"A Borgen for me. A Borgen for me. If you're no' a Borgen, you're nae use tae me."
I've taken to singing this as I wash the dishes on Saturday nights. It's the prelude to my weekly dose of Borgen, BBC 4's Danish political drama, now in its third series, but finishing on December 14.
For those who haven't seen it, Borgen focuses on its lead character, Birgitte Nyborg, the leader of a centre party which comes from nowhere to win a general election. Birgitte becomes Denmark's first female Prime Minister. (Reality caught up with fiction a short while after the airing of the first series when the Danes did elect their first woman leader.)
The first two series covered Birgitte's time in office, politicking to keep her rainbow coalition government on the road, fending off the attacks of her political opponents, and a nastily hostile press.
Oh, there's a load of sex, relationship problems and domestic drama too. But the most interesting thing about the show is its background premise of a government in a small European state successfully dealing with a range of economic and social problems and finding the time, occasionally, to act as honest broker in the odd international crisis or two.
Mmm, so maybe that's why the BBC broadcasts this critically acclaimed series in double one-hour episodes. "Yes, it's very good indeed but let's get it out of the way as quickly as possible. The fictional account of a successful small European state? A shock result at the polls? Definitely get that finished before the start of 2014!"
In the real-life drama of our independence referendum, the problem facing the Yes campaign is to conjure up somehow a vision of what an independent Scotland would look and feel like. With the UK establishment and many media outlets actively supporting the No side, it's understandable that most Scots are nervous about changing things.
The status quo may be unsatisfactory but might indeed things be even worse after independence? The doomsayers are only reinforcing what Scots have heard for 400 years - we can't run our own affairs.
Apart from the politicians, the main characters in Borgen are the journalists and presenters on the TV1 News programme. Much of the drama revolves around the attempts of journalists to get scoops and the efforts of the politicians to manage the news to their best advantage. It's only theatre of course, but it's no accident that the Borgen scriptwriters have made political communications a central part of their plotting.
A fortnight ago in The Herald, Iain Macwhirter criticised the Yes campaign's wholly inadequate response to all the scare stories and doomladen predictions. The Noers haven't said a single positive thing in the campaign so far. They don't have to. All the polls indicate that they have found a winning formula. The referendum is as good as lost already unless the Yes campaign comes up with a strategy to deal with the daily tide of negativity.
Referring to the example of New Labour in the 1990s, Macwhirter suggested the Yes side urgently needs to establish a well-resourced rebuttal unit which would systematically challenge each dire prediction and find a range of expert spokespersons from a broad spectrum of the community to back up the message.
I know that in Borgen, Birgitte would seize on this idea. She'd approach the Macwhirter character and ask him to lead the new unit. The Macwhirter character, committed to his journalist career, would nobly turn down the offer - but suggest other likely candidates. The unit would be set up, a hopeless situation turned around, and another unexpected election victory achieved.
Now that I'm on a creative roll, let me suggest the following outline for a Scottish political drama - MacBorgen.
Series 1 A Rebuttal Unit is just one of the measures taken to snatch victory from seemingly inevitable defeat. Despite the frothing, venomous negativity of the Rich Party, the People's Party and the Neo-Libs, the referendum results in a Yes vote. The National Party forms the first government of an independent Scotland.
Series 2 Despite various attempts to undermine the fledgling state, Scotland emerges as a successful new member of the UN, Nato and the EU. The opposition are reduced to trying to stop the broadcasting of EastEnders to Scotland. In desperation, they merge to form a new party - the Rich People's Neo-Libs.
Series 3 After three years in office, his place in history assured, AS, the leader of the National Party, steps down. His deputy takes over, becoming Scotland's first female prime minister.
Series 4………………..
Och, who cares about fiction? There's a real drama to be played out in the months ahead.
Still. If we were all in MacBorgen, that Rebuttal Unit could be up and running and working at full speed well before Christmas...
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