Imagine if Paddington Bear, that most famous anthropomorphised war refugee, were to arrive in modern, politically-awakened, post-referendum Scotland instead of immigrant-fixated, Eurosceptic England.
For a start, he would be renamed Sraid na Banrighinn Bear, since Queen Street Station, Glasgow, would doubtless feature largely in his travels - as would, presumably, learning Gaelic.
And I like to think the kindly Scots couple who took him in would live in Glasgow's leafy West End, put him in a nice Harris Tweed jacket instead of a duffle coat, a pair of Trespass boots instead of wellies, and feed him artisan bread of local wheat spread with Keiller's marmalade. Everyone would love Banrighinn Bear; he would be the star of every community-run Burns Supper and Hogmanay ceilidh.
And the cantankerous neighbour who targets him would have an English, rather than a Scots, accent (I say this because in the upcoming film Paddington, from the original Michael Bond stories, the nasty neighbour is voiced by Glaswegian Peter Capaldi, and I think this is mischievous at best).
However, since immigration and asylum are reserved to Westminster and are thus the responsibility of the Home Office, it is more likely he would be temporarily housed in a Sighthill or Pollok high-rise, awaiting the outcome of the Scottish Refugee Council's submission to the Smith Commission that he, like all asylum seekers residing in Scotland, should be allowed to work in this country and be granted indefinite leave to remain to promote integration. Meantime, wee BB would be working a zero-hours contract - if at all - and spending his days queueing for donated tins at the local food bank. But, deep down, he would know he was welcome.
At least he would be having language classes, translation assistance, health care and education, funded by the Scottish Government; it is responsible for the integration of refugees and asylum seekers.
In Bond's original story, the postwar England Paddington bear arrived in welcomed refugees and valued immigrants.
I wonder if he would be so readily accepted in the country currently so riven by Ukip-induced paranoia about people arriving at our shores for whatever reason. Far better, surely, for Banrighinn Bear to settle here in the land of organic milk and local-hive honey in the realistic hope of a better life. He could always chew on the occasional Tunnock's Teacake while he is waiting.
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