From spin to skirl as Campbell joins fight to save music school

HE was renowned for piping up for the New Labour cause. But now Alastair Campbell, the bagpipe-playing former spin doctor to Tony Blair, has become the latest high-profile figure to join the growing chorus of condemnation against the threatened closure of a traditional school of music in the Highlands.

The National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music at Plockton High School is facing the axe following the announcement that Highland Council plans to withdraw its funding of 317,000 for the facility as part of a package of spending cuts.

The centre opened in 2000 after receiving 650,000 from the Scottish Executive and has produced many award-winning musicians over the last decade.

Mr Campbell said yesterday that he had been made aware of the threat facing the school by a friend and had been highlighting its plight on his Twitter and Facebook pages.

The former director of communications at Downing Street, whose father is a Scot, said: "I wanted to support this because I think it is important. It looks to me like an easy target in a way.

"And it's one of those things that, unless enough people raise their voices in support of it, it could just go without a fight and I think that would be wrong."

He said he also did not accept the view that the school only befited a small number of people.

Mr Campbell declared: "When talking about traditional music and the desire to maintain excellence in it, I don't think that is elitist at all. I think it benefits everybody and the culture of the entire country."

Renowned Scottish accordian player Phil Cunningham has also pledged his support for the campaign to retain the school.

He said: "I think it started about ten years ago and I was totally dumbstruck with how far thinking the Highland Council were in getting behind this. And I would ask them to cast their mind back to what we had before and to look at the value of what we have now.

"Our music and our culture are flourishing and Plockton High School has played a huge part in that."

He added: "Any institution that teaches traditional music at a grass-roots level to young people has to be important. When I was in my teens I hadn't any peers at all that I could play music with - I was a kind of isolated in an otherwise barren world.

"To see young people embracing traditional music nowadays is a wonderful thing.

"It is instilled at an early age as something to enjoy and not be embarrassed about."

Dougie Pincock, the director of the national centre, welcomed the support of the former spin doctor. He said: "We have been absolutely flabbergasted and delighted at the level of support that we have received over the past few days at all levels. It's been astonishing and it's great that Alastair Campbell has come out and said these things."

A petition, opposing the threatened funding cut, has already attracted more than 6,000 signatures. And today former pupils from the school and a host of musicians are planning a "protest session" in Glasgow's George Square to highlight the plight of the Plockton school.

The protest is being organised by Suzanne Houston, from Golspie, who is now a student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dance.