Wilderness Walks

I have just watched once more - back-to-back on the UKTV Gardens channel - some of Cameron McNeish's spectacular Wilderness Walks. Surely the best TV programmes ever produced in the UK about wilderness treks. They featured Chris Brasher in the Cairngorms; Chris Smith on the island of Mull; Matty McNair leading a dog sled team on Baffin Island's Meta Incognita Plateau; Lesley Riddoch, the feminist journalist, in County Kerry's Macgillycuddy's Reeks; John Mackenzie, the Earl of Cromartie, in Letterewe, Wester Ross; and David Craig, the poet and historian, on the Knoydart Peninsula. Congratulations again to Cameron, and to the director Richard Else, on a wonderfully uplifting series of programmes. One of my New Year's resolutions is to get up to Scotland and experience it all first-hand...

Out With The Old

As Tony Blair makes way for Gordon Brown today, it got me thinking how many of our MPs are genuine hill-goers and wilderness walkers. I couldn't think of many. But three names came to mind: first, the late John Smith, leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 to May 1994, who took up Munro-bagging after a coronary in October 1988. By the time of his fatal second heart attack he'd climbed 108 Munros. Then there's the late Robin Cook, who never really fit into the Blair spinning machine and resigned from the Cabinet over the Iraq war debacle - and who also died of a heart attack, descending from Ben Stack in Sutherland in August 2005. Finally there's the most dedicated hill walker of them all - Chris Smith, now Lord Smith of Finsbury, former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and current President of the Ramblers' Association, who was the first MP to climb all the Munros. He's also completed the Pennine Way and walked abroad extensively. Apparently his favourite walk is the circuit of Beinn Alligin. Somehow this all seems a bit more authentic than fox-hunting-friendly David Cameron's self-conscious posturing and image-making when you see him cycling home to his so-called "eco-friendly" house. Perhaps he should escape the suffocating corridors of Westminster for a while and spend a long weekend back in Scotland with tent and backpack - and experience the true meaning of wilderness (instead of the wilderness that is the Conservative Party?) and the importance of preserving it. And, for the sake of balance, Gordon Brown too, for that matter...