HAD there been no footage one might have dismissed it as the fake news of its day. For here was an event on a par with aliens landing in George Square, Nessie being sighted in the Clyde, or a midge-free summer.
Yet it was captured on camera, reported in the press, thousands of eye witnesses. None of your “deepfake” Queen’s Christmas address malarkey here. Believe it or not, a leader of the Conservative Party once received a warm welcome in Scotland. And her name was Margaret Thatcher.
We ought to pause here for a collective gasp of disbelief from any reader under 30, but they should look it up for themselves, on iPlayer, episode one of Kirsty Wark’s The Years that Changed Modern Scotland, 48 minutes in.