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National Spitfire Project

It is self-evident that we have to defend these islands together. What divides us at the moment and in times past is how we organise our democracy, and I think we are mature enough to have that discussion. What the SNP bring, and have always brought, to the table is the idea that we will share the common defence of these islands. That has never been in question. Indeed—my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) might say this in a brief moment—we often have discussions about defence issues because we do not think the Government protect these islands adequately, but that is a debate that we can have elsewhere. Our division on how we organise our democracy in these islands should not get in the way of the fact that we have a common interest in defending them. The history of the Spitfire and the second world war is an exemplar of that.

I will be very brief, as other Members want to speak. There is one other person who needs to be mentioned today with respect to the Spitfire and the Battle of Britain: the man who was the head of Fighter Command, Hugh Dowding. We have all seen the film “The Battle of Britain”, which, for all its faults, I still love—when the music comes up I still get excited—and we have all seen Lawrence Olivier play Hugh Dowding. There is just one slight problem—it is the same problem I had when Lawrence Olivier played Earl Haig in “Oh! What a Lovely War”. Earl Haig was a crusty Scot, with a deep Scottish accent, which Lawrence Olivier definitely did not have, and Hugh Dowding happened to be born in Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway. His father was a teacher at Fettes school in Edinburgh. The unity of these islands in the Spitfire story goes all the way to Hugh Dowding from Moffat, who was head of Fighter Command in those dark days. There is a large and very simple, but I think poignant, monument to Hugh Dowding, head of Fighter Command, in his home town of Moffat. That underlines the fact that the Spitfire monument in Southampton has been a long time coming.

I will finish with this. My wife was born and bred in Southampton—I know it well—and her image of the city is the bombed-out Southampton of the 1950s, so these islands are interconnected. We can have a serious debate about how we do our democracy. I grant no ground on that—Scotland will be independent—but we will all stand together in tough times. We share these islands; we will defend these islands together.

2.54 pm