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The Herald Scotland
08-05-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Scotch whisky breakthrough in India during a troubled era
The UK-India free trade agreement announced on Tuesday may not ultimately add much to this country's overall gross domestic product, and it will certainly do little to offset the loss of frictionless trade with the European Union since Brexit. But it does promise significantly freer access for Scotch to a hugely lucrative market. India is one of the world's largest consumers of spirits. But until now exports of Scotch to the rapidly growing economy have largely been impeded by hefty import tariffs. Under the new free trade deal between the UK and India, tariffs on imports of whisky and gin will be halved from 150% to 75%, before being reduced to 40% by the 10th year of the agreement. The Scotch whisky industry, which exported £218 million of whisky to India last year, responded to the news with unbridled joy. There was certainly no holding back from the Scotch Whisky Association, the reaction of which left the observer with the clear sense that the industry is within touching distance of a commercial holy grail. Read more: Mark Kent, chief executive of the SWA, hailed the agreement as a 'once in a generation deal and a landmark moment for Scotch whisky to the world's largest whisky market'. He said the reduction of the current 150% tariff on Scotch imports to India has the potential to increase exports to the country by £1 billion over the next five years, and help the industry create a further 1,200 jobs across the UK. 'The deal is good for India too, boosting federal and state revenue by over £3bn annually, and giving discerning consumers in a highly educated whisky market far greater choice from SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) Scotch whisky producers who will now have the opportunity to enter the market,' Mr Kent added. 'This agreement shows that the UK Government is making significant progress towards achieving its growth mission, and the negotiating teams on both sides deserve huge credit for their dedication. The Scotch whisky industry looks forward to working with the UK and Indian governments in the months ahead to implement the deal which would be a big boost to two major global economies during turbulent times.' Mr Kent was not alone in responding effusively. William Wemyss, managing director of Wemyss Family Spirits, owner of Kingsbarns Distillery in Fife, said the deal with India would finally give it access to a market that was previously beyond its reach. He declared that the new agreement 'changes everything'. Mr Wemyss, whose family also owns the Darnley's Gin and Wemyss Malts brands, said: 'It finally gives us a fairer footing to compete in a market that has been out of reach for too long. 'This deal could open the door to sustained investment, new partnerships, and long-term growth not just for our own business but for distilleries across Scotland. It's a positive and pragmatic step in the right direction, and one that we hope will be implemented swiftly and effectively. 'We welcome the agreement and remain committed to bringing our whisky to new audiences around the world, sharing a product that's proudly Scottish but globally loved.' There is certainly no doubt the deal has come at a crucial time for the Scotch whisky industry. Over the last couple of years, distillers have seen sales come under pressure in key markets such as the US and China as a range of geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges have undermined demand. Figures published in February found the value of exports fell by 3.7% to £5.4bn in 2024, with the SWA citing difficulties presented in the domestic market by high excise duty and input costs. It also highlighted 'shifting' patterns in world trade that mean exports to traditionally strong markets such as the EU and US 'have become much more challenging'. And this was before President Trump announced a barrage of tariffs on so-called 'Liberation Day' last month, which mean exports of Scotch whisky to the US – the industry's biggest market by value and worth £971m in 2024 – are now subject to an import tax of 10%. You do not need to go too far to see the impact such geopolitical and macroeconomic events are having on the Scotch whisky industry. Last week, Isle of Harris Distillery, a shining light of the new wave of distilleries which have opened in Scotland over the last decade or so, announced 'deeply regrettable' plans for redundancies 'in a move to safeguard the future' of the business. It is not yet clear how many of the 45 jobs at the distillery will be affected, but it is undoubtedly a major blow for a venture that had made the provision of local employment on the island a key objective since it came into being. It was also unsurprising to read managing director Simon Erlanger and executive chairman Ron MacEachran highlight the challenges facing the wider Scotch whisky sector at present as they announced the decision. 'Much like our colleagues in the wider spirits industry, we are facing challenging headwinds which have led to some incredibly difficult decisions,' Mr Erlanger told The Herald. 'Following a number of cost-cutting measures, voluntary redundancy is being offered to staff in the first instance, with compulsory to follow thereafter if we do not fulfil our cost reduction target. It is deeply regrettable we find ourselves in this situation and would like to take the opportunity to thank our entire team, particularly those affected by the changes, for their dedication and contribution to the business.' Mr MacEachran said: 'What we have seen across the industry in recent months are significant reductions in A and P (advertising and promotion) expenditure, headcount reductions, some of them very significant, slowing down or mothballing of distilleries.' It is to be hoped that the redundancies announced by Isle of Harris are not followed by yet more cuts at other distilleries as the industry continues to encounter difficult conditions. The breakthrough in India will certainly help the sector in the long run, but it would perhaps be naïve to think that every Scotch whisky distiller will benefit, with the bigger players tending to find it easier to succeed in exports market than their smaller counterparts. Moreover, even by year 10 of the new free trade deal, Scotch whisky exporters will still face tariffs of 40% in India. However, the new accord with India is certainly a step in the right direction in a highly uncertain world.
