Ich bin ein Irn-Bru drinker

Published on Sunday 8 June 2008 22:10

A SCOTSMAN who married in a kilt, supports Rangers, likes white pudding and drinks Irn-Bru has been appointed to a top political post – in Germany.

David McAllister, 37, the son of a German mother and a Scottish father, is recognised as one of the leading figures in Germany's ruling conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

This weekend he was appointed head of the CDU in Lower Saxony, the second most important and powerful regional post in the country.

Mr McAllister, who holds dual British-German nationality, grew up in Berlin, where his father, James, was a British Army officer on attachment with the signals corps. Before that he was a captain with the 51st Highland Division on active service in Germany during the Second World War.

Growing up enclosed by the Berlin Wall left its mark on Mr McAllister. He said: "Berlin was surrounded by communism – that is how I experienced it as a child. This left its mark, and since then my motto has been 'future, not socialism'."

Previously the youngest conservative party parliamentary leader in Germany, McAllister is a trained lawyer who party insiders believe could be on the chancellorship ticket within the next decade. He is known to be well liked – and well rated – by current leader Angela Merkel and is rising at a time when the rival SPD socialists are at an all-time low in opinion polls.

Mr McAllister is the first British citizen ever to hold such high office in Germany.

Despite feeling German, he described his upbringing as "very British – British network, British schools. While most of the other kids went home to relatives in Britain, I had a German mum so I grew up fluent in both languages."

He said his parents imbued him with an equal sense of pride in Scotland and Germany. However, when he was 11, the family moved to the North Sea coastal town of Bad Bederska, a move which made it "more or less clear to me that we had turned German then".

Mr McAllister still returns to Scotland to visit cousins in Newton Mearns, and enjoys the odd can of Irn-Bru and shortcake at Christmas. He added: "I guess the other Scottish thing is I take milk in my tea."

A keen supporter of Rangers and Hanover football clubs, Mr McAllister also plays for the parliamentary 11. Position? "Like my politics," he said. "Centre right."

Politics has fascinated him for most of his life. "I love politics. I love serving the people. It started in Hanover, where I was studying, where I got involved in local politics. I was OK at football, table tennis, high school, but politics I really loved."

Mr McAllister could have relinquished his German citizenship to avoid compulsory military service, but opted to spend two years with a tank battalion.

He said that being a Scot had no disadvantages – except that people found it hard to pronounce his name.

He added: "With very, very few exceptions I have found, in all seriousness, that no-one is against my Scottish heritage."

PROFILE

DAVID McAllister's first political post came in 1991, when he was chairman of the young conservative branch of the CDU in Cuxhaven. Nine years later, he was the chairman of the CDU parliamentary faction there. Since 1998, he has been an MP in the Lower Saxony parliament, the general secretary of the party in the state since August last year, became the leader in parliament in 2003 and is now the party boss.

McAllister met his wife, Dunja Kolleck, when they were studying law in Hanover. They have two daughters, Jamie Elizabeth and Mia Louise, and the family live in Bad Bederska.