Foulkes for Secretary-General!

Screaming Lord Foulkes has not graced my pixels here for a fine roll of weeks. Thank the Scotsman for catapulting the corpulent cretin back into the monitor-glare of electronic examination. In what must be the most fatheaded non-story to adorn the learned journal’s pages, such is the professional pride of the author that the essay remains unattributed. The crowning turd is the headline, which invites the guileless reader to imagine that a “UN role considered for Salmond”, the Scotsman stupendously report that:

“The National Conversation's document on foreign affairs is a ‘blueprint’ for First Minister Alex Salmond to be made secretary-general of the United Nations, it has been claimed.”

Oh ho. That mustelid formulation at the end is enough to make your musk glands tighten with suspicion – who claimed, we cry, who claimed? Enter Foulkes, wet. And he's on vintage form. The heavy-pated Lothians MSP objects to the following part of the fifth section of the SNP government’s Europe and Foreign Affairs: Taking forward our National Conversation report, published online yesterday.

International Organisations

5.7. An independent Scotland would be recognised as a state in its own right by the international community and would become a full member of the United Nations and other international bodies, such as the Commonwealth, the World Health Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organisation. Both in these arenas and generally it would be able to develop its own foreign policy to promote Scotland's interests internationally, and engage with other states as an equal partner.

5.8. Small countries can and do take lead roles in international organisations and policy development. Key positions within the United Nations including that of Secretary-General are often filled by individuals from smaller nations. Small countries such as Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland and Finland have all made significant global contributions to security, peace and reconciliation initiatives. New Zealand, for example, hosted a major conference on cluster munitions as the part of the Oslo Process. Following this, in May 2008 the Oslo Process culminated in the successful conclusion of a new international treaty banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians, with New Zealand chairing the key discussions on the definitions of weapons to be banned. With the 'Edinburgh Conversations' in the 1980s, Scotland has already played host to efforts to promote dialogue and keep open channels of communication. Independence would offer a clearer opportunity for Scotland to make this kind of contribution.

Seems a fairly bald statements of the international correlatives of a recognised separately sovereign Scottish state, no? Not according to the Natsmeller Pursuivant, who distinctly smells a Salmond, attempting to bounce on its belly upstream to a swanky, international retirement. No phase as a dismal, unshaven backbencher for him (pace McConnell), according to Foulkes. No, no – Ban Ki-Moon’s job is in the estimable Maximum Eck’s rheumy eye, chops are a’slavering, and here I quote the civic leader, lest any droplet of his wisdom be lost in translation -

“Mr Salmond's ego is so huge that you can imagine this section was drafted by him in the vain hope he might be able to take such a role,” Lord Foulkes said.

“He is the only person in the Scottish Government who could imagine himself in such a position.”

And he added: “It is slightly ironic that a man who has wanted to break up a united nation his whole political life has ambitions to become head of the United Nations.”

So the “considerer” from the Scotsman headline is … er … just Georgie Porgie. Personally, I say poo and tish to Foulkes’ self-effacing ways! After all, is he not a stentorian senior statesman, heavy with statecraft, bloated with acumen? Subtle, politic, charming, graceful? Well-knowing his many virtues, does this reasoned critique of the Maximum Eck not imply, on an unconscious level, his own yearning for further honour and greater planetary service? If he will not bring himself to the forefront, others must cajole and prod. Let this be the first whisper of the gathering roar: The world deserves Lord George Foulkes, Secretary General – an independent Scotland’s first gift to humanity!