The Herald Scotland
26-04-2025
- General
- The Herald Scotland
This tragic silver casket spelled the end of an independent Scotland
Nor is it alone in its effect on those who come to see it. Our museums and galleries are filled with objects that electrify the past, whether it's weaponry and helmets left when the Romans decamped, or unique discoveries such as the Galloway Hoard, a priceless trove of Viking-era artefacts found near Kirkcudbright by a metal detectorist. Every such item brings us closer to those who lived here before, illuminating our heritage like arc lamps. Read more Rosemary Goring Yet there is one object that, to my mind, outshines them all, both for beauty and importance. This is the silver gilt casket believed to have belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, which played a crucial role in her downfall. Arguably the most beguiling piece owned by the National Museum of Scotland, this intricately tooled casket is currently on a mini-tour, bringing it within reach of those who might never have the opportunity to visit Edinburgh. For the past six months it has been in Kirkcudbright Galleries in Dumfries and Galloway; from Wednesday until the end of August it will go on display in Stirling at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. You'll rarely see anything like it. Thought to have been made in Paris between 1480 and 1506, it is of the highest quality and distinction. No ordinary aristocrat could have aspired to own something as sumptuous and costly. Sold in 2022 by the family of the Dukes of Hamilton, it is more than simply an exquisite piece of work. It is believed to be the box discovered under the bed of Lord Bothwell's tailor in Edinburgh, containing scandalous letters between the Earl and Mary. These, according to Mary's enemies, proved the couple's adultery before the murder of Lord Darnley, and strongly implicated the queen in her husband's death. Precisely what the box contained when first seized we will never know. Among its contents were 12 sonnets (obvious forgeries, according to literary experts) and two marriage contracts, whose historical importance is negligible. Far more interesting are eight letters, their tone by turns amorous, conspiratorial and anxious. None of them is signed or dated, and anomalies in line spacing hint at tampering. Mary, Queen of Scots (Image: free) Of these, two in particular have caused headaches for supporters of Mary. Known as the Long Glasgow Letter and the Short Glasgow Letter, they relate to the weeks when Darnley was ill with syphilis at his family's Glasgow home. During this time Mary visited, persuading him to return to Edinburgh where, not long after, he was murdered. There seems little doubt that some passages of these letters are genuine. What remains unclear is to what extent they were doctored. Taken at face value they are damning, but to this day, more than 450 years after they were found, opinion is divided as to their credibility. The original documents, written in French, have long since disappeared, and only translated copies survive. Some assume the letters were destroyed by Mary's son James VI, which suggests either that he wanted to get rid of evidence that would incriminate his mother, or that they were such obvious fakes their discovery would make it clear she had been wrongly imprisoned, and ought to have occupied the throne he now held. Few relics from the past are so tantalising. This bijou box would be interesting enough for its provenance, and for its exceptional medieval craftsmanship. It's hard to think of a more attractive or revealing remnant from the late middle ages, illustrating as it does the queen's wealth, status and glamour. Yet the casket's importance goes far deeper than it appearance and association with Mary. For me it is of particular interest, since the story of the Casket Letters is at the heart of my forthcoming book, Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots, which recounts the time Mary spent as a prisoner of Elizabeth I. Even though she was largely confined indoors, this period was even more dramatic than her time on the Scottish throne. Read more Shortly after Mary disastrously fled Scotland in 1568 to seek help from her cousin Elizabeth I, she not only found herself a prisoner but was subjected to a tribunal to determine her innocence or guilt in Darnley's murder and whether the ruling party in Scotland, under the Earl of Moray, had illegally deposed her. During this examination the Casket Letters were produced as evidence. Although the tribunal found neither for or against either side, Moray was allowed to return to Scotland but Mary was held captive for the rest of her life. Her death 18 years later at the hands of an inept executioner in Fotheringhay Castle, can be traced directly to the silver casket and the doubt its contents cast on her reputation. As such, the fate of Scotland, as well as Mary's, was shaped by the contents of this elegant little box. Had she been set free from England; had she raised enough support to reclaim her throne; had her son been raised at her court rather than by fanatical Protestants who taught him to believe his mother was a heretic and a whore, who can say what direction Scotland would have taken? Might her return have triggered a counter-reformation, returning the country to Catholic faith, with all the bloody infighting and chaos that would have created? On the day when all eyes are on Rome for Pope Francis's funeral, it is worth speculating where Scotland would stand if the silver casket had never been found. Rosemary Goring is a Herald columnist and author. Her most recent book is Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary, Queen of Scots. Its sequel, Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots, is published in July.
