​Silly Separatists’ banned list - John McLellan

As if the SNP isn’t having enough trouble with its image, up pop several elected representatives to make fools of themselves with manufactured outrage over Edinburgh Castle’s reopened Redcoat restaurant.

Redcoat Cafe at Edinbugh Castle

​Maybe these people think Braveheart is a documentary and have the same view of Mel Gibson’s anti-English sequel The Patriot, in which false equivalence was drawn between the British Army in the American Revolution and the SS massacre of French civilians at Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944.

Set aside it’s been the restaurant’s name for over 30 years, there’s an adjoining Jacobite Room which is presumably ok, despite Bonnie Prince Charlie’s goal being to reclaim the British throne for his dad, not Scottish independence.

And they conveniently overlook opposition in much of lowland Scotland to the rebellion and that amongst the Redcoats at Culloden were The Royal Scots, The Scots Fusiliers, the Kings Own Scottish Borderers and the Argyll Militia. As for the Thin Red Line at the Battle of Balaclava…

Imagine if Unionists called for a ban on white roses, the Jacobite emblem regularly worn by SNP politicians?

But prize for the best riposte goes to my former council colleague Sue Webber MSP who wondered if Cumberland sausages would be the next Nationalist target, joining Tunnock’s teacakes, Mackie’s ice cream and Baxter’s soup on Silly Separatists’ list of banned goods.

If Historic Environment Scotland has any sense, its review of the restaurant names will last about five minutes and then they can get on with preserving the Nation’s heritage. Bayonets, broadswords and lost causes, the lot.