“Welcome,” Boris Johnson was told as he emerged into the grey drizzle of an Orkney summer, “to the fifth kingdom of the Union”.
James Stockan laughs as he remembers his greeting to the prime minister back in July. For Mr Johnson this visit — his first north of the border since his 2019 general election — was about cementing Scotland’s place in the UK as polls turned in favour of independence.
For Mr Stockan, the leader of Orkney Islands council, it was a chance to remind everyone that his archipelago, still resolutely unionist, had not always been Scottish.
“I would hope he would get the reference,” the independent councillor told The Times about his welcome for Mr Johnson. “But I don’t know if he