The Guardian
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mary, Queen of Scots review – trouser suits and relentless tension in Musgrave's bleak opera
The final new production of English National Opera's season is Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots, directed by Stewart Laing and conducted by Joana Carneiro. It was last heard in London at Sadler's Wells during a 1980 tour by Scottish Opera, who premiered it in Edinburgh in 1977. It's a bleak, uncompromising piece, in many ways. Musgrave is having none of the still prevalent Romantic view of Mary as the passionate martyr of Fotheringhay, focusing instead on her years in Scotland between 1561 and her abdication in 1567, and probing her relationships with the three men who jostled to control her: her illegitimate half-brother James, a fierce Protestant, whose fixation with his sister, it is implied, may have been incestuous; Henry Darnley, her profligate second husband; and Bothwell, the Catholic mercenary, whose ostensible loyalty masks a tendency to coercion and sexual violence. The score has a certain unyielding hardness of edge. Musgrave is good on plots and counter-plots, as alliances are formed and dissolved in ballrooms, and omnipresent slithering woodwind suggest there is no firm ground anywhere. Arguably the finest scene in the entire work, relentless in its tension, comes when the earls of Ruthven (Ronald Samm) and Morton (Jolyon Loy) conspire with Darnley (Rupert Charlesworth) to murder Riccio (Barnaby Rea). Elsewhere, much of the drama is advanced in a mixture of recitative and arioso, with vocal lines turning notably angular at moments of crisis. Lyrical passages are beautiful but rare, and a lovely chorus marks the arrival of Mary in Scotland. Darnley later woos her to music at once impressionistic and exquisitely insubstantial. Laing, meanwhile, reimagines the piece in terms of 20th-century sectarianism. Protestants and Catholics, fanatics alike, are effectively indistinguishable from each other until allegiances are declared, but are also tacitly united by suspicion when Heidi Stober's Mary arrives, elegant yet out of place in a couture trouser suit. It's a telling idea, but can obscure our awareness of the underlying power dynamics: in particular, Mary's insistence on a divine right to absolute monarchy doesn't carry as much weight here as it should. Sung and acted with blazing conviction across the board, though, the performance itself is tremendous. The title role lies high, and Stober is all thrilling top notes and terrific moments of defiance or self-assertion. Alex Otterburn makes a charismatic, lethally persuasive James. You really understand Mary's initial attraction to Charlesworth's elegantly sung if vapid Darnley, and the dissipation and degradation of his later scenes are disquietingly vivid. John Findon's Bothwell masks steely brutality beneath the trappings of heldentenor heroism, while Rea makes a sonorous, unusually sympathetic Riccio. Carneiro, meanwhile, drives it all forwards with inexorable momentum, and the playing and choral singing are both superb. It's not always an easy work to like, but it's powerfully done. At the Coliseum, London, until 18 February
Telegraph
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Mary, Queen of Scots, ENO, review: Thea Musgrave's opera returns to London sounding grander than ever
Back in the 1970s, before neglect of women composers was recognised as an urgent issue (with resultant automatic entry to the Radio 3 playlist), there was at least one fine composer who bucked the trend. The Scots composer Thea Musgrave was active, often commissioned, and played regularly in Scotland and at the Proms; her orchestral works, including concertos with a rebellious solo clarinet and horns placed all around the concert hall, had an innovative, strongly theatrical element. Then in 1977 came her full-scale opera Mary, Queen of Scots, given by Scottish Opera, which they brought to London for a couple of performances at Sadler's Wells in 1980. English National Opera was thus wrong to claim this staging as a London premiere, but it was the first time one of the London companies had taken up the work, while Musgrave has lived in America for over 50 years. This is a grand opera in the Verdian tradition, boldly drawn and essentially traditional in its structure, even to incorporating dance episodes and on-stage music, but written in a compelling mid-20th-century idiom which allows the text (Musgrave's own, based on a play by Amalia Elguera) to communicate. The opera throws Mary's return from France to Scotland into the ferment of conflicting religious factions between her half-brother James, who starts as her protector but ends as her usurper, and Darnley, the playboy English aristocrat to whom she is unwisely attracted and marries. In the title role, Heidi Stober, whom we last saw in London as a gangly Gretel at the Royal Opera, is stunningly confident with a terrifying top range when she is, as so often, angry and frustrated. Rupert Charlesworth's dandy-like Darnley matches her well, and Alex Otterburn is more sober but less charismatic as the wily James. Also key to the well-sculpted plot are Barnaby Rea as Riccio, murdered by his friend Darnley, and John Findon as a fine, burly Earl of Bothwell, who is another turncoat, coming to defend Mary but then abusing her. The key figure in advising Mary to cut her losses and flee, after the baying crowd blame her for Riccio's murder, is Lord Gordon, a stentorian, crystal-clear Alastair Miles, who packs all his considerable Verdian experience into the role. What was originally billed as a concert performance turned into Stewart Laing's effectively stripped-down, loosely contemporary staging, by an outdoor tent with copious anoraks shielding the Scottish cold. Joana Carneiro conducted the complex but transparent score with unremitting vigour, and the still active 96-year old composer was present for a heartfelt standing ovation.
