By: E&P Staff Sean Connery, the famed Scot actor and original James Bond, takes to the pages of The Washington Post on Saturday with an op-ed relating to his homeland.
His author's blurb explains that he is "a supporter of the Scottish National Party."
An excerpt follows. The rest is at www.washingtonpost.com.
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This is a historic week for Scotland. The country's new first minister met Queen Elizabeth -- Queen of England and Queen of Scots -- at Holyrood Palace on Thursday. This was the first time Her Majesty has met the leader of a Scottish government who is committed to Scotland rejoining the community of nations as an equal and independent partner.
The meeting was also the culmination of a month of firsts for Scotland. On May 3, the Scottish National Party (SNP) -- a democratic party, committed to independence, that I have proudly supported all of my adult life -- won the largest number of seats in the Scottish Parliament. And last week the Scottish Parliament elected the SNP leader, Alex Salmond, to the country's top job.
The American media have described this election as good news for the SNP and very bad news for the British government of Tony Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown. What was not covered was the momentous significance for Scotland.
This marks the first time in 50 years that the Labor Party has lost an election in Scotland. Fifty years is a long time -- in politics, it is a virtual eternity.
Scare tactics often work in elections, and with the Labor Party contemplating defeat, it was willing to throw all the negativity it could into this campaign. People in Scotland heard it all: Labor conjured up descriptions of plague and pestilence if Scots voted for the SNP and a new and different government.
And I'll tell you this: It didn't work. In fact, it backfired badly on Labor.
Scots voted for optimism. They voted for change. They voted for progress.
And that is why they voted for the SNP.
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