Why no one should listen to Sean

Sean Connery is used to facing long odds. As James Bond he regularly saved the world without putting a hair out of place. Now he is bald, and faces the toughest task of all: single-handedly winning the Scottish election for the SNP.

Connery has written a message in a Scottish National Party election leaflet urging his countrymen to resist the urge to vote New Labour. "If New Labour were in charge, all the decisions would still be made in London," the film star says.

It's a fair point. Labour's commendable policy of devolution is somewhat undermined by the Prime Minister's determination to ensure he has yes-men in charge of the new assemblies. He has all but managed that in Wales, and the polls suggest Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar will duly rule the McParliament in two weeks' time. We are still waiting to discover who Blair will anoint as his candidate to see off Red Ken in the battle for the mayoralty of London.

But why should anyone take notice of Connery's views? Yes, he has long been a Nat, but he has also long been a resident of Marbella. And most of his work is centred on Los Angeles. He is to Scottish Nationalism what paella and fries is to haggis.

This is a man who is urging Scots to give up the one penny tax cut the rest of us will enjoy, but who lives in tax exile. He may have flirted with Miss Moneypenny, but he won't risking missing another penny.

Connery is not even in Edinburgh primarily to campaign for his party. He is there to promote his film, Entrap-ment. Mind you, he has talked of moving to the Scottish capital for three months a year. Big deal, Sean.

The actor's support for the SNP would be the equivalent of York's own Bond film star, Dame Judi Dench, signing up to a campaign for a Yorkshire parliament. The Oscar-winning actress has for many years lived in Hampstead, London, and more recently in Sussex.

One Evening Press correspondent recently suggested that only local born candidates should be allowed to stand to become York councillors. That is a daft idea when the British population is now so mobile. But we should expect our politicians and party activists to live in the area they seek to change. The Scottish Nats are so delighted by Sean's stance - and his £4,800 a month donation to their coffers - that they are prepared to overlook his political credibility gap.

They need all the support they can get. And Connery's charm will at least act as a welcome diversion from the greasy smugness of the Nats leader, Alex Salmond. His clumsy criticism of the Yugoslav war has further alienated the party among Scots. Even James Bond would struggle to resurrect his chances of leading the new parliament.

This has been a bad week for the BBC. First one of its longest serving presenters is caught with a licence fee payer's tenner in his nose, Hoovering up a line of cocaine. Revelations about Radio 2 DJ Johnnie Walker's drug taking and prostitute-procuring activities made hard reading for the easy listening station bosses.

His self-inflicted departure from the airwaves contrasts sharply with the awful loss of one of the corporation's rising stars, Jill Dando.

Theories abound about the motive for her murder. Was it the action of a deranged a stalker, an underworld revenge attack for her work on Crimewatch, or a Serb reprisal for her fronting of the Kosovo appeal? If any of these turns out to be true, Jill Dando will have died simply for doing her job.

It is a terrible day when broadcasters become targets. That applies both to the bombing of the television station in Beldgrade and to the cold-blooded murder of a journalist on her suburban doorstep.

28/04/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.