Alex Salmond on Thomas Muir
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alex Salmond chooses Thomas Muir for Great Lives, whom he describes as the Father of Scottish Democracy.
"I have devoted myself to the cause of The People. It is a good cause - it shall ultimately prevail - it shall finally triumph." (Thomas Muir)
Born in 1765, Thomas Muir trained as a lawyer and spent much of his early years advocating political reform and greater representation. These views brought him to the attention of the authorities who tried and convicted him of "unconscious sedition". Sentenced to fourteen years transportation to Australia, he eventually escaped and embarked on an epic voyage back to Europe during which he was almost killed.
Alex Salmond argues that it was his treatment by the state that turned Muir from reformer to radical and then revolutionary, and he believes the democratic reform he sought has still not occurred. He says the word to describe Muir is "thrawn", a Scottish word meaning beyond stubborn, as he came up against unreasonable opposition time and time again and shifted his position each time.
Debating the issues is Muir expert Murray Armstrong, author of 'The Liberty Tree'. Matthew Parris presents.
Producer: Toby Field.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Great Lives is a download from Radio 4. We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. |
| 0:05.0 | Imagine the scene. It's the 18th of February, 1796, and three men sit in a small boat off the coast of Sydney in Australia. |
| 0:15.0 | They've rode all night and are exhausted and cold. |
| 0:18.0 | Eventually, they sleep until the warmth of the midday sun revives them. |
| 0:22.0 | And on waking, one man lifts his head and |
| 0:25.4 | spots a ship on the horizon. Removing his white shirt he waves at the vessel. |
| 0:29.9 | It returns the signal and heads in their direction. |
| 0:33.0 | Its crew pull the men and their boat from the water, and the captain embraces them like |
| 0:38.2 | old friends. |
| 0:40.4 | One of those rescued men was Thomas Muir and as we'll hear his life was peppered with extraordinary events like the one I've just described |
| 0:49.0 | I think the adjective that first comes to mind as we follow that life is |
| 0:53.5 | irrepressible. It's therefore no surprise he's the choice of my guest |
| 0:57.9 | Alex Sandand, the equally irrepressible, former first minister for Scotland and the current MP for Gordon. |
| 1:05.4 | He's also now a broadcaster on LBC where he builds himself as honest and straight talking, as the |
| 1:11.4 | BBC's late Robert Robinson used to say |
| 1:13.4 | we'll be the judge of that. I've got to say as an Englishman it was such a |
| 1:17.6 | pleasant surprise for me that you didn't choose some semi-mythical |
| 1:22.0 | romantic tartan-trapped guts and glory figure but a real ambiguous |
| 1:27.7 | damaged Scott with a difficult legacy. Wow what a crazy guy. What a wild, stumbling, brave progress of a life. We'll come |
| 1:36.3 | on to that in a moment. But what would you see as Thomas Muir's central greatest claim to greatness. |
| 1:44.0 | Well I think Thomas Muir and his fellow friends of the people provided that link between |
| 1:50.9 | Enlightenment Scotland which and for that matter, reform is Scotland, |
... |
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