Des Browne: Striding Man must not walk away

Published on Saturday 11 July 2009 20:00

MY FRIEND Dave recalls in 2008 on a business trip to Düsseldorf chatting to the hotel barman and mentioning that he hailed from Kilmarnock.

Suddenly the barman's eyes lit up and, holding up an index finger to signal a moment of importance, stretched to a glass cabinet and carefully removed, with almost religious reverence, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Thereafter, the barman raved about Scotch whisky, and Johnnie Walker in particular, to such an extent that Dave, in a momentary lapse of Scots thriftiness, handed over 35 euros and shared the golden nip with his new-found friend.

I have had similar moments in hotels around the world. I know many people whose roots are in Kilmarnock who have shared the same experience. It is far from unique. Johnnie Walker is but one strong dialect of the common language of Scotch whisky.

When consumers across the world buy whisky, not only do they help preserve that product in place as Scotland's "number one indigenous industry, lead exporter and international icon", but, like the Dsseldorf barman, they are buying an experience of Scotland's heritage, natural environment and best qualities in a glass. The authenticity of that product is essential to that bargain. That authenticity demands that whisky continues to be distilled, matured, blended and bottled in Scotland.

Without a place in Scotland to call home, the Striding Man, Johnnie Walker, is deprived of that authenticity. If Johnnie Walker is driven out of Kilmarnock and can settle just anywhere, we will have broken the link between Scotland's best-known and best-selling brand of whisky and its roots. Given the way that we have, as a nation, successfully marketed this particular brand for almost two centuries, we do this at our peril.

In 1819, Johnnie Walker, at the age of 14, opened a grocer's shop in Kilmarnock in which he sold, amongst other items, whisky. Not just any whisky, but his own unique blend of malts which, combined with Johnnie's Ayrshire intellect and entrepreneurship, soon grew into the profitable business. Every bottle of Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky has the phrase "Bottled in Kilmarnock" embossed on its label. That has been so since 1820.

Since then, successive generations of Ayrshire men and women have helped build this business from a grocer's shop into one of Scotland's leading exports. During this time, their hard work has earned countless billions in profits for those corporations who have held this brand in trust.

The community I represent partly is made up of thousands of former, present and prospective Johnnie Walker workers. Every one of them is aghast and appalled at the way in which the workforce, both at the Hill Street bottling plant and at the Hurlford distribution centre, is being treated. That is why this community has come together across every possible division in a united front to persuade Diageo's executive that they are wrong to implement their proposal to shut the bottling plant and forcefully to transfer the loyal Hurlford workers.

For that campaign to succeed, that united front needs to extend to the whole of Scotland. Local politicians will carry this fight to the company. But we need broad support from throughout Scotland. You can join the campaign either because you share our concern for the people and the communities that will be so badly affected, or you can do it to help preserve the integrity of Scotland's most important industry. Whichever reason motivates you, this is a worthy cause deserving of such support.

The determined campaign by Diageo to get its message across to the media, which we witnessed on Thursday last week, shows that there are two sides to this argument. We are not guaranteed to win. There is no benefit to the families affected by these proposals of raising unrealistic expectations as to what can be achieved. However, ten years ago the Johnnie Walker plant in Kilmarnock faced a similar closure plan. In the end, that plan was seen off by the leadership and steadfast, gutsy commitment not to buckle under by the Kilmarnock workforce, deploying the same arguments as today and supported by the council's leadership, the Scottish Office and Scottish Enterprise.

It can be done again. Now, we need to repeat this united effort for "the man who walked around the world", who cannot, in all conscience and decency, walk out on the good and loyal workforce that introduced him to the world in the first place.

Des Browne is MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun