In the 1960s and 1970s when the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was a dynamic, innovative showcase for up-and-coming thespians, and not merely a bloated stage for the flotsam and jetsam of the suburban comedy circuit, the charge levelled at it annually by the Mary Whitehouse brigade was that it promoted immorality on the rates. These days you are lucky if your council tax covers emptying the bins on a semi-regular basis, let alone anything as thrilling as the first all-nude Hamlet in Swahili. The accusation, however, is with us still. Now it is nationalism, not sex, that is getting us hot under the collar.

Last week, Michael Russell, the minister for culture and the constitution — the most unfortunate twinning since John and Edward — unveiled the largest ever programme of “Scottish-themed” events for St Andrew’s Day at a cost of £434,000. By spooky coincidence, Alex Salmond has chosen November 30 to unveil his much-vaunted but politically impotent white paper for his referendum bill.

I don’t share the view that promoting St Andrew’s Day is an unnecessary frippery. As the book end to the Year of Homecoming, a programme of events makes sense, even if the number of people who want to party on a wet Monday at the end of November is limited. The execution may at times have been flawed and the economics poorly considered, but Homecoming — originally a Labour proposal — was a perfectly valid initiative to boost tourism at a time when the pound was weak.

The concept gets murky, however, when politics is added to the mix. The referendum white paper may be doomed to oblivion, but it is the bedrock of the SNP’s manifesto and an important document that needs detailed scrutiny and informed debate. What it does not need is an all-singing-all- dancing fanfare or a kilted circus to promote it, especially when the singing is in Gaelic and the dancing is around swords.

The white paper would be taken considerably more seriously if Salmond hadn’t hitched it to the jingoistic bandwagon of St Andrew’s Day. While we’re on the subject, can we please have a ban on school children being used for propaganda purposes? Russell unveiled his St Andrew’s Day programme surrounded by primary pupils with saltires painted on their faces. This sort of thing is considered a bit crass in North Korea these days.

By hijacking cultural events for political ends, Salmond underestimates the sophistication of the electorate and plays into the hands of those who believe he wants to reinvent Scotland in his own image — brash, self-righteous and a little bit chippy.

The SNP government had the opportunity to restore an element of pride in the nation. Its election, albeit by the flimsiest of margins, was an indication that the Scottish cringe had been banished. One of the really attractive things about Scottish nationalists is their unashamed and undisguised love of Scotland. It may border on the maudlin at times and it might express itself in the corniest of sentiment but it is honest and heartfelt. It was only going to work, however, if the SNP did not come in with their political jackboots and stamp all over Scotland’s culture.

Initially, it looked as if Salmond would reign in his Braveheart tendencies, but two years into its administration, the goodwill on which his party came to power is thinly stretched. Achievable policy initiatives are scarcer than poultry’s dentures. The government has shied away from taking the big risks needed to implement lasting change and the urge to indulge in a bit of flag-waving has proved irresistible.

By blatantly hitching their wagon to individual artists, the SNP has played an unsophisticated and divisive game, as Sandi Thom, the singer appropriated by Salmond, and the artist Gerard Burns, whose picture of a saltire-waving child adorns Salmond’s office, have found to their cost. Burns fears his work will be spurned when Salmond leaves office. Thom has found that the first minister’s attentions have destroyed her credibility.

Contrast Salmond’s approach with that of Barack and Michelle Obama, who have a much more eclectic and less heavy-handed approach to promoting the arts. With cultural events generally, and the arts in particular, politicians should create the right atmosphere for the best to flourish and then step back.

Initiatives undertaken by private enterprise — such as T in the Park or Edinburgh’s Hogmanay party, the brainchild of the entrepreneur Pete Irvine — tend to prosper. Government ventures, such as Tartan Week or St Andrew’s Day at the Dome, are invariably flops. You cannot order festivities by diktat, unless you are a tinpot despot or a communist dictator.

Confident leaders do not feel the need to wave the flag at every opportunity, surround themselves with saltire-painted children or call a national holiday when they unveil their flagship policy. By linking the referendum bill white paper with St Andrew’s Day, Salmond is in danger of debasing both.

The bill risks becoming a Disneyfied travesty if the white paper is hitched to a tartan extravaganza. If it is a policy of substance and merit, as the SNP claims, it shouldn’t need the distraction of the skirl of the pipes or the swirl of the kilt to mark its debut.

gillian.bowditch@sunday-times.co.uk

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