Is this guy for real?

by Rab Clark

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The following quotes are from an interview with ‘Chris’ (not his real name).

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He’s in his mid-40’s, lives in Kirkintilloch, has two teenaged daughters and has been married to Sandra since 2004. He works as a technical support liaison officer for a major building society.

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His hobbies are golf, chess, and gaming. 

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‘Yeah, I think Scotland could be independent but not yet. It’s too uncertain. All this war, and the economy. I mean, Putin is a monster and he has to be stopped so there’s a better chance of that happening if we’re still part of the UK cause then we still have some influence over how it’s going. And I don’t like all this talk about the BRICS stuff. The dollar’s been the main currency my whole life and some folk don’t like that but it’s just the way it is and when it comes down to it I’d rather we were with the Americans than the ones doing BRICS, I mean, come on, India, China, Russia? These places are third-world or they’re just a mess. Dictators. You’ve got to be practical.’

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'Yeah, I joined the SNP in 2012. I was in the Labour party for a long time but that was just really cause Dad said it was a good idea when I got my first real job, with the council, 1995 that would’ve been. Keep yourself covered. That was just the way it was, you made sure you were a member. These things get noticed, even if they don’t say anything about it in interviews and stuff, they’re not allowed to ask you but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. It’s like what school you went to I suppose. Didn’t mean you had to go to meetings or anything like that. But after the SNP got in with that majority, 2011, that’s when I thought, okay, that’s a big change so I kind of asked about in the work and there was a few folk saying they were joining the SNP instead of Labour so that’s when I did it, got the family membership, that looked like the best deal. She wasn’t too happy about it but she was never bothered about me being in Labour anyway so it’s the same difference. Dad joined SNP not long before the referendum but he left about three, four years ago. We don’t talk about it any more cause we just end up arguing.'

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'Nicola got us through the covid. No-one can argue with that. Every day, telling people what was going on. Must’ve been hard for her and some of the abuse she got was out of order. The old man can’t stand her but Mum watched her every day and so did gran. The girls were off school for so long it was driving us all mental but they understood what was happening because Nicola made sure everyone got the updates, even when there was nothing really happening she still told us anyway. That’s what a real leader does.' 

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'Yeah, I get the whole thing about raising taxes on the rich but if you hit them too hard they just move away somewhere else and they’re the talented people you need to run the economy and make sure everyone gets a bit of the trickle-down. They’re not much use to us if they all move abroad. Same goes for the corporations, all these people moaning cause Amazon or whatever don’t pay any tax. But what about all the jobs they bring? Who’s going to replace them?'

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'We’re doing okay cause that’s me almost twenty years with ***** and they’re good, you know, the pension plan is really good and I’ve got medical cover as well, doesn’t cost a lot cause the work contributes so if we ever need emergency treatment or the queue’s too long we can get seen to. Not long till we get the mortgage cleared and that’ll be great.'

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'All this stuff about the money going missing. I mean, what’s 600k anyway? That’s peanuts. Do you know how much it costs to run the NHS every day? I mean, it’s millions, right? And a lot of that is just wasted. I was up at the hospital loads when the girls were wee and then the old dear had the cancer so we were in and out there all the time. You always see these staff just standing about chatting like they’ve got nothing to do. Who’s paying for them? You see them standing outside smoking.'

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'No, I don’t really watch the politics stuff. The Scottish parliament? I mean, okay, it was good that Nicola was making the decisions for Scotland cause no-one trusted Boris but I’m not sure about all the gender stuff. Our **** thinks she might be trans but she’s still quite young so I’m hoping it’ll pass. She’s been talking about getting tattoos and stuff when she’s old enough but that’s a few years yet, plenty of time for her to grow out of it. Anyway, you’ve got to ‘Be Kind’ and all that so it’s not a big deal and she’s my **** and I love her so I’ll always support her whatever she decides.'

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'I never did like Alex Salmond, especially when he joined Russia Today. I'm not saying anything about all the legal stuff cause that's too dodgy. But there's no smoke without fire, eh?'

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So, those are just some of Chris's opinions. And he has a lot more in similar vein.

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The question is - does 'Chris' really exist, or did we just make him up?

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