordon is going to be crucial, most people haven't focused on an election yet.

"I think Salmond will make it, because everyone's so fed up with the other lot, " says Susan, a medical researcher who's come to auction an orphan lamb but forgot to tag it.

George Wordie, at the store cattle sales, violently disagrees. "That man, he's a recipe for disaster, " says the octogenarian. "Anyone but him." Stephen Singer is more interested in the ewe prices, which are not good. "I'm so busy with the lambing that when I come in at night, the news might be on but I don't take it in. Not yet anyway." It's the same message on the doors from Port Elphinstone to Ellon. Too early to tell, there's a long and hard campaign ahead. Head spinning from politics and auction prices, the music on the car radio reminds me what I really ought to do: head for Lonmay, whence Andrew Presley left Scotland in 1745 to settle in North Carolina. Nearly 200 years later, in January 1935, his direct descendant Elvis Aron Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. The rest is rock'n'roll history, but you'd never know it from anything in Lonmay.

A boilersuited Denis McDonald looks up and down the row of council houses that make up most of the settlement.

"Well, it isna' Memphis, " he admits. The northeast is a bit like that: understated, reserved but maybe, just maybe, with the potential to change the world.

Change in Gordon depends on what Tory and Labour voters do. The Conservative candidate, Nanette Milne, admits her supporters have to make a choice between head and heart. They hold the key to the seat and could grant Salmond power to frustrate Gordon Brown or stop the independence bandwagon here. Or, as Milne would have it, hold fast and march through the middle to win.

An indication of the effort Labour is putting into Gordon comes from the fact that their candidate, Neil Cardwell, can be found campaigning in Aberdeen Central, which, apart from Dundee West, is Labour's last barbican in the